TechRadar: Video news

In Depth: How Sony is trying to save the world

James Rivington — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:37:00 GMT

How Sony is trying to save the world

Sony is famous for a lot of things.

Most recently it's been the launch of the PS Vita and some disappointing financial results that have been getting the headlines.

But one thing Sony hasn't had much coverage over is its work to reduce its impact on the environment.

Of course, any manufacturer of oil-based plastic products creates a sizeable carbon footprint but Sony has become a shining example to other electronics manufacturers by committing to completely eliminate its negative effect on the environment by 2050.

The road to zero

The story starts at Sony's 25-storey, 124,041 square metre Osaki Home Entertainment HQ in Tokyo. Unbelievably, it only took a single year to build.

It's the very first building of its kind to use a natural 'bioskin' cooling system, and TechRadar was lucky enough to be invited to visit earlier today.

The bioskin is made up of a network of porous ceramic pipes that are made using soil. Rain water is collected from the roof of the building throughout the year and during the hot Japanese summer, the water is pumped back up through the pipes on the outside of the building.

The water penetrates the ceramic and evaporates from the pipe surface, which cools the surrounding air by around 2 degrees. This shields the building from the sun's intense heat and reduces the load on the CO2-producing air conditioning systems inside the building.

It's the kind of cutting-edge green-thinking that Sony is applying to many of its consumer electronics projects.

TVs made from old DVDs

Sony has also recently developed a new material for its products which is made from 99% recycled plastic. The material is called SoRPlas and is made from recycling old products.

Discarded DVDs are blended up and the metal film from their surface is peeled away. The optical sheets from discarded LCD TVs are also shredded and the resultant shrapnel is blended with the DVD fragments. The strength and stiffness of the recycled plastic can be manipulated according to the proportions of the mix.

This mix is then added to some dye and a very small amount of flame-retardant to make the plastic fireproof, and the resulting material is a plastic that's every bit as good as more 'fresh' plastic.

Using this method, Sony is now able to build products like earphones and its packaging from 100% recycled plastic. It's also now being used to build the bezels of some of Sony's TVs, while 80% of the plastic used in the HDRTD20V 3D camcorder is made from this SoRPlas material already.

Using this material means 77.3% less CO2 is produced compared to conventional plastic, and the aim is to use SoRPlas to replace as much plastic as possible across all of Sony's many factories.

The first step in Sony's 'road to zero' is to harness the environmental benefits of SorPLas to reduce the company's resource consumption by 30 per cent and its CO2 emissions 20% by 2015.

Life cycles

But the goal extends beyond manufacturing. Sony's ultimate aim is to include product life cycles into the zero-emissions plan, which means building energy efficient, environmentally friendly products and packaging.

That means recycled materials wherever possible, eliminating the use of hazardous mercury, developing more efficient solar cells, increasing power efficiency in products, reducing the size of packaging and developing more environmentally friendly battery technologies.

Sony has already ceased production of old-style LCD TVs, with 100 per cent focus on more efficient LED tech. This also means sets can be thinner, using less materials - and has the further effect of requiring smaller boxes.

The bio batteries are also very interesting - they feed renewable glucose and oxygen to natural enzymes to generate electricity. This tech is a way off being used in your everyday smartphone, but it's being developed and looked at very optimistically.

While the zero emissions goal is still very far away, it's initiatives and innovations like these that will make future generations wonder what kind of barbaric tree-hating gas guzzlers we really were.

Will Amazon do away with Lovefilm?

Kate Solomon — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:39:00 GMT

Lovefilm's days may be numbered as speculation rises about Amazon creating a global video service.

Lovefilm is also shedding management. Last week, Lovefilm's CEO Simon Calver stepped down, while today it emerges that the company's chief technology officer, Mike Blakemore, is leaving to join the Guardian.

That might not sound like much, but two of a business's top brass ditching Lovefilm within a week is pretty dodgy going for any company.

Two step

This staffing shuffle has led some to speculate that Lovefilm's days as a stand alone brand may be numbered – it has already been bought by Amazon and the latest thinking is that the retail behemoth will completely absorb it in the near future.

