Is anyone else impressed by ABC's video player??

[DaveJ]

Once again, I don't like to promote things willy nilly, but I'm stunned by the technical quality of ABC's episode player which is here: http://dynamic.abc.go.com

I've been watching all the old episodes of Lost using it on my plain old, non-dual core, wireless Dell laptop, and the video is full HD, full framerate TV, not like the choppy video I see on YouTube, CNN, and other websites. My laptop happens to have an s-video out, so I can connect it to my TV. The quality is no different than regular TV and the prep time is minimal.

I find it really amazing. Sure, there are 30 second commercials, but I did not know that full quality video could load so fast.

Anyway, I'm glad to see a few talented software developers exist in the world today.

[ChromeFoundry]

1. Yes, the quality is excellent...

They are using Move Networks' latest technology. The way they are able to sustain these rates is to have the client software download the video in separate QSS files (over 1000 of them for 45 minutes of video) based on your current resolution, and play them in order based on an index file, .QMX.

It's pretty brutal on the network, but the quality of video & sound are excellent. Would be nice to cache or convert these files for later viewing, but nobody has come up with a solution to do that as of yet.

[DaveJ]

2. I'm guessing their secret is in the compression.

I always thought there must be better compression techniques than the ones invented for non-internet applications.

It's something that I'd want to study if I had the opportunity, but at least Move Network is doing it. I'd invest in them if I were into the stock market.

This is just a coincidence, but I'm now thinking about creating my own sound media player lately (that would have some other features besides playing sound). It's nice understanding how these things work.