Netflix Releases 'Meridian' Test Footage To All Including Competitors, Open Sources Some Tools (variety.com) 40
Netflix has released 'Meridian' to not just all its 83 million subscribers, but to everyone. The company produced the title as test footage to evaluate anything from the performance of video codecs to the way Netflix streams look like on 4K TVs. But the company decided to make it to open to all -- be it hardware manufacturers, codec developers, or even competitors like Amazon and Hulu. From a report on Variety:Netflix is using a Creative Commons license for the release of "Meridian," which is new for an industry that isn't used to sharing a lot of resources. "They are in the business of exploiting content, not of giving it away," Chris Fetner, the company's director for content partner operations said. But for Netflix, it's just par of the course. Thanks to its Silicon Valley DNA, Netflix has long collaborated with other companies on cloud computing-focused open source projects. Now, it wants to nudge Hollywood to do the same -- and "Meridian" is only the beginning. This week, Netflix is also open-sourcing a set of tools tackling a common problem for studios and video services.
Place Your Bets... (Score:3, Interesting)
How long before Sony issues a DMCA takedown on it?
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Maybe.
Alphabet can't put it on youtube, as it's a commercial service. A person can put it on YouTube, as long as they aren't participating in the revenue sharing, and a DMCA notice would have to be respected.
NC clause is hardly given away though.
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I'm actually alright with that for something that is intended to be used as a reference point to test codecs and distribution.
Though, I suppose arguably re encoding it could be seen as violating ND.
Considering the summary implies that Hulu, etc. can use it as a demo of the quality of their streams, but the NC definitely prohibits that (promotional demo for a for profit service is definitely commercial use), the summary is just stupid.
The ND may or may not apply to reducing the size by encoding (it could eit
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If I'm wrong here, there's really no fair use exemption, since that would involve copying the entire work, and fair use rarely allows that
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Thinking about it, it definitely seems like fair use to me.
Format/time shifting is a fair use case, the amount of work copied is only part of what determines fair use.
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Since the whole point of this video is to format shift it, I think you're definitely right. Netflix wouldn't choose a licence that prevents that.
I'll wait for the rips (Score:2)
I do wonder how large the files will be when ripping in various codecs. With some DVD's the resulting x264 and xvid conversions didn't differ much in size (with equal quality), probably because of grain and smoke.
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With some DVD's the resulting x264 and xvid conversions didn't differ much in size (with equal quality)
I think this will benefit you: https://www.specsavers.com/ [specsavers.com]
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But you'd be surprised how low crf needs to be for some movies to avoid bleeding detail. Especially in dark areas.
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For me it was about keeping the same quality, but be able to store two to three times as many movies on disk for safe keeping (without the added junk).
I've already had a few DVD's with rot so I want to store them on BTRFS RAID.
Way to polish one's image. (Score:3)
This is an appreciated move, that will benefit everyone in the end.
Other Co-Dec developers will improve their work on the sample, and content providers will benefit from the resulting improved quality and/or spared bandwidth.
And of course, at the end of the chain, consumers will enjoy the improvements.
Too bad they were so efficient with their VPN ban.
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Mmmeridian is a mmmovie (Score:4, Informative)
In a global media business, Hollywood is often producing dozens of versions for each movie. Not only do different markets require different subtitles, but there are also airline versions that come without riskier scenes, local content requirements like the need to pixelate all full-frontal nudity in Japan, dubbed versions and more. In order to cope with such differences:
Netflix wants to solve problems like these by using the Interoperable Master Format (IMF), an emerging standard for exchanging master files between studios and services like Netflix. In essence, IMF combines the raw video file with a set of instructions that tell Netflix which parts it needs to omit in which regions, and when it needs to use which audio files. “We used to get baked cakes,” said Fetner. “With IMF, we get all the ingredients.”
So good on Netflix for sharing.
WILL THERE BE A SECOND SEASON? PLEASE! (Score:2)
I hate these new series where they develop an elaborate concept but the dumb thing gets cancelled after one season and you never really get to the bottom of anything.
We need a second season to find out who the girl is, what's really happening in that cave, why the senior detective is so circumspect about the details of the disappearances and what really happened to the junior detective.
Has anybody watched it? (Score:1)
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Would have been far easier to adopt if you could convert the branching created for a DVD/Blu-Ray release or to be able to merge this into a combined workflow.
With the Disney example, a lot of their movies even have different imagery for different audio languages (on-screen signs/documents/posters/opening title animation in an animated movie are drawn in alternate languages).
Chuck and Larry (Score:1)
I'm only interested if it's got Adam Sandler and/or Kevin James. I bet those guys would be hilarious in 4k.
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I'm only interested if it's got Adam Sandler and/or Kevin James. I bet those guys would be hilarious in 4k.
Why? Neither are remotely funny in HD, or even SD for that matter. Extra pixels wasted putting them on a 4k screen.
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Those guys are so unfunny they suck the humor out of any joke.
Basically they're hoping it becomees a video Lena (Score:2)
License says "NonCommercial" ? (Score:2)
The included license says "Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International"
https://media.xiph.org/video/d... [xiph.org]
How can competitors use this if noncommercial clause attached?
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Section 1-h could be read as preventing the use of the media internally to improve a commercial service.
As an example if I set up InterFlix as a competitor, fine-tune my algorithms using Meridian and deliver improved video stream quality at lower bitrate as a result, I'd say that was "directed towards commercial advantage".
If I then released my sexy new CODEC as open source so that everybody could use it, I'm no longer gaining commercial advantage and so my use of Meridian would not contravene section 1-h.
Creative Commons? (Score:2)