Gizmodo: transcoding

HP MediaSmart Windows Home Servers Can Now Stream Videos, Unprotected DVDs to iPhones, PSPs

Jason Chen — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:22:42 EDT

The HP MediaSmart EX485 and EX487 Windows Home Servers just received an update patch to enable video streaming over the internet by way of video conversion.

The original file will stream over your LAN to your Macs, PCs and other network devices, but stream out to the internet in a mobile H.264 quality version after the conversion is done. iPhones and iPod touches can do so by downloading the iStream app from the App Store, which isn't live yet.

Codecs supported are: AVI (DivX, Xvid, MJPEG), MOV (MJPEG), DVR-MS (MPEG-2), MP4 (MPEG4), WMV and
unprotected DVD VOB. You can select individual folders to covert, which will be converted in the background as your normal processes and video streaming is going on.

CyberLink Uses ATI Card To Transcode Four 1080p Video Files Simultaneously

Jason Chen — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:00:00 EDT

The fashionable thing these days is to take the tremendous processing power of graphics cards and put them to use when you're not utilizing them to render games. CyberLink, for one, has come up with a pretty ingenous method to take an ATI or NVIDIA card (in their case, the demo was on an ATI Radeon 4850 512MB card) and convert four 1080p MPEG-2 movies into MPEG-4. Simultaneously. As long as you've got a pretty fast video card, all you need is a copy of CyberLink PowerDirector 7 and you can be doing this too. We hope this is the kind of thing Apple's going to be putting into Snow Leopard. [TG Daily]

TVersity Now Available on PS3, Wii

Jason Chen — Tue, 01 May 2007 19:45:33 EDT

For those unfamiliar with TVersity, it's the app you run on your PC that lets you transcode just about any format into a format your Xbox 360 can understand. Essentially, this means you can watch DivX, XviD, and other media files on your consoles on the fly. Good news, because now it's available for the PS3 and the Wii.

However, since the Wii and PS3 have limited format support already, TVersity transcodes into flash video (FLV) format in order to play back on these two consoles. But, you can also play back YouTube, Yahoo, and Google Video on your consoles now with TVersity. Now your grandmas can record and play back internet videos. The cycle is complete. – Jason Chen

Product Page [TVersity]

Elgato's Turbo 264 USB Stick Encodes H.264 for Your iPod, iPhone and Apple TV

Jason Chen — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 20:40:32 EDT

Following up on the rumor that Apple was going to add an H.264 hardware encoding/decoding chip into all upcoming Macs, Elgato has released an H.264 USB stick that does just that. What does this mean to you? Well, a USB stick would be second best to an internal chip (like was speculated before) but the effect is the same.

Instead of using your processor to encode and decode video, this Turbo 264 offloads the job so you're free to do other things. The implications of this are recording a screencast in real time, or doing real-time transcoding of various content that you can stream to your Apple TV. Or, you can just use it (rather boringly) to make videos for your iPod and iPhone fast.

For now, it's only available in Europe for 99 Euros. – Jason Chen

Turbo 264 [Macwelt]

TiVo Desktop 2.4 Public Beta Gets You Format Transcoding (Not DivX)

Jason Chen — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 17:05:31 EST

TiVo's just released a new public beta for Series 2 and Series 3 owners, adding various transcoding and broadcasting features. For S3 owners, they can now send HD photographs (1280x720) for viewing on their TV, and for S2 owners, they can transcode various video formats into TiVo-format so you can watch that on your TV as well.

Unfortunately for everybody, TiVo's locked out DivX (and presumably XviD), so all your downloaded movies need to be transcoded into something else before they can be transcoded again into something TiVo can play. Lame, TiVo. Lame. – Jason Chen

Download Page [TiVo via Zatz Not Funny]

Dummies' Guide to DivX On Your 360

Jason Chen — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 15:30:28 EST

Did you have to ask your daughter's nerdy—and honestly, kinda creepy—friend to come over and set up your TiVo? Then you've no doubt had trouble getting your Xbox 360 to play media other than standard DVDs. Good news for you, as Tweaktown's got a huge guide on setting up a PC and a 360 to stream DivX and XviD files on the fly.

The walkthrough goes into mind numbing detail on what PC to use, what codecs you need, how to set up port forwarding (not always necessary), and setting up the TVersity software. Old hat if you're a PC buff, but useful for everyone else. – Jason Chen

Playing DivX and Xvid content on Xbox 360 - An easy guide! [Tweaktown]