Amazon has already been bolstering its US streaming service as it steps up the fight against Netflix and adds to its Kindle Fire media arsenal. And you can bet that it'll want to bring all its streaming products under one banner at some point.

At that point, Lovefilm would cease to be. The question is, is that point coming soon?

Amazon set to tackle Netflix with standalone video service

Chris Smith — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 03:25:00 GMT

Amazon is reportedly on the verge of announcing a streaming deal with Viacom, which could signal the launch of a standalone video on demand offering.

According to Reuters, Viacom which owns MTV, Comedy Central, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon, has agreed to license its content to the Amazon and a deal will be announced soon.

That deal could be the final piece in the puzzle for Amazon to go full-steam ahead with the heavily-tipped VoD subscription service.

The company, which already has deals in place with the likes of Warner Bros, Fox, Sony, NBC and other top networks, currently offers its content library free to members of its $79-a-year home delivery service.

However, Amazon wants to offer the service to non-Prime members (probably for a monthly fee), in order to boost the Amazon Kindle Fire's content library, according to the Reuters article.

Look out, Netflix

An Amazon Prime monthly subscription service would put the company in direct competition with the current kingpin of home streaming, Netflix.

Netflix, which endured a largely forgettable 2011, is seeing more and more competitors arrive on the scene looking for a piece of the lucrative streaming pie.

Earlier this week we reported on the new alliance between Verizon and Redbox, which will see the companies launch a new service which will combine access to Redbox's disc rental kiosks and an all-new on-demand offering from Verizon.

With Apple and Google also pressing for a chunk of the action, Netflix is going to have to be on top of its game in 2012 to maintain the lion's share of the market.

Explained: WHDI: what it is and why you should care

Gary Marshall — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:43:00 GMT

WHDI: what you need to know

The Lenovo IdeaPad S2 tablet, shown off at CES 2012, has an interesting trick up its sleeve: wireless HD streaming courtesy of integrated WHDI.

WHDI, which is short for Wireless Home Digital Interface, promises to deliver wire-free HD streaming without lag, hassle or unnecessary expense - so does it work? Will you want it?

And how does it compare to the other four hundred wireless HD standards currently competing for the hearts, minds and living rooms of the world? Let's find out.

WIRELESS WONDER? WHDI promises to cut the cables from your home entertainment kit

WHDI is designed to make your life easy

The idea behind WHDI is simple enough: HD home entertainment without the hassle of home entertainment cabling or drilling through walls when you want to stream content to other rooms.

With WHDI, you'll be able to connect your Blu-Ray player, tablet or any other device in the same way you'd add Wi-Fi kit to your home network.

The current WHDI standard is the second generation of the technology; the first generation got lots of press coverage in 2009 and 2010 but didn't really amount to much.

WHDI does HD and 3D TV

Operating in the 5GHz frequency band, WHDI can stream uncompressed HD at up to 1080p resolution, with support for 3D TV and 5.1 surround sound too.

WHDI isn't Wireless HDMI

That's a different standard altogether, from the Wireless Gigabit Alliance. Inevitably, the two technologies don't talk to one another.

WHDI isn't WIHD

Guess what? That's yet another standard!

WHDI isn't WiDi

You can probably guess where this one is going. Yep, that's different too: WiDi is Intel's short-range wireless telly tech.

WHDI range is reasonably short

WHDI isn't designed to chuck HD video over huge distances: it's a short-range technology that runs out of puff at around 100 feet (30m). It doesn't require line of sight connections, though, so you can hide any adapters behind the TV.

WHDI tablets are pretty nifty

Lenovo's WHDI tablet isn't noticeably different from other seven-inch Android devices, so adding WHDI clearly doesn't add any bulk. It's not a huge battery hog either, and the demo shown off at CES 2012 appeared to work well without any noticeable lag. Lenovo's WHDI tablet mirrored its display, so anything you did on the tablet - not just video, but games and apps too - appeared on the TV.

