Click on the video below to see the crime against light entertainment that we definitely did commit. (With all due apologies to George Peppard & co).

Probably the biggest and most talked about feature of HTML5 is embedded video. Currently, the only method of adding video content to your website is with a third-party plugin such as Flash, QuickTime or RealPlayer. With the dawn of HTML5 and the video element this will all change, with video support being handled by the web browser, doing away with the need for any third party support.

Several web browsers already offer support for HTML5. Here we’re going to reveal how you can embed plugin-free video into your site and the issues you’ll face.

File types and browser compatibility

To begin with, we’ll briefly take a look at the different video file types that are supported in HTML5. These are Theora OGG and H.264 (.mp4). Different browsers support different types, and some support none at all. The following table indicates this:

Codecs and other technical issues

HTML5 itself doesn’t specify a video codec to use, and this has led to arguments as to which is the best to use for the web. So to cover all browsers, we have to support both codecs.

And then of course there’s Internet Explorer. At the moment, none of the released versions of Internet Explorer support the video element and a plugin is still required to play video. This will change with the release of Internet Explorer 9 (likely early next year), when H.264 will be supported, along with many other HTML5 goodies.

In case you’re wondering how, you can convert your video files to OGG (you can read more about the Theora OGG type over at the TheoraCookbook) files using the Miro Video Converter.

For further in-depth information on the video element and codecs, head over to the dive into html5: video on the web by Mark Pilgrim.

HTML5 code

Now we move onto the actual HTML5 code and how we can get the thing to work. HTML5 provides us with two new elements that we can use to add video to our web pages: the <video> element, which we’ve already mentioned, and the <source> element. Let’s look at each of these in turn.

The <video> element

The video element can have the follow attributes:

From this, it can be seen how easy it is to embed an OGG video into your website using the video element alone:

<video src="myVideo.theora.ogg" autoplay controls></video>

That’s really all there is to it.

Any browser that supports the Theora OGG format should now successfully display and play your video without further ado. Of course it’s not as easy as that,  because as we have seen from the table above, the code would only work in Firefox, Chrome and Opera. So we need to have a fallback to H.264 as well. This can be achieved using the <source> element, which allows us to define multiple media sources for the video element.

The <source> element

The source element has the following attributes:

Note: that the source element is void and has a starting tag but no closing tag

The most useful thing about the the source element is that we can use it to stack the different file types, allowing the browser to try each in turn until it finds one that it can play.

Using <video> and <source> together

In order to stack videos in the different types within the video element, we enter the code as follows:

<video autoplay controls width="512" height="300">
<source src='myVideo.theora.ogg' type='video/ogg; codecs="theora, vorbis"'>
<source src='myVideo.mp4' type='video/mp4; codecs="mp4v.20.8, samr"'>
Your browser does not support the video element.
</video>

The above code will now work in all browsers except Internet Explorer, which will display the message indicated above.

You can test this yourself by viewing the HTML5 Test Video page, which contains a sample video of a butterfly in both Theora OGG and MP4 format, so if you’re viewing this in Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera or on the iPhone or an Android handset, you should be able to view it.

The sharp knives amongst you will now noticed that we can take advantage of this stacking and have a fallback to Flash (or some other plugin) at the bottom instead of displaying a “sorry you can’t see this video” message, by using the following code:

<video autoplay controls width="512" height="300">
<source src='myVideo.theora.ogg' type='video/ogg; codecs="theora, vorbis"'>
<source src='myVideo.mp4' type='video/mp4; codecs="mp4v.20.8, samr"'>
<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="512" height="300" wmode="transparent"
data="flvplayer.swf?file=myVideo.flv&autoStart=true">
<param name="movie" value="flvplayer.swf?file=myVideo.flv&autoStart=true" />
<param name="wmode" value="transparent" />'
</object>
</video>


Conclusion

As with most HTML5 elements, browser support for the source and video elements is currently patchy. There’s also a large debate going on at the moment as to whether the source  element will kill the usage of Flash as the most popular method of adding video content to websites. I’m not sure it will kill Flash completely, but nevertheless I think it’s fair to say that it’s here to stay and will provide web developers with a cleaner, easier approach to embedding video.

The first Ion-based netbooks are beginning to trickle in, so yesterday Nvidia took the opportunity to introduce the technology to us formally. And if there was any doubt as to the focus of the demo, it was quickly made clear by the presence of a gigantic 1080p Sharp Aquos TV with a tiny netbook attached.

The netbook in question was HP’s Mini 311, announced today, and it offers a very similar core spec to others we’ve already seen from the likes of Samsung. The usual 1.6GHz Atom N270 and 2GB of RAM are joined by an 11.6in 1,366 x 768 LED screen and that shiny new Nvidia Ion GPU, which also allows manufacturers to include an HDMI port for hooking up to an HD TV. The Mini 311 is pencilled in for a £349 launch price, which is actually a rather competitive price for its size and spec.

