{"id":4321,"date":"2014-09-30T15:06:19","date_gmt":"2014-09-30T22:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/multimedia.cx\/eggs\/?p=4321"},"modified":"2014-09-30T15:06:19","modified_gmt":"2014-09-30T22:06:19","slug":"evolution-of-multimedia-fiefdoms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/multimedia.cx\/eggs\/evolution-of-multimedia-fiefdoms\/","title":{"rendered":"Evolution of Multimedia Fiefdoms"},"content":{"rendered":"

I want to examine how multimedia fiefdoms have risen and fallen through the years.<\/p>\n


\n\"Medieval<\/a>
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Back in the day, the multimedia fiefdoms were built around the formats<\/strong> put forth by competing companies: there was Microsoft\/WMV, Apple\/MOV, and Real\/RM as the big contenders. On2 always wanted to be a player in this arena but could never quite catch a break. A few brave contenders held the line for open source and also for the power users who desired one application that could handle everything (my original motivation for wanting to get into multimedia hacking).<\/p>\n

The computer desktop was the battleground for internet-based media stream. Whatever happened to those days? Actually, if memory serves, Flash-based video streaming stepped on all of them.<\/p>\n

Over the last 6-7 years, the battleground has expanded to cover mobile devices, where Flash’s impact has… lessened. During this time, multimedia technology pretty well standardized on a particular stack, namely, the MPEG (MP4\/H.264\/AAC) stack.<\/p>\n

The belligerents in this war tried for years to effectively penetrate new territory, namely, the living room where the television lived. This had been slowgoing for years due to various user interface and content issues, but steadily improved.<\/p>\n

Last April, Amazon announced their entry into the set-top box market with the Fire TV. That was when it suddenly crystallized for me that the multimedia ecosystem has radically shifted. Now, the multimedia fiefdoms revolve around access to content via streaming services.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Off the top of my head, here are some of the fiefdoms these days (fiefdoms I have experience using):<\/p>\n