WHDI TVs aren't out yet

If you're waiting for us to mention dongles, wait no more: as yet there aren't any commercially available TVs with integrated second-generation WHDI - they're coming, but you can't buy them yet - so for now you'll need an adapter such as HP's Wireless TV Connect with WHDI. This $199 device uses WHDI to stream HD content from your PC to your TV.

WHDI says DEATH TO ALL CABLES

We're quite taken with Belkin's Screencast AV4 Wireless, which uses WHDI to connect four audiovisual devices to your TV without any of the usual spaghetti junction stuff.

WHDI prices are reasonably low, but they'll get lower

We've already mentioned the $199 HP kit, while the Belkin Screencast is $249.99. That's not bad for a brand new technology, and of course like all other tech you'll see prices fall the more popular and established WHDI becomes.

WHDI has lots of pals

It looks like WHDI is gathering momentum: WHDI members now include not just creator AMIMON but also LG, Motorola, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, HP and Hitachi, and products have been announced by the likes of Belkin and Asus too.

However, it's worth pointing out that many of the same names are also supporters of Wireless HD too. With multiple technologies promising much the same thing, it might be an idea to sit back and wait for a victor - or at least, interoperability between rival standards - to emerge before committing any of your cash.

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Redbox buys NCR Corp, takes over Blockbuster kiosks

Chris Smith — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:29:00 GMT

Redbox completed the biggest day in the company's history on Monday by announcing it has bought the rival NCR Corporation, which runs the Blockbuster Express kiosks.

The company, owned by Coinstar, has paid $100m for all of NCR's entertainment assets and takes control of the 9,000 rental kiosks owned by the company.

It now also owns all of the retail contracts and disc inventory in a move which further boosts Redbox's penetration in the cheap, nightly disc rental market.

It's a pretty safe bet that all Blockbuster Express kiosks will now be re-branded as Redbox services, following NCR's own purchase of the kiosk arm of Blockbuster's failing business last year.

The acquisition is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2012 and will give Redbox a monopoly on the in-store kiosk market.

Huge day for Redbox

The announcement follows confirmation that Redbox and Verizon have signed an agreement to launch a new service which combines an on-demand offering with physical disc rentals.

The partnership, which will launch in the second quarter of this year, will take on Netflix by offering subscriptions to streaming and disc packages.

In Depth: Best free video converter: 12 on test

Mike Williams — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:36:00 GMT

Best free video converter: 1-6

AVI, MOV, MPEG, FLV, MKV, MP4 - videos come in many different formats. Each of which can then vary in a raft of subtle ways.

Which would be just fine if every application and device could handle every possible format, but of course that isn't the case.

And so often you'll find you've downloaded a movie to your PC, phone or tablet, but either it has major playback problems - no picture or sound, say - or you can't watch the clip at all.

This doesn't have to hold you up for long, though. There are plenty of free video conversion tools which can quickly import movies in just about any format, perhaps tweak them in useful ways (change the resolution, maybe carry out basic editing operations), and export them in formats you can actually use.

And if you're aiming to view the clip on a mobile device then some of these programs can be incredibly easy to use. They'll often include a library of presets for common devices, so if you want to export a video to an iPhone 4, say, you won't have to manually tweak every possible setting.

Just choose the iPhone 4 preset and the program will automatically configure itself to produce the precise format you need.

The only real problem is that there are now so many free video conversion tools that you might be left wondering, which is best? We're curious, too - so we decided to pitch 12 popular packages against each other in an effort to find out.

NOTE: While these tools are free, many now include browser toolbars and similar addons. If you'd rather not install these, don't just keep clicking Next during the setup process: read each screen carefully. Choose "Custom" installation options where they're offered, and clear the checkboxes next to any "bonus extras" which you'd rather not have on your system.

Best free video converter: How we tested

Our first measurement of video conversion tool quality comes in looking at its features. How many formats can it import and export, for instance? Do these cover all the options you'll need?

We checked to make sure that you can carry out basic tweaks during the conversion process, like changing the video resolution. And we awarded extra marks for bonus features, such as the ability to edit the source video before converting it.

