Miro has just launched a new campaign to raise money to further the development of the Miro multi-platform online video distribution application. I decided to participate and give $4 a month, in return I get a dedicated web page where I can see my line of code grow. This is a very nice idea from Miro, and raises an often ignored issue: how to pay for the development of a big free software project that will benefit a lot of users but no big enterprise like IBM or Google?

In the case of browsers you have the possibility to sell you default homepage to Google, which will bring you money without costing a cent to your users, but for other application a stable revenue sources is not so easy to come by. Corporate sponsoring is always a possibility, but in the case of Miro this could generate some conflict of interest, as Miro position itself as a champion of open and independent media. The best remaining option is probably to request a donation. In a way this is logic, if we use the software and we want it to be independent, the best way is to pay for it ourselves.

In a world where ad sponsored television and websites has been the norm for decades this may be shocking, but this is not so bad if you take a minute to think about it. Let's compare Miro to iTunes:

- iTunes is entirely free to install, but only works on Mac OSX or Windows, if you want to use Linux you are out of luck, while Miro works on all 3 platforms. Why? because users want to watch their video podcasts on Linux, while Apple want it's users to watch them on OSX.

- When you open iTunes the user is greeted with advertisement for music in the iTunes store or other commercial content, then the user has to navigate to the podcast category. In Miro the users are greeted by the selection of the best new free podcasts (chosen by the Miro team). Under that banner is a list of the "most subscribed today" vodcasts of random category. Why: Miro want it's users to see the best free podcasts, Apple want you to purchase it's partner's content.

- In Miro the ranking of Video podcasts is based on the active subscribers to a stream. this is very clear. In iTunes we don't really know...

The conclusion is clear, if we want really free and open online media we will have to make some efforts to get it, whether it is through donations or by creating content ourselves in the form of a podcast or video. An open platform like Miro is even more important for independent video producers and podcasters because this is the main way for us to distribute our contents in a repeatable way, through RSS. Keeping that platform free and unbiased is critical and well worth a few dollars a month.

Blu-Ray: Not for the small video producer

We hear a lot of hype about Blu-ray these times, both from media companies and from financial analysts. However for the independent movie publisher and for the consumer that is not interested in big Hollywood productions Blu-ray is an epic fail for various reasons:

- Incompatibility issues: not all players seems to be compatible with all discs. This is especially true for recorded discs (that an independent is far more likely to use than pressed discs for reasons I will detail bellow). If you sell your media over the net you don't want to have discs returned because they won't play on someone player: avoid Blu-ray!

- Poor support platform: Pressed Blu-Ray disc are required to include the AACS copy protection scheme, however AACS compatible players don't exists for many platforms: No support on Macs, No support on Linux, hardware dependent support on Windows (it requires a compatible Video card), No support on Xbox etc... If you want something that everybody can play you are probably better providing an MP4 file than a Blu-ray!

- Production costs: Producing and mastering a Blu-Ray title cost an arm and a leg! You can either burn discs yourself at a cost of around $12 per media or have them duplicated at a cost of around $35 per media. Not only is this way too expensive, but this lead to compatibility issues as not all players are 100% compatible with burned disc, meaning a lot of returns. If you want to have your discs pressed (like Hollywood movies) the cost per disc falls to $3 per disc BUT you have to include AACS copy protection, which will cost you $3,000 + $1520 per project + 4 cents per disc. We are already around $5000 here. Add to that a License of $500 if you don't wish to use the Blu-ray Logo or $3000 if you wish to as well as the rental of the mastering software at $300 / month and you'll see that even for a small 1000 discs run you are well over $10.000 in initial investment.

This makes Blu-ray an epic fail for small publishers and consumers alike: it is impossible for independents to release their products on Blu-ray and it is impossible for consumers to buy anything but big Hollywood production. In light of this I would suggest to anyone that want to distribute paid-for HD content to look rather at digital distribution (like VUZE) or at DIVX rather than Blu-Ray.

Don't use Silverlight for online video!

I have just read that Microsoft is again pushing some online video streaming site to use Silverlight to cover major sporting events.

My problem with Silverlight is that it is not available on enough platforms, and that the version level varies depending said platform.

On windows and intel Macs it's on version 2, on Linux it's on version 1 and it is not available on non-intel mac and on the Wii. It is also available only for some browsers: Firefox, IE and maybe the Mac's native browser (I don't have a mac, so I can't confirm this). There is no support yet for Opera or Chrome.

Microsoft should first ensure that the Silverlight plugin is available on more platforms at a consistent level before pushing the technology in the mainstream, or it will antagonize the user and give the technology an image of "do not work" with the public.

The Olympics video coverage was a big debacle for Microsoft because it happened at the time when the Linux Netbooks were starting to be very popular as devices to watch online video and the Linux plugin was not yet ready, so the Olympics videos didn't play on these gadgets. This resulted in a black eye for NBC and a lot of people going to torrent sites and video sharing sites like youtube instead of NBC.

Recently I went to a site with my Linux Netbook and the site asked me to install the latest plugin, and redirected me to Moonlight (the Linux version of Silverlight), only after I had installed the plugin it still told me I was missing the plugin because it expected Silverlight 2, which is not yet available on Linux. The result: SILVERLIGHT DOESN'T WORK!

Flash on the other hand works on Linux and the Wii, meaning that Silverlight suffers badly in the comparison. This is one of the reasons I prefer Miro over iTunes: Miro also works on Linux.

If you use Silverlight to distribute your video online you will frustrate part of your potential audience, and that is not something you want to do (unless of course Microsoft is paying you good money to do it).