We’ve played with Ion before in an Atom-based nettop and were extremely impressed by the results, but it’s still a bit of an odd experience to see the same intensive video tasks being carried out by a humble netbook, and output on to a monster screen. And just in case we couldn’t tell how impressive it all was, we were shown all of the demos side-by-side with a current Intel netbook.

Better performance

First up was simple playback of a 1080p H.264 video trailer, which unsurprisingly ran in WMP without a stutter on the Ion while its Intel equivalent jerked all over the place. The single-core CPU ran at around 40-60% load throughout. Mainstream gaming is also an option, as Call of Duty 4 running smoothly at a low resolution showed; our rep suggested The Sims 3 and Battlefield Heroes as examples of Ion’s level, so don’t expect Crysis just yet.

Next, demonstrating Windows 7’s drag-and-drop GPU-accelerated conversion via Nvidia’s DirectCompute, a two-and-a-half minute H.264 video trailer (at around 150MB) was dragged to a Sony Walkman media player to begin the transcoding process.

Nvidia claims a five-fold increase in transcoding speed when using the GPU. Accepting that the estimated Windows file-copy times aren’t the most reliable of figures, this test appeared to be even quicker: the Intel device estimated a massive 60 minutes, compared to less than three minutes for the Ion.

Higher quality

And the HP netbook had another trick in store, coming pre-installed with ArcSoft’s TotalMedia Theatre 3 software and SimHD plug-in, capable of using the Ion GPU to accelerate the upscaling of video playback. Obviously these netbooks don’t come with DVD drives, but it’ll work with any file on your hard disk.

As for the real-world effect, it was quite clear that it was an upscaled clip rather than native HD quality, but with only a little bit of noise it made a positive difference on such a large TV.

The final, big reveal is unfortunately embargoed for the time-being, but it’ll be a game-changer for watching video online when it arrives. We can’t say anything about it until October, so keep an eye out.

And that was that. Ion is the breakthrough that gives every netbook manufacturer the cue to revamp their product lines, and – after the last few months of the same tired Atom-based clones boring us to tears – it simply can’t come soon enough.

We’ll be getting the first samples in the coming weeks, and they’ll undoubtedly prove the netbook has already evolved. No longer just an Internet device, it’s now a very capable media player too.

So, take a look at our suggestions, tell us what you think, and post your own – and bear in mind that these are in no particular order.

Super Mario Bros is an absolute classic and surely one of the most recognisable theme tunes – never mind just game tunes – of all time. It’s been used in TV shows, performed in concerts and can be instantly named by millions. The composer, Koji Kondo, has stated that he doesn’t know if he’d be able to create something as catchy again and, after having these familiar notes jammed into our head for more than two decades, we’d be hard-pressed to disagree .And, for those Sega fans, here’s Mario’s main rival, the wonderful Sonic the Hedgehog.

Lemmings – as most people know, Lemmings is a game about guiding a group of hapless creatures to their destination, altering their environment to make sure they don’t come a cropper along the way. It’s only apt, then, that the theme tune is both mischievous and dopey in equal measure. The rest of the game, meanwhile, used a roster of classical and popular standards, contributing to the unique feel of the title.

A trio of BBC Micro titles, now, that are revered by PC Pro’s own aficionado, David Fearon. Castle Quest came with the brilliant warning at the bottom of its title screen, proclaiming that it was “probably the most challenging game ever devised for the BBC Micro”. There’s also the memorable theme tune, which was a jazzed-up remix of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Paul Dukas. And then there’s Repton, which sounds like the world’s cheapest ice cream van, and driving game Revs, which was more angry operatic bumblebee than accurate motoring sim.

Listening to the drum and bass that introduced Chaos Engine, it’s hard to believe that it was released on the Amiga in 1993, such is its quality. Then again, it was produced by the Bitmap Brothers, who also came up with the memorable tunes from Xenon 2: Megablast and Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe.

For the perfect swashbuckling introduction, look no further than The Secret of Monkey Island, which was whimsical and cheerful, a bit like Guybrush Threepwood, the game’s lead and hopeless pirate.

Those who looked for a bit more action, though, were probably familiar with the ‘Strike’ series of games. While its quality diminished with later releases – Urban and Nuclear Strike, anyone? – it was hard to argue with the first two titles in the series: Desert Strike and Jungle Strike. The first, Desert, is loud, fast and brash, but the second is slower and altogether more moody – but, crucially, just as memorable.

From the sky to the ground, now, with a couple of stone-cold classic combat titles. Street Fighter 2 is probably one of the most adored titles of all time, and its theme music is action packed and resolutely 80’s – those thumping drums make it sound like an energetic Phil Collins record. Streets of Rage, meanwhile, is slower and decidedly dark – then again, it is a game that tackled inner-city violence and urban decay head-on.

