Author Archives: Multimedia Mike

Java Image Formats

Welcome to another edition of my personal multimedia research scratchpad. Diego Biurrun forwarded some intelligence about some custom Java image formats. It seems that a company named eyewonder has seen fit to develop a streaming video technology aimed at delivering obnoxious short ads delivered via Java applets.

So, custom Java image formats. Or, more likely, a slightly customized image format that is presently only decodable via some proprietary Java class. As is typical, it is difficult to glean any useful technical details from the website. But if the marketing literature is to be believed, this stuff has caught on in a big way.

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Macrovision RipGuard

IMDb Studio Briefing sends us this lead today:

New Copy-Protection Software To Be Unveiled

Alleged to prevent 97% of all copying software available. Their website has a press release dated November 11, 2004. Details are, predictably, a little thin. The press release acknowledges that the ease of ripping raw sectors from a DVD, decrypting them, and re-burning or re-compressing them. This technology purports to frustrate that process somehow:

Extensive tests showed that RipGuard affects the success of the most commonly-used ripping software products in the market. It has been effective in either completely obstructing the software or slowing it down to the point of futility. RipGuard applies a Unique Digital Framework for each title to ensure that this effectiveness lasts over time.

…whatever that means. Watch for it, nonetheless.

VP6* And Omelettes

Slacked off in the posting for a little while there. But you will be comforted to know that I always have at least a half-dozen articles in development for this blog.

According to the aggregated site statistics, “vp62 codec” is, far and away, the top search string that drives people to this site. “vp61 codec” brings up a distant second. This tells me that people are actually interested in On2’s VP6 line of codecs even though I may not encounter much media in those formats. If you are interested in the codec format, RE efforts on the Java modules are proceeding slowly and tediously.

People actually subscribe to this blog via RSS. Fun to know.

This blog is also well on its way to hijacking key food concepts. Another search string driving traffic to the site is “making omelettes”.