Video editing can be a complicated, jargon-packed process, so we were also interested in ease of use. We wanted our conversion tools to provide access to low-level conversion options (sometimes that's very useful), but these should never get in your way.

Our utilities should ideally provide sensible default settings at all times, and device presets as well, so you can export to, say, an iPad 2 just by selecting it from a list.

And as converting videos can take a very long time, performance is particularly important. To measure this, we gave each conversion tool four tests.

Starting with the source files from Big Buck Bunny, we converted the 1080p surround-sound AVI to 320x240 WMV; tried transcoding the 480p MOV to MP4 (vital as that's such an important format these days); and converted the 320x180 MP4 file to both FLV and MPEG2.

And while these tests don't cover every possibility, they provided a great deal of very useful information. So read on to discover which conversion tools you really need to consider, and the programs you should avoid at all costs.

1. Any Video Converter Free 3.3.2

Compatible with: Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7

Video conversion tools can sometimes be scary, complex, intimidating - but not this one. If your needs are basic then you can just drag in your files, choose the output format you need from the wide selection on offer, click "Convert Now!", and the program will go to work. It's all very easy.

There's also plenty of power here, though. Any Video Converter Free can download videos directly from YouTube, Google, MetaCafe and so on, for instance. Handy editing options include the ability to trim and crop footage, and apply useful special effects (sharpen, reduce noise, tweak brightness or contrast). And once you've chosen an output profile then you can customise a few of its settings, perhaps choosing a new resolution, frame rate, bit rate and so on.

Performance was a little disappointing, especially considering that Any Video Converter is (like many similar programs) mostly just a front end for the excellent FFMPEG conversion library. Only two programs were slower in the important MP4 conversion test, and the others weren't quick, either.

And there was another problem. The program includes a "Burning to DVD" profile which is supposed to burn your videos to DVD when the conversion is over, but just gave us an error message.

This is a pity, because Ant Video Converter is well designed and had lots of useful functionality. It only offers limited control over the conversion process, so video experts may want to look elsewhere, but if you're more interested in ease of use and can put up with the below-par performance then this could be an acceptable choice.

We liked

Easy to use, downloads from YouTube, useful video editing features, supports many input/ output formats

We disliked

Only limited control over the video conversion, DVD burning didn't work for us, disappointing performance

2. Free Studio 5.3.3

Compatible with: Windows XP, Vista, 7

Free Studio is a suite of 45 freeware tools to handle all kinds of video-related tasks: downloading, ripping, burning, and of course converting clips from one format to another.

A front end menu tries to integrate all these, but it still takes some exploration to find what you need. Once discovered the relevant tools, though, they follow the usual route: import your chosen videos, choose the appropriate output format or device, and convert at a click.

If Free Studio doesn't provide a profile to suit your needs, then it's possible to configure a new one. So if you need to create 1024x768 AVIs, say, then in a click or two you can build a profile which uses that resolution, and in future you'll be able to simply select it from the list. Which is handy, although there are only very few tweaks available within a profile: video frame rate, bit rate, resolution, audio sample rate, bit rate, the number of audio channels, and, well, that's it. (You can't even choose the audio codec, typically - the program selects what's appropriate for the format.)

When it comes to performance, the story is mixed: Free Studio did very well in the important MP4 conversion tests, but was poor at creating FLVs, and couldn't produce an MPEG2 file at all.

And so if you're looking for real video conversion power this Free Studio probably won't be good enough. But if you only need to convert videos occasionally, maybe to MP4, then Free Studio may deliver exactly what you need (and its ease of use and host of extras are a welcome bonus.)

We liked

Well designed, many extras (download, ripping, burning tools), good MP4 conversion speed

We disliked

conversion functions are inconveniently split across several programs, only limited conversion tweaks, slow FLV export, failed to create MP2 file

3. Format Factory 2.80

Compatible with: Windows XP, Vista, 7

Format Factory offers a good balance between ease of use and video conversion power. It's easy to get started: you can choose the type of file you'd like to create, add some videos to be converted, and pick your required output settings. But you also just get a little more control over those settings than in some of the more basic tools here.

