Tvinci vs Joost?!?!

Ido Wiesenberg 29 Nov 07

Are we competing with Joost?
The answer is no, but in any case we thank Orly Yakuel, who thinks we’re better :).

We really appreciate the people over in Joost, we think they’ve made a large and incredible step in favor of revolutionizing the video world and that they help us change the standard of viewing experience over the internet. On the other hand we are not competing with Joost and even watch it on occasion.
The essential difference between us and Joost is that we are a media management platform which enables any content owner to integrate it and supply a viewing experience for his/her users without downloading software, while Joost is a downloadable program, and serves as an aggregator of content that wants everybody to reach it.

Our emphasis is on content accessibility – the users will continue to reach the destinations sites they’re used to in order to consume their content and, thanks to Tvinci, they will be able to enjoy a viewing experience without downloading software and without changing their surfing habits.
It is important to us that the user experiences an intuitive and experiential usage and that is why we design the interfaces in a simple and user-friendly way with an emphasis on a user experience that is familiar to surfers from their operation system, such as minimize and maximize of any object and the ability to ‘drag’ it.

In summation, the surfers want to continue consuming their content in the sites they are used to.
Joost is held in very high regard by us and will undoubtedly succeed in influencing the world of Internet TV.
Our platform will grow alongside Joost, and the content owners that want to maximize the monetization on their content will deliver their content to Joost and at the same time, integrate our platform (or another) into their site and strengthen the community and the link between the video content and the additional contents on their site.
As evidence, ‘Punked’ can be seen both on Joost and as a content channel on MTV Israel.

FLV (Flash) vs WMV (Microsoft)

Ido Wiesenberg 27 Nov 07

One of the first questions that pop up in any encounter we’ve had with a potential client is the question – which video format is better for playing? FLV format (Flash) or WMV (Microsoft)?
The decision is not a simple one since each of the formats has its own advantages.
We will try to make the decision of choosing the right video format for your site a bit easier:
WMV ruled supreme in the market, but in recent years we have watched it lose its place to the FLV format.
The main advantage of the WMV format today is in its DRM ability.
The WMV comes with the built-in Microsoft DRM and so their contents can be protected. Indeed, many say that the DRM is dead, but let’s see you convince a Hollywood studio to bring you choice contents without DRM.
The FLV format does not have real DRM these days (there are all kinds of substitutes), but tenacious rumors in the industry tell that a DRM will be launched soon by Adobe, which we will already get to see in HULU project.
In addition, there are those who say that the WMV format has a higher quality; it supports multiple bit rates, which means that the same video can be transmitted in various qualities according to the internet connection of each surfer.
Both formats aim high in direction of HD, and promise to support those formats. The wider the bandwidth gets, the more we will see sites crossing over to transmit MPEG files (one of the large portals in Israel already means to do so).
The transmit method of the WMV format is also different from the FLV format. Most of the use of WMV is done through streaming. It is possible to jump to the end of the movie and then only the part you want to watch will load and not the whole movie.
The use of FLV is usually done through progressive download, which means we download the whole movie to our computer; it is not possible to jump to a point at the end of the movie if it hasn’t been loaded yet.
Full screen is another interesting point. The WMV uses the user’s video card and so charges the transfer to full screen without burdening the CPU. Flash, on the other hand, burdens the CPU but the transfer to full screen is smoother. On the other hand, in three months a new version of Flash will come out that will also use the video card and so this advantage will disappear completely…

That’s it for the advantages of the WMV format, for all that, why do more and more clients prefer to go with the FLV format?
The FLV plays based on Flash, Flash is a reliable multi platform that works on all the operating systems and on all the web browsers without problems or bugs.
The main advantage of Flash is the option of adding layers over the video, while watching video. We will see it more and more in the area of advertising, instead of pre and post advertising, we will watch less irritating advertising on top of the video. Flash gives additional options of motivation to action on top of specific areas in the video while watching it. In addition, many more widgets can be added on the screen, as you can see in the variety of interfaces we’ve developed.
In a world of UGC, we all use Flash today, even Microsoft (link).
Coding to an FLV format is quicker and more reliable.
As a response to Flash, Microsoft has been developing ‘Silverlight’ for a few years now. On paper it seems that ‘Silverlight’ should knock Flash out and give answers to all its advantages. The problem is that, until now, the ‘Silverlight’ versions that have come out were not reliable enough; a special plug-in must be installed in order to watch the video (Flash is already installed in over 95% of computers in the world), and it seems that it will take at least a year until ‘Silverlight’ version 1.1 will come out to the market and stabilize. A year is a very long time is internet terms; it will be interesting to see what market share Flash will hold in a year…

In summation, our recommendation these days is to go for the FLV format unless the contents must be protected with DRM. In any case we recommend to our clients to code to both the FLV and WMV formats and to upload both formats into our systems, and so on the day ‘Silverlight’ comes out it will be possible to transfer to it with the push of a button.

The Tvinci Code

Ofer Shayo 25 Nov 07

It’s been an exciting few months – and we’ve been enjoying the attention from new clients, potential partners and bloggers.
That’s one of the reasons we put up this new website, to offer more information about what we are doing, now that people are asking.
But just to be clear… we (and this website) will change.
Tvinci is all about helping the user get the most out of existing content – really offering them the best possible experience.
It’s not completely altruistic.
Our clients – content owners and publishers – will profit most when they have a clear understanding of what content their customers want, and how they want to experience it.
We know that this changes all the time, so…so will we. If you have feedback and suggestions to help us along, please send them on.
Submit an suggestions
And keep watching this space.
We’ll keep you informed.