Graphedit on steroids

http://www.thedeemon.com/

Graph Edit Plus is the tool for graphedit junkies and others who need to use it on daily basis. More control, more comfort, more flexibility, nicer interface and one pretty unique feature, ability to export functional C++ micro applications that create any graph from code.

Of course there is complete compatibility on grf files, interface that is extension without too much revolution of standard graphedit, basically this is really good tool.

And of course check out other products from this nice little company.

Cheers....

HD Photo InDepth...

So, you are interested into HD Photo.
Well, this link is The place to be.

http://blogs.msdn.com/billcrow/default.aspx

Tutorial: Using Windows Media Registry Keys

Ben Waggoner Tutorial
http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=9456&page=1&c=4

or official documentation
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/codecadvancedsettings.aspx

Must read documents...

DVB trough graphedit Journey Part 1

So you really want to configure DVB-T card trough graph edit :)
Bagger for you...

It is just too complex to configure Network provider, IMHO, especially if you don't have too much of info to start from anyway...

So, little help in start could be this page
http://dvbviewer.com/en/index.php?page=downloads

with Transedit MMC free DVB channel research tool...

or you could try this tool
http://www.dvbdream.org/

When I succeed, I will let you know :)

Let's break the bonds - JPEG XR

Have you ever really asked yourself why do people love to set borders for everything?

I think it has to do something with feeling of God like power... So :)
JPEG borders are finally coming down, new era of image format is born :) open format sibling to departed MS HD Photo.

What is new?
Adobe and Hasselblad have already supported new format. Now it is only matter of time for Digital Imaging companies to develop new generation of image processing chips with support.

More info.

Stripping ASF container trough DirectShow...

After writing post about VC-1 SDK with stripped codec from asf container, I wondered was it the only way.

Trough mine everyday work, we are stripping windows media for a long time, but then again it is not something for everyone, because of the need for custom container and streaming format we have developed for our needs.

But now, as a side product of our research I can say that stripping windows media from ASF boundaries is very easy in fact, all you need is simple DirectShow knowledge.

So, what does the graph look like?

Simple, just don't use ASF Reader, instead use AsyncFileSource, connect directly to mux and file writter.

I can only recommend matroska container format, which is as good as it gets, few light years ahead of avi and even ASF.

If you need more details, just email me.

VC-1 Encoder SDK

So here it is, one again.
Remember, it is the first and only version that gives you VC-1 without ASF.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/mediaandentertainment/ibc2007/vc-1encodersdk.mspx

WMA / ASF De Mux DirectShow filter

If you understand the title, than you will appreciate this link with other great DirectShow filters.
http://www.gdcl.co.uk/downloads.htm

Even better, you can download source code based on WMF SDK, tailored into DirectShow Async Source Filter, supporting all base interfaces such as Seeking etc.

Looking for a cool .NET DirectShow Samples?

Don't look further, here it is :)
http://directshownet.sourceforge.net/about.html

Expression Encoder 1.0 is out!

Expression Encoder (formerly Expression Media Encoder) is a new compression tool targeting Silverlight, (although its WMV files will play in all the standard players). Beyond being a great WMV encoder, its real killer feature is easy generation of a Silverlight player experience around the media asset, including subtitles/captioning, thumbnail-based visual navigation, etcetera. It's a deep product, and I'm going to be doing a much more in-depth analysis of it here soon.

One important thing to note about Expression Encoder is that it can be used to build the Silverlight player experience around an already encoded WMV file, so it can be used in conjunction with other compression tools.

Expression Encoder is based on the Windows Media Format SDK 11, so all the registry key tweaks I've been discussing on this blog work perfectly with it.

(repost from http://on10.net/Blogs/benwagg/silverlight-expression-encoder-10-released/ )

Silverlight in Action

Beautiful example of Silverlight power in action. Must see.

Rocket Science and Digital Imaging

Sometimes digital media can be a rocket science.