When creating an MP4 movie, for instance, you can choose the encoding option (DivX, XviD, H264); the video resolution; frame rate, audio codec, sample rate, volume and more, even rotating the image, or adding subtitles or a watermark, if you like.

But if you're in a hurry, no problem, the program also provides multiple profiles which configure all your settings in a click. The MP4 conversion, for instance, has 27, with descriptive names like "Mobile Device Compatible 320x240 MPEG4", so it's easy to find what you need. (And if for some reason it isn't, then you can easily create new profiles to do whatever you want.)

Performance wasn't bad, either, with Format Factory scoring well on our HD to MP4 and WMV tests, although its inability to run our MP4 to FLV conversion dragged its mark down.

The programs mix of usability with plenty of advanced conversion tweaks does mean it's worth a look, though. And as a bonus, there are plenty of extra options, including the ability to create animated GIFs from movies, extract video soundtracks, convert audio and image files, rip DVDs and CDs, and more.

We liked

Advanced conversion options, plenty of built-in conversion presets, watermark and subtitling support, bonus audio/ image/ other conversion types, good MP4/ WMV output performance

We disliked

Failed to convert one test file

4. Freemake Video Converter 3.0.1

Compatible with: Windows XP, Vista, 7

If you need your conversion tool to support the widest possible range of formats then Freemake Video Converter could be ideal: it supports a lengthy list of video types, as well as being able to import audio files, images, DVDs, even YouTube URLs.

Once your movies have been imported, you're able to remove sections you don't need via a simple video editor. There's a useful option to set a limit on the maximum size of your movie, or you might choose to import a series of files, but then join them together so they're saved as a single video.

Export support for files is a little more basic, being mostly limited to the essentials, and you can only tweak a few elements of your chosen format (codec, resolution, frame rate, audio and video bitrate, sample rate, channels).

Exporting to mobile devices is better, however, with support for many Apple, Nokia, Samsung, Blackberry and other device types (there are even pictures of many phones, rather than just the model names, to help you choose). Choose the appropriate device and the program will automatically configure itself to produce compatible videos: all you have to do is click Convert and watch it happen.

And you won't be watching long, as Freemake Video Converter delivers marginally above-average performance, not least because of its CUDA support.

A few more output formats would be welcome, then, as would some more advanced conversion tweaks. But that's really just nit-picking: Freemake Video Converter is an excellent tool which already has more than enough power to satisfy most people's transcoding needs.

We liked

Wide input file format support, lots of device export options, simple video editor, can limit converted video size, reasonable performance, easy to use

We disliked

Output file format support is limited, can only tweak a few aspects of the converted videos

5. Handbrake 0.9.5

Compatible with: Windows XP, Vista, 7, Mac OSX, Linux

HandBrake is probably the oldest of our crop of conversion tools, having been around since 2003. And it's also one of the more specialised, being best at transcoding videos to run on Apple devices. The program can only export MP4 and MKV files, for example, and its output presets are mostly Apple related (iPod, iPhone, iPad and so on).

As long as your target device plays MP4 files, though (and most do), this doesn't have to be a major problem. And HandBrake does enable you to customise the video conversion process in many different ways, which could be appealing if you find the competition a little too basic.

Once you've selected your source files, for instance, you can of course choose the output resolution, video and audio codecs, frame rates and so on. But there are also options to crop the source footage, add subtitles, or include extra audio tracks. You can include chapter markers, or apply some useful cleanup filters (Detelecine, Decomb, Deinterlace, Denoise, Deblock). And real experts can access many low-level encoding and analysis details via the Advanced tab.

What you don't get here are spectacular conversion speeds, unfortunately: Handbrake's MP4 output performance remained resolutely average in our tests (although perhaps it could be improved if you spend time tuning the program's more advanced settings). Still, if you need lots of encoding options, and can live with the meagre selection of output formats, then Handbrake may still be a reasonable transcoding choice.