The office favourite, though, is one of the all-time classics: Goal Scoring Superstar Hero, which introduced the genre-defining Sensible World of Soccer. Despite lyrics like “you let your hair down and play to the fans”, an accompanying video that was obviously shot using whoever was in the office at the time and a budget that could be counted in pennies, it’s become nothing less than a cult classic.

Also worth a mention is another title by Sensible Software, the most definitely un-PC Cannon Fodder, which got into trouble with the Royal British Legion for using its iconic poppy symbol in a questionable game. Nevertheless, it still shows the same DIY ethos that led to whoever was in the local pub being dragged in front of a camera to pose in some very ropey costumes, and we applaud them for that.

So, those are our favourites – but we’re sure that more classic themes are lurking out there. If you’ve got a few that tug at your retro gaming heart-strings – or just disagree with our choices – let us know in the comments below.

]]> http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2009/06/04/pc-pros-ultimate-videogame-theme-tunes/feed/ 24 http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2009/01/14/converted-by-media-hard-disks/ http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2009/01/14/converted-by-media-hard-disks/#comments Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:28:35 +0000 David Bayon http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/?p=5003 External media hard disks aren’t new, they’ve been around for some time and we’ve reviewed a few here and there, but I’ve always been in the “what’s the point” camp when it comes to these expensive little devices. Let me get it straight: it’s an external hard disk for video files and you want me to pay a premium because it has an archaic composite output on the back?

It’s taken a little while, but I’ve come to realise I’m approaching the topic with my PC Pro hat too firmly wedged onto my balding scalp. Recently my dear old father wanted to watch some .avi files I had on my PC, but wanted to do so on a proper TV in the comfort of his living room. A TV that’s (gasp!) not HD and far from au fait with modern digital inputs. Beneath that sits a DVD player completely unaware of the existence of .avi files, .mpegs or any other type of file that isn’t a properly authored DVD video.

We often get carried away with all the technology we see, and it’s sometimes good to take a step back and acknowledge the fact that my father’s living room is probably very much like those of a large proportion of the UK. HD is growing but has some way to go, while the old DVD players people bought when they first became affordable still work fine, so why upgrade them to newer, more advanced models? No, for better or worse, the majority of the population are not PC Pro readers.

Faced with the prospect of recoding the twelve hours or so of scattered video files into a format I could then spend my afternoon burning across multiple DVDs for him to work his way through, I really couldn’t be bothered. Sorry Dad.

But these media hard disks are perfect for the job – a job they’re very obviously aimed at but which we tech nerds often dismiss as neanderthal. The files go on; the media hard disk plugs into the SCART socket on the TV; they play without a hitch. My parents can set it up and work it; that tells me all I need to know.

With HD versions now becoming the norm, adding HDMI ports and digital audio outputs, I’m belatedly beginning to take these players more seriously as mainstream consumer devices. In light of this we’ll be gathering the latest and best models in the near future for a shootout on the pages of PC Pro. Dad, your copy will be in the post.

You could go out and spend loads of money on a decent editing suite, but you don’t have to – there are plenty of ways of editing, playing back and sharing your video that you don’t have to spend any money on at all.

1. Shoot short clips, five to ten seconds long
There’s nothing as boring as being forced to watch tedious home movies. To spice and speed your footage up try to keep clips short and snappy. You’re never going to turn little Charlie’s first steps into Hollywood blockbuster material, but at least it’ll be a little less painful for your relatives.

2. Use image stabilisation
For the smooth, shake-free results – especially handy after a few too many Christmas whiskies – use your camcorder’s image stabilisation settings. But beware: while high end camcorders use special optical mechanisms and no quality is lost, cheaper models use electronic stabilisation, which discards information at the edges of the frame in order to achieve its effect. If this is the case you may well be better off using the image stabilisation feature in your video editing software. Many editors, such as CyberLink PowerDirector, boast this feature and offer much more control over the balance between stabilisation and quality.

3. Download Picasa 3
Picasa is a fantastic piece of software, but its talents aren’t just photographic. You can also use it to perform simple edits on videos, add titles, transitions and trim clips, then upload the results quickly and easily to a video sharing website such as YouTube or MySpace. It’s not particularly advanced, but for sheer simplicity it can’t be beaten.

4. Add titles and transitions
Adding titles not only looks good on home videos, but it can help to identify them when you’ve forgotten what’s what – and transitions can add some interest too. But don’t go mad – stick to simple fades and wipes and your clips will be easier on the eye and look much more professional too.

5. Edit your video online
You don’t have to edit video on your PC, however. Give the excellent motionbox website a whirl: it not only lets you to edit and cut your video online but also allows the upload and playback of HD video to subcribers for $29.99 per year. An added bonus is that the processing is all done by the website’s powerful servers, so editing high resolution video content won’t slow your computer to a crawl.

