MetaFilter posts tagged with microsoft and video

The Game Preservation Crisis

timshel — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 14:04:59 -0800

Trash cans, landfills, and incinerators. Erasure, deletion, and obsolescence. These words could describe what has happened to the various building blocks of the video game industry in countries around the world. These building blocks consist of video game source code, the actual computer hardware used to create a particular video game, level layout diagrams, character designs, production documents, marketing material, and more.

These are just some elements of game creation that are gone -- never to be seen again. These elements make up the home console, handheld, PC and arcade games we've played. The only remnant of a particular game may be its name, or its final published version, since the possibility exists that no other physical copy of its creation remains.

As a community of video game developers, publishers, and players, we must begin asking ourselves some difficult but inevitable questions. Some believe there is no point in preserving a video game, arguing that games are short-term entertainment, while others disagree with this statement entirely, believing the industry is in a preservation crisis.

Where Games Go To Sleep: The Game Preservation Crisis See also: Keeping the Game Alive: Evaluating Strategies for the Preservation of Console Video Games [pdf] The National Videogame Archive Save the Videogame! - An essay on the National Videogame Archive & the state of preservation Before It's Too Late: A Digital Game Preservation White Paper [pdf] Pac Rat - The Atlantic, March 2010 Is That Just Some Game? No, It’s a Cultural Artifact - NY Times, March 2007

Video Wars, round II

Artw — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 11:57:40 -0800

We expect even more rapid innovation in the web media platform in the coming year and are focusing our investments in those technologies that are developed and licensed based on open web principles. To that end, we are changing Chrome’s HTML5 <video> support to make it consistent with the codecs already supported by the open Chromium project. Specifically, we are supporting the WebM (VP8) and Theora video codecs, and will consider adding support for other high-quality open codecs in the future. Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies. - Google's Chrome is will be joining Firefox in no longer licensing the MPEG-LA H.264 video codec favoured by Apple and Microsoft for use in the HTML5 <video> tag (previously). Not everyone is seeing this as a good thing.

Stop making that BIG FACE!!!

Artw — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 06:24:26 -0800

Aphex Twin's Kinnect based NYE show visuals

Look at this stuff. It's airtight.

Rhaomi — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 15:03:49 -0800

Almost Everything by Kirby Ferguson: A web series featuring a good-natured Canadian geek who uses slick, fast-paced video presentations to comment on the world's ills. Episodes: Apple's Stealth Jabs at Microsoft - Protecting and Maintaining Your Heterosexual House of Cards - Americans Love Lists - Trajan is the Movie Font - Thank You For All the Butt Cracks - Passive Resistance, Like Gandhi - Punchline Piracy - The Fag Bomb - I Love Progress Bars - Slumdog Controversy - The Distraction Machine - Talent is Hard Work - 2012 and the Conspiracy Conspiracy - I Don't Care About Tiger Woods' Penis (An Open Letter to the American Media). Like the background music? The full soundtrack by Windom Earle is available for preview or download on Amazon. A product of Goodiebag.tv (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, blog, more videos).

The new browser video wars

Artw — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 09:19:32 -0800

The <video tag>, as defined by the HTML5 spec, is an element "used for playing videos or movies". Which codec those videos or movies are in is currently undefined, with the two contenders being the free open source Ogg Theora and the proprietary H.264. With the unveiling of Internet Explorer 9 both Microsoft and Apple are supporting H.264 in their browsers, and comparisons of the standards seem to bear out H.264 as the better of the two. However Mozilla have taken a stance against incorporating H264 into Firefox on the grounds that it is patented and has to be licensed. Arguments are now being made for and against Mozilla sticking to its ideals. John Gruber of Daring Fireball points out that Firefox already supports proprietary formats such as GIF. Um, perhaps not the best example.

Every party should be a windows 7 party

Artw — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:13:01 -0800

Hosting Your Windows 7 Torrenting Party (Previously)

It really is like Minority Report!

allkindsoftime — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 19:34:20 -0800

Photosynth. Blaise Aguera y Arcas (second one down) does a live demo (with some subtle humor) of the product we've discussed previously. Via the wonderful Ted (mentioned a f e w t i m e s).

Fish Calling

GernBlandston — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 13:00:06 -0800

This is the Fish calling from Microsoft Support Santro. No, not that fish.

David Brent goes to Microsoft

lilbrudder — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 00:12:13 -0800

Fans of the BBC version of The Office take note: in 2006, Microsoft hired Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant to make a pair of faux training videos for the UK Microsoft headquarters, with Gervais reprising his David Brent role. Both videos are now up on iFilm, and are pretty damn funny (if you're amused by the Brent schtick, which I am).

billg vs. a liger

mathowie — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 11:42:07 -0800

Bill Gates meets Napolean Dynamite. Microsoft has a history of doing little spoofs at their developer events (a couple years ago Gates and Ballmer did a send up of the GTI commercial and then there was The Matrix). While this one is a shaky camera capture (hopefully someone uploads the original), it's still pretty amusing and fun to watch Gates poke fun at himself. Of course, the unintended comedy videos involving Gates are often funnier.

Top Billing

nthdegx — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 04:57:34 -0800

Inventor of CTRL-ALT-DEL ridicules Bill Gates. "'I may have invented CTRL-ALT-DEL, but Bill Gates made it famous". Video clip of the episode, via TUAW, who say "The funniest part is the expression, or lack thereof, on the face of Bill."