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Endorphin Posts Two Full Screen Videos Showcasing QT 7's Capabilities [UPDATE]

TMO Exclusive - Endorphin Posts Two Full Screen Videos Showcasing QT 7's Capabilities [UPDATE]

by , 4:25 PM EDT, May 23rd, 2005

In a news release given in advance exclusively to The Mac Observer, Endorphin Productions announced Monday it has posted two sample H.264 movies to its Web site. The new compression technique is being seen as the future in delivering high-quality movies to the masses over the Internet, and is some of the first content to make use of the technology, on which Apple has build at least some of its future in the digital video market.

The videos are standard definition in 16 x 9 format, but when loaded into QuickTime 7, they retain a very high quality when viewed in full-screen mode. Low video quality is often seen as a stumbling block for video delivery through the Internet, as it takes massive bandwidth to deliver even a 640 x 480, standard television size, video.

Company president Bob Franco said in the release: "We are amazed at how well the video scales up to full screen without all the ugly artifacts we are used to seeing when blowing up standard definition video. The files sizes are quite small considering the quality of the picture. We are learning more about H.264 and look forward to adding new full screen QuickTime 7 movies to endorphin.com this year."

H.264 is one of the next steps forward in the area of video delivery as it can deliver very high quality video in comparatively small files. Apple has built H.264 into both its professional (Final Cut Studio) and consumer products (iChat AV), and its flagship multimedia platform, QuickTime 7.

Content, however, is always necessary before consumers begin to care about a new multimedia technology, and that's where Endorphin's new videos come into play.

Endorphin initiated its Internet presence in 1995 and moved into the online video space in 2000. It enjoys a close relationship with Apple that has seen many of its videos appear on the company's QuickTime Web page.

[Update: The story was updated to clarify the image quality of movies when viewing in full-screen mode. - Editor]

Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
Close Name:jacrav Posts: 268 Joined: 04 Jul 2001
Subject: I just watched the Land and Sea one …

and it's awesome ! An amazing amount of detail, beautiful color, and all that in a 40 kb package ! This is not my first experience with H.264, but what I watched previously was movie trailers that were way too hectic to really appreciate the clarity of fine detail. Very impressed !

Close Name:DeepSouth Posts: 29 Joined: 20 May 2004
Subject: very nice

yeah quite stunning really, I was really underwhelmed by MPEG4 but this is living up to the hype I think.

Was it 40 MB? or Kb? - I saved it as 40 Megs.

Close Name:coaten Posts: 3071 Joined: 10 Oct 2001
Subject:

Lovely stuff indeed. Looks like the H.264 codec responds well to footage with high contrast content. The high-motion, high-contrast sequences look much better compressed than the low-motion, low-contrast scenes, which come up too soft.

Your thoughts?

Close Name:Guest
Subject:

Quote
coaten wrote:
Lovely stuff indeed. Looks like the H.264 codec responds well to footage with high contrast content. The high-motion, high-contrast sequences look much better compressed than the low-motion, low-contrast scenes, which come up too soft.

Your thoughts?


We don't care about what you have to say.

Close Name:Small White Car Posts: 1960 Joined: 02 Jul 2004
Subject:

Quote
Anonymous wrote:
Quote
coaten wrote:
Lovely stuff indeed. Looks like the H.264 codec responds well to footage with high contrast content. The high-motion, high-contrast sequences look much better compressed than the low-motion, low-contrast scenes, which come up too soft.

Your thoughts?


We don't care about what you have to say.


Are you the Queen of England?

As for the footage, I think that's true of most compression...high contrast is always going to look better because everything's so clearly seperated.

There are probably exceptions to that, but 264 seems to take advantage of it and make some really sharp pictures. I liked the footage from the race car; the blurred road looked like it should and didn't have any errors in it.

Close Name:Guest
Subject:

Quote
Small White Car wrote:
Quote
Anonymous wrote:
Quote
coaten wrote:
Lovely stuff indeed. Looks like the H.264 codec responds well to footage with high contrast content. The high-motion, high-contrast sequences look much better compressed than the low-motion, low-contrast scenes, which come up too soft.

Your thoughts?


We don't care about what you have to say.


Are you the Queen of England?


We don't care what you have to say, grumpy car.

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