We liked

Many useful editing options and video filters, advanced encoding and analysis tweaks

We disliked

Only exports MP4 and MKV files, average conversion speeds

6. Internet Video Converter HD

Compatible with: Windows XP, Vista, 7

If there were awards given for horrible interfaces then Internet Video Converter HD (IVC HD) would be an obvious candidate. It's a cluttered mess, confusing and poorly laid out, and will quickly have you wishing you'd downloaded a more conventional tool, instead. The program has received quite a few positive reviews, though, and once you get past the dubious design decisions then a few plus points do emerge.

IVC HD can download videos from YouTube and 12 other video sharing sites, for instance. It's able to create Flash files (FLV or SWF) from your videos, and can generate the HTML to host them. Editing options include the ability to trim, rotate, deinterlace or sharpen your source footage, and converting HD footage from one format to another is simplified by a convenient set of built-in presets: just choose the one which matches your needs and you'll be ready to go.

The basic conversion process isn't too difficult to follow, either, once you've tried it a few times. Choose your input video, pick an output format, customise a few settings and click Convert: even if the developer is entirely clueless about interface design, the core procedure is just the same as with more normal tools.

Performance isn't quite as good as you'll get elsewhere, however, with the program delivering marginally below average conversion speeds in our tests. And so, if you really need the video downloading feature, or you want to generate Flash files (SWF) with matching HTML then IVC HD might be worth a try, just about. But otherwise we'd recommend you ignore it entirely

We liked

Handy HD conversion presets, downloads online videos from many sites, can generate HTML for Flash files, some basic editing options

We disliked

Dreadful interface, below average performance

Best free video converter: 7-12

7. KoyoteSoft Free Video Converter 3.1.0.0

Compatible with: Windows XP, Vista, 7

At first glance, Free Video Converter doesn't look like the most impressive of transcoding tools. File format support is limited, for instance; you can only tweak the most basic aspects of the output video (codec, resolution, frame rate, bitrate and so on); and there's nothing like the bonus features you'll get with some of the more powerful competition.

Try a few conversions, though, and the program will soon seem more appealing. Importing videos is just a matter of dragging and dropping, for instance (and it supports all the formats most people will ever need). There are lots of presets available for various devices (Apple, Android, Sony, BlackBerry, Xbox and more). And while there's only one editing tool, it's perhaps the most important, allowing you to trim unwanted footage from the start and end of your clip.

There are also some issues, though. And the major one is performance. The program proved particularly slow in our HD conversion tests, and the other times weren't great, either. While elsewhere, minor irritations included the lack of a local help file, always an issue when you're dealing with such a complex topic. And an interface quick means you can't manually type the video bitrate you require into the program (you're bizarrely forced to use assorted buttons and a slider, instead).

Free Video Converter scores highly for its ease of use, then, and if you only occasionally need to run simple conversions of small files then it may be good enough. If you're after power or performance, though, the program will probably disappoint.

We liked

Easy to use, lots of device presets, video trimmer

We disliked

Relatively limited file format support, some interface quirks, poor HD transcoding performance

8. MediaCoder 2011 R10

Compatible with: Windows XP, Vista, 7

If your video conversion needs are complex, and only the most powerful tool will do, then start by downloading a copy of MediaCoder 2011 - it's packed with functions and features.

The program doesn't just import all the main video formats, for instance: it can also download streaming videos, read CDs and DVDs, connect to video capture devices, and more.

In-depth editing options then allow you to trim and crop your footage; tweak levels, brightness, contrast, saturation, hue and gamma; and apply filters to deinterlace, denoise, deblock, dering and otherwise enhance your footage.

You can then output to all the usual video formats. And not just using whatever settings the developer thought best. MediaCoder gives you access to an incredible number of options, probably more than you ever realised existed (the Advanced XviD section currently contains 39 settings all on its own).

And smart optimisations, along with support for CUDA and Intel video acceleration technologies, helps to ensure that MediaCoder delivers the best possible performance. It was the fastest in our tests by a large margin.

