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Comment by sanjit | Hacker News Reader

From ZiffDavis article: > QuickTime 6 media player and QuickTime Broadcaster, a free application that aims to simplify using MPEG-4 in live video feeds over the Net.

It was sweet to see “over the Net”…

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I think video over Internet could be a huge business.

In 1998, the idea seemed so ridiculous, TheOnion mocked it:

https://theonion.com/new-5-000-multimedia-computer-system-do...

At the time, the mocking was well deserved. I remember downloading trailers for moves over my dial-up connection. Took the entire night for 3 minutes of video. Can’t imagine paying $5k for that privilege.

Today though, the mocking doesn’t make sense and is confusing. I haven’t ever owned a TV.

By 99 it wasn't that bad. I remember screaming along with V.92 56k modems. Futurama episodes were about 50mb encoded as RealVideo and took a mere two and a half hours to download o.0

(and it really was v.92; I still have the double-bong towards the end of the handshake emblazoned in my memory)

Realmovies were the new hotness, evolution of video piracy was >vivoactive is the OG (stream only format, like 50x50 pixels, NO KEYFRAMES - no fast forward, rewind, or seeking), talking about 1995 here >realmovies - higher quality, seeking, around 1998 >DIVX (format, not the discs also at the same time) - mindblowing quality update, around 2000 >VCDs - concurrent with DIVX around 2000 >XVID - (DIVX backwards) arose as DIVX failed, 2001 >then wherever we are now, 9999 formats and VLC supports them all

I downloaded episodes of South Park using eMule over dial-up. It took days.

Well back then there was a huge difference in the Internet experience between people at universities and other places with T1s and other fast connections, and everyone else on dial-up. There was a lot of full-length video downloading at universities by 2000. But even on dial-up I seem to remember realplayer and other UDP dumps being pretty popular around this time.

Picking 300MB as a ridiculous amount of data to download dates that nicely without needing to look at the article header.

Though using the codecs and hardware of that time I doubt the quality at even that size would be great. Compare an old 349MB (sized to fit two on a CD-R/-RW, likely 480p though smaller wasn't uncommon) cap of a Stargate episode picked up in the early/mid 20XXs to a similarly sized file compressed using h265 or even h264 on modern hardware.

I recall Xvid rips of SD television content being just fine quality wise, even at the 350MB per episode that ‘the scene’ used. A modern encoding at 480P might have slightly better compression in dark areas, but SD television is kinda janky compared to HD.

H.265 or H.264 would absolutely crush Xvid for compressing HD content, both in size and quality.

I appreciate the usage of SG-1 as an example, as I definitely still have several seasons of SG-1 episodes of that size floating around old hard drives somewhere. XVID, of course.

I wonder if the 6000 series from nvidia will finally be able to deliver on the prognostication of being able to make toast with a PC?

You can make a flambé with Nvidia’s new 12VHPWR connectors

Haha that article is wild. Thanks for sharing

Demonstrating the technology, Welborne stood proudly beside a prototype of the Presario 6000 as it displayed an eight-minute segment from a recent 3rd Rock From The Sun episode, downloaded from an NBC server in under 75 minutes.

lol

If you went to blockbuster, you could move 4.7 gb to your home in half the time (unless your family was involved in choosing the movie which would slow you down)

I remember when YouTube first appeared and my thought was "This is a really nice service. It's going to be a shame in a couple of years when it runs out of VC money and shuts down."

I also remember when they went through and re-encoded all of the videos so they could play on the original model iPhone.

It's a fad. I'm going long on Blockbuster.

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