6. Record a voiceover commentary
With most home movies, you don’t actually need to hear the sound – adding a commentary track can really add another dimension to your home movies – even if it’s just an introductory note. Some editing software lets you record audio straight into your timeline, but not Windows Movie Maker or Picasa 3. The easiest way of doing this is to fire up the Windows sound recorder, connect a microphone and do your commentary live while playing back the video in the media player of your choice. Then you can simply import it into your video editor, trim and align as necessary.

7. Add audio effects and background music
As long as you’re not going to distribute your videos you can plagiarise musical content to your heart’s content. But you can’t use your favourite MP3s if you want others to view your video on YouTube. All is not lost, however: websites such as Sound Snap offer libraries of royalty-free effects and music so you don’t need to worry about the legals when preparing videos for public consumption.

8. Clean up your audio
Noisy background hiss and tape wind can ruin a decent home video production, but it’s quite straightforward to remove it. You’ll need to extract the audio from your video file first (use AoA Audio Exctractor) and download Audacity to edit the sound wave. Then use the noise removal tool (in the Effects mene) to identify the portion of the track that exhibits just noise, create a noise profile and apply it to the track. All you need to do next is use a basic video editor such as Windows Movie Maker to add the audio back in to your video file.

9. Use VLC for playback
If you find that, for one reason or another, Windows Media Player won’t play video files shot with your new camcorder, you could spend hours fiddling around with installing new codecs – or you could simply go and download VLC. This free media player application is small and lightweight, yet will cope with almost any video file you care to throw at it. Have a play with it and you may well find you never go back to Windows Media Player ever again.

10. Play video back on your TV
It may seem obvious, but why spend hours editing and crafting your video creation if everyone’s going to be in bed by the time you finish? The quickest way of watching your home videos is to simply plug your camera into your TV. Many camcorders – even the cheap, pocket style cameras, such as the Flip Video Ultra come with cables that allow you to do this – so don’t let them gather dust or throw them out with the rest of the Christmas wrapping – plug them into a spare output on your telly and away you go.

Using a new feature called Libraries in Windows Explorer, you select and open files on the HomeGroup network as if they were stored locally on your PC. It’s also possible to search for files (using tags and filenames, or more advanced searches, such as the month a photo was taken) across the entire HomeGroup.

The obvious disadvantage compared to a Windows Home Server is that the other PCs in the house will need to be left on for you to access their files. What’s more, HomeGroup only works with other Windows 7 PCs, and it’s likely to be many years before the average household has migrated all of its PCs to the new OS.

A more useful feature of HomeGroup is its ability to automatically detect when your work laptop, for instance, is being used in the home. Subsequently, printer settings are automatically configured to your home printer, preventing those baffling moments when you hit Ctrl + P and wonder why nothing’s being spat out of the inkjet in the corner, because it’s still set to your work printer.

Music and video streaming

As well as accessing photos and documents from other PCs on the Home Group, you can play their music and video back from the PC in front of you, too. Windows Media Player now includes support for AAC files, meaning it’s even possible to dip into other people’s iTunes libraries and play those back on your Windows 7 PC. You’ll be shocked to hear that files wrapped up in Apple’s DRM aren’t supported. However, H.264, DivX and AVCHD are, which certainly broadens the range of videos that can be streamed from PC to PC across your home network.

One exceedingly nice touch is the option to right click on music files on your Windows 7 PC and select the option to play them on a networked media receiver, such as a Sonos Digital Music System. This means you can sit with a laptop on the sofa and have the media receiver fill your living room with a handpicked playlist of songs, which will appeal to audiophiles at the end of a long day.

Wireless networking

Selecting a Wi-Fi hoptspot or wireless router has been made marginally easier in Windows 7. Instead of clicking on the wireless networking icon in the System Tray, and then entering a separate dialogue box to select an available connection, you now simply left click on the icon in the System Tray and you’re presented with a list of available networks in a pop-up jumplist. Timesaving, if not exactly breathtaking.

Apparently they set themselves and their equipment up in around 80 locations around Manchester and played to the watchful glare of the CCTV cameras.

Afterwards, they wrote to the organisations who owned the cameras asking for the footage to be released to them under the Freedom of Information Act. They then compiled it and hey presto, cheap video.

Now, the cynical reporter in me thinks this might just be a publicity stunt from the record label about to sign them – but either way the video itself is brilliant. They play in the back of taxis, on a zebra crossing in the middle of busy road, and a variety of other cool, everyday places. The music itself is the typical post-Coldplay, “eyes glazing over, thoughts dimming” sentimental pap but hey ho, can’t have everything.

Anyway, I highly recommend you follow this link and indulge some internet voodoo.