With all this power comes a degree of complexity, unsurprisingly. The author has tried to combat this by providing a wizard and some simplified device-specific interfaces to help configure MediaCoder's key settings, but it's still trickier to use than most of the competition.

If you'll use the program's extra power, though, don't let that put you off. It doesn't take too long to master the MediaCoder basics, and your efforts will be handsomely rewarded by its powerful features, extreme configurability and great performance.

And if you must have something simpler, check out the program's website: there are simpler, more specialised versions of MediaCoder (for Apple devices, say, or mobile phones) which deliver similar performance but are much easier to use.

We liked

Wide input format support, powerful editing, vast range of conversion settings and tweaks, excellent performance, straightforward configuration wizard

We disliked

Interface can be intimidating, relatively complex to use

9. Miro Video Converter 2.5

Compatible with: Windows XP, Vista, 7

Throughout these tests we've been giving extra marks to programs which allow us to tweak the video conversion process, change various advanced settings to produce the precise results we need. But if you don't care about any of that, and just want the easiest conversion tool you can find, then Miro could be interesting.

The program really is very simple to use. All you have to do is drag and drop a file onto it (all the major formats are supported), choose an output preset (Apple and Android devices are covered, along with the PSP and basic MP4/ WebM/ Theora options) click Convert, and that's it: Miro will begin converting your movie right away.

This simplicity does mean the program has plenty of limitations, though. You can't tweak the resolution or frame rate, for example. There's no talk of codecs here, no editor, no configurable sample or bit rates. You can't add additional presets for your own devices.

It's not even possible to process more than one file at a time, so if you've ten files to convert then you'll have to drag and drop them individually.

Still, conversion speeds proved acceptable, with the program ranking fourth out of twelve in our MP4 export test. And so, if you occasionally need to convert a single video to play on your iPad, say, then Miro will get the job done fairly quickly and with the absolute minimum of hassle.

If you'd like wider format support, more (or any) conversion tweaks and a few video editing options, though, then move along to the next program: you won't find any of those items here.

We liked

good input format support, drag and drop simplicity, above average MP4 export performance

We disliked

no configuration options at all, no editing tools, very few output formats, can't add new presets

//score//

58%

10. Quick Media Converter HD 4.5.0.0

Compatible with: Windows XP, Vista, 7

Quick Media Converter HD does its best to create a good first impression by opening in an "Easy Mode", with minimal conversion options and plenty of bright, colourful icons. But it's not long before you realise that "Easy Mode" isn't really so easy, at all.

The program tells you to drag and drop your input videos, for instance, but that didn't work for us. Many of the presets are confusing, basic and inconsistent. And while "Easy Mode" includes resizing and "bit rate select" buttons, most of the time they don't work, either.

Switching to HD Mode is a little better, in that you can choose from some common target HD resolutions.

But then Expert Mode introduces new problems, in that it allows you to create all kinds of impossible combinations (like converting videos to GIF files using the H264 codec). Presumably they're hoping experts will choose more sensibly, but a little help from the interface would still be welcome.

And other interface irritations include the horribly basic integrated video player, which doesn't have a progress bar, so you can only play clips from the beginning - there's no option to jump ahead.

Still, at least Quick Media Converter HD uses FFmpeg to convert your files, so we thought conversion performance would be acceptable. But no, it turned out the program wasn't great here, either. It did reasonably well on our small file tests, but when converting HD files Quick Media Converter HD was clearly outperformed by most of the competition.

So whether you want simplicity, advanced controls or reliably speedy conversions, Quick Media Converter HD just doesn't deliver - give the program a miss.

We liked

Colourful interface, multiple operating modes, lots of device presets, reasonable SD encoding performance

We disliked

Poorly designed, often confusing and difficult to use, feeble video player, below average HD conversion speeds

11. SUPER 2011.49

Compatible with: Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7

While many video conversion tools try to hide their more involved settings, SUPER displays them up front, cramming its opening screen with more options than some of the competition have in total. And that can be a little intimidating, if you're a transcoding novice.