Learn from the Best - Ben Waggoner

Yep, there are gurus out there.

In this good article learn about VC-1. H.264 compression in real life and look at some samples of end results.

http://on10.net/Blogs/benwagg/hands-on-with-the-temporary-insanity-trailer/

Definitely a guru.

Interactive Visual Media Group

This is always interesting. Look at the Visual Future at Microsoft research labs:
Visual Media Group

Need to check your ASF files?

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/format/asfviewer.aspx

Tip: You can use this tool to batch check all your files.

How Not To - Or Short Sighted Architects

First I would like to say something to complete group of Media Center MS developers - Thank you, thank you so much : You make people appreciate other programs and infrastructures.

You wouldn't believe how much of junk is behind Media Center fancy interface. Yes it can do almost anything, but HEY, it is nightmare from hell for developers. I felt like in linux in old days. Installing and trying samples from SDK is mission impossible without regedit, cmd and whole bunch of custom, hard coded xml/bat/whatever config files.

And today we have reached new limits, let me introduce you my new Arch Enemy - Custom EPG development.

I can tell you just one thing - Do Not Go In There....

50 Silverlight Applications by Tim Sneath

Excellent quick list of Silverlight applications across the web.

Excellent intro into Silverlight developing

Silverlight developing using .NET
must read article.

What about 3D in WPF

This are much much better in this department, check this link:
http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2006/02/08/527850.aspx

3D in Silverlight

Microsoft dropped few chapters from XAML regarding 3D, but what was left is enough for simple 3D implementations like this one:
http://www.dolittle.com/blogs/einar/archive/2007/05/19/3d-in-silverlight-1-1-alpha.aspx

Mapping Video onto 3D Surfaces

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/07/03/digitalmedia/#S6

Great intro into new WPF and video integration.

U Danskoj ništa nova

Kako bi se kolokvijalizam lijepo upotrijebio, u svijetu Windows Medije ništa nova. Silverlight se javio, još malo pa će u finalizaciju, no osim njega ništa.

Evo tip, čeka se novi Windows Server 2007 koji će donijeti novi Media Serivces i pogurati sve po malo, a do tada, ništa.

Using Movie Maker for YouTube

These videos are not published by Microsoft, but really can help on how to use Movie Maker for creating YouTube videos.

Top 10 Questions about Silverlight and Media

Finally coming up for air now after 10 hours of press briefings for nearly three days, I can finally talk more here about Silverlight:

Top 10 Questions About Silverlight and Media

1. What media formats do you support?
   A: WMV7,8, 9/SMPTE VC-1, WMA, MP3
2. What is SMPTE VC-1?
   A: WMV9 - now an open standard recognzied by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) and shipping in all Blu-Ray and HD-DVD drives.
3. Will Silverlight work with my current Windows Media?
   A: Yes, it most definitely will work with your existing Windows Media
4. What do I have to do to add Silverlight to my site? For Mac and Windows playback?
   A: Once the beta ships in two weeks, all you'll have to do is drop a little .js and XML into your page and away you go.
5. Can additional formats be added for playback?
   A: No, part of the appeal of Silverlight is the small package size- 1MB, includes everything it needs for video and audio, animation, graphics and AJAX-based programmability to boot!
6. What companies are supporting Silverlight?
   A: Major League Baseball, Brightcove, NetFlix, Frog Design, AvenueA/Razorfish, Akamai, and many others are among the names announced.
7. How easy the install really going to be?
   A: How does 3 clicks sound for XP users? Vista users have one more click by default due to the user account feature. Web pages can be wired up to do in-line install and auto-refresh after you're done.
8. Can you really do 720p HD video? What 3D video card do I need?
   A: Definitely. About a 3ghz P4 class processor will work, regardless of video card. We've done some really neat processor optimizations. All the demos shown in the booth at NAB were run off a mid-range laptop.
9. Why does resizing/scaling of apps "snap" differently in Safari/FireFox/IE?
   A: It all depends upon the way the browser renders. I won't make any qualitative comment as your mileage may vary.
10. Will Silverlight work with my existing web server? What about live streaming?
    A: For on-demand, yes! Run it on Darwin, Apache, whatever you're running. Of course, you'll get a few added benefits with Windows Media streaming- reduced bandwidth costs, faster seeking, etc.
11. Where can I learn more?
    A: Right now you can learn more at www.microsoft.com/silverlight. The community site will go live at www.silverlight.net. The Beta "Cruise" starts on April 30th.
    

HD Photo Preview

Last week at PMA, Microsoft formally announced HD Photo. For more information on HD Photo, head over to Bill Crow’s blog. The official press release can be found here. Here’s a summary of the important details:

• Microsoft is announcing HD Photo, a new format for end-to-end digital photography which offers higher image quality, greater preservation of data, and advanced features for today’s digital imaging applications
• The HD Photo Device Porting Kit, used to implement HD Photo in devices and other platforms
• Royalty free licensing
• A free set of HD Photo plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop, developed in conjunction with Adobe
• Microsoft is committed to standardizing the HD Photo technology

HD Photo overview & details:

• A new format for end-to-end digital photography which offers higher image quality, greater preservation of data, and advanced features for today’s digital imaging applications
• Key benefits include:
• Better Image Fidelity: Preserving all the original image content, enabling the highest quality exposure and color adjustments
• State of the art compression: Up to twice the efficiency of JPEG with fewer damaging artifacts, and scalable to lossless
• Powerful Features: Decode only the information needed for any resolution or region, or manipulate the image as compressed data
• Technical Details
• Support for the Widest Range of Pixel Formats
• High Performance, Low Footprint Algorithm
• Advanced Decoding and Transformation Operations
• Better image quality in a file that is up to ½ the size of JPEG
• Lossless and lossy compression with the same algorithm
• Lossy compression is much less destructive than JPEG
• An efficient, portable photo interchange format that preserves the entire dynamic range
• HD Photo Support in Microsoft products:
• Windows Vista in-box support
• Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 support via Windows Imaging Component (WIC), a free download
• Windows Imaging Component (WIC)
• HD Photo Device Porting Kit
• NET Framework 3.0
• XML Paper Specification (XPS) – The XPS format utilizes the HD Photo format to store image data
• Photo Info Power Toy
• Microsoft Expression Family
• HD Photo plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop

from
Microsoft Photography Blog

Visual Studio 2005 SP1 C++ compatibility issues

C++ team did it again and moved the limits, VC++ 2005 SP1 is crap.

For the people that need to use it, whatever the pervert reason, after installing SP1 and compiling projects with it, it won't run on client machines until applying patch with new redistributes.

Seek you folder for new version:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\BootStrapper\Packages\vcredist_x86

And deploy it on client machines.

WM Photo becomes HD Photo

Microsoft have changed name of new Windows Media Photo format, and introduced new name with new initiative of creating open standard successor for JPEG image format.

The main idea is overcoming crucial color space and color range problem of JPEG image format but also improving other important aspects like format performance and ease of hardware implementation, which is very important for camera manufacturers.

More about HD Photo

Video Inspector - Codec Info

If you're are unsure what codec some file is using, try Video Inspector.

DirectShow Filter Manager

Great free utility.
http://www.softella.com/dsfm/index.en.htm

WM ASF Reader Alternative

Source code for a WMV/WMA ASF file parser filter that connects to the standard File Source (Async). Supports seeking and set-rate, using the Windows Media Format SDK.

http://www.gdcl.co.uk/downloads.htm#WMFDemux

WM ASF Reader blackout...

This is annoying beyond words. Microsoft's own and only DirectShow Windows Media Reader is in deep problems.

So far, it seems that the problem is in Windows Media Format 11, and that the only workaround is not to have WMF 11 (comes with WMP 11 or WMF SDK 11).

We are currently working on solution, it will probably be custom written windows media source filter based on WMF 11 directly, but we receive very discouraging reports from users that have problems even with WMP 11 playing new VC1 encoded streams.

Microsoft it is Your turn, debug you're code, so many people depends on it.

J.

P.S.
Once workaround is finished and tested, binaries will be publicly available trough this blog.

MS je Car!

A vidi ovu novu điđu...

Microsoft Photo Info Tool

Microsoft has today released a new 'Phoot Info' tool designed specifically for digital photographers. After installation this tool provides a new option of 'Photo Info' on the Explorer context menu. The Photo Info dialog enables you to edit both EXIF and IPTC information in compatible image formats as either a single image or a collection. The Photo Info tool works on either Windows XP or Vista and is a free download.

Click here to download the Microsoft Photo Info tool

Microsoft Photo Info tool

Microsoft Photo Info is a new software add-in for Microsoft Windows that allows photographers to add, change and delete common "metadata" properties for digital photographs from inside Windows Explorer. It also provides enhanced "hover tips" and additional sort properties for digital photographs in Explorer (in Details view).

Features

• View or edit photo metadata from inside Windows Explorer. Now, advanced image properties are at your fingertips from within Windows.
• Edit images individually, or as a collection. Photo Info has two edit modes: individual and collection, making it easy to update many images at the same time.
• Quick recall of recent entries. For some properties, Photo Info remembers the most recent entries you have typed. To recall a recent entry, click on the drop down arrow and select it from the list.
• Generate copyright notice automatically. Photo Info can generate a standard copyright notice automatically from the Author and date Created information, if present.
• Quick recall of location details. To help save time when entering location information, Photo Info can save location details under a name you provide. Recall these details by selecting the location name from the drop-down menu.
• Correct EXIF capture date / time information. Photo Info can optionally update the EXIF date/time information as recorded in the image file by your camera. You can use this feature to correct the file capture date if your camera's clock was set incorrectly (for example, to the wrong time zone).
• View EXIF properties. Click on the Details tab to view common EXIF properties. Click on More properties for additional details.
• Preview the image. To see a larger preview of the image, double-click on the thumbnail.
• Enhanced hover tips. Hover tips have been enhanced for JPEG, TIFF and other supported file types in Windows Explorer.
• Custom column properties. In Windows Explorer when viewing a folder in Details view, additional sort properties are available for supported image types.

Supported file types

The initial release of Microsoft Photo Info supports the following common image file types: JPEG, TIFF, WDP, HDP (HD Photo), NEF, CR2, and CRW*. Support for additional file formats is under consideration for a future release.

* Support for CRW files requires that an associated THM file is present in the same folder as the selected CRW image. (THM files are thumbnail "sidecar" files generated by certain Canon cameras.)

(copy-pasted from www.dpreview.com)

Vista je rješila RAW probleme

Kad Microsoft odluči, Microsoft isporuči. Naime od Viste nadalje, svi proizvođači foto opreme koja je RAW sposobna, samostalno isporučuju codec za svoj format.

Što znači da sve aplikacije pristupaju svim RAW datotekama kroz identično sučelje, a ne da se mora čekati nova verzija aplikacije za baš svaki novi fotoaparat.

Kupite novi foto – instalirate drivere – codec – sve postojeće aplikacije rade, bez čekanja.

Evo i jedan pro tip: 3rd party aplikacije, dakle sve osim očajnih proizvođačkih Canon, Pentax, Nikon itd, u stvari ne čitaju RAW do kraja, jer proizvođači čuvaju par detalja ko zmija noge, npr. Nikon kriptira White Balance informacije.

Eto odgovora zašto u npr. ACRu sve malo drugačije izgleda.

Croatian vs English

For general developer posts, I will stick to English, but for more personal and not really important posts about photography I will use Croatian.

This is nice compromise for all :)

J.

Testing Testing

Valjda je svaki početak ovako težak :)