In reality, though, the settings are sensibly grouped, leading you through the various options you need to take: choose an output file format, a video and audio codec, select a resolution, frame and bit rates, and so on. You're able to drag and drop a bunch of files onto the program, and with a single click SUPER will then try to process them all.

Whether it'll succeed is another matter. SUPER uses popular tools like FFmpeg to handle the conversions, so they really ought to be reliable, but it did give us errors on some conversions (and we've no idea why).

The real problem here is the horrible performance, though, particularly in the HD conversion tests, where SUPER trailed way behind everyone else. (Putting this into perspective, MediaCoder was more than 17 times faster in our MOV > MP4 benchmark.)

It's a shame, because SUPER does have lots of interesting features: it can import streaming videos (rtsp, mms, http), understands playlists (asx, m3u, pls, wmx), and includes many advanced configuration options. In our view that's not enough to make up for the dire performance, though, and so you'll be better off looking elsewhere.

We liked

Imports streaming videos, lots of advanced configuration options, supports plenty of input and output formats

We disliked

Interface isn't the best, poor performance, various quirks and irritations

12. XMedia Recode 3.0.6.0

Compatible with: Windows XP, Vista, 7

XMedia Recode made a good impression from the moment we launched it, thanks to a clear and well-designed interface which for the most part works just as you'd expect.

Here's a box for your input files, for instance, and of course you can drag and drop whatever videos you like there. If your needs are simple then you can get by with just choosing an output format or device profile from the huge selection on offer. And if you need more, then the program organises more advanced conversion tweaks under various tabs so they're easy to find.

It's true, some of these are, well a little obscure ("Offset between I and P-frame Quants"). But there are plenty of more accessible settings here, too, with options to help you resize, crop, colour correct, deblock, denoise, deinterlace, sharpen and otherwise improve your source footage. It's an impressive package.

One small issue is that your list of imported videos can't be converted directly. You must set up the output format you need, select the files and choose the "Add Job" option before the Encode button becomes available, which isn't immediately obvious. The program doesn't have any English language help, either, so if you don't understand something then you're out of luck. And HD encoding performance was below average.

Conversion speeds in our other tests proved more acceptable, though, and the mix of powerful functionality with an easy-to-use interface gives XMedia Recode a lot of appeal. If you're a mid-level user who needs access to advanced conversion tweaks, but only occasionally, then this could be the ideal solution.

We liked

clear interface, vast array of device profiles, wide file format support, many useful filters/ editing options/ advanced configuration tweaks

We disliked

No English language help, below average performance in our HD AVI > WMV test

Conclusion

Which is the best video conversion tool, then? What our tests reveal is there's no one package which will suit every need, and the best program for you will depend very much on your requirements.

If you just want to convert the occasional video to play on a mobile device, for instance, and don't want any conversion complexities at all, then Miro should appeal. Drag and drop a file, choose your device, click a button and that's it: there's nothing quite as simple here, and its MP4 creation performance isn't bad, either.

Most people will want more power and configuration options, though, and the best all-round combination of power and ease of use is to be found in Freemake Video Converter, our pick for the novice and casual video conversion user. The interface is clean and well designed, it supports lots of input and output formats, there are useful extras, and while performance isn't the best, it's perfectly acceptable.

If you need more control over your output video, though, the next step up is XMedia Recode. Performance isn't so great, but the program makes a host of advanced settings available, while an excellent interface ensures it remains generally easy to use.

Our highest score has to go to MediaCoder, though. It's more complex than the other tools here, but if you're a confident PC user then you'll quickly master the basics. And what you'll get in return is access to more video conversion tweaks than you ever knew existed, and performance which effortlessly outstrips the competition in just about every department: it really is a staggeringly powerful tool.

In Depth: Why the future of TV is gesture controlled

Jamie Carter — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:00:00 GMT

Beyond the remote control: using gestures

Who needs buttons and onscreen menus when our hands and feet lay idle?

It was the Nintendo Wii that first got us moving, before augmented reality apps and games-stuffed smartphones had us waving them in a ridiculous figure-of-eight, but so far the humble television has remained stoically still.

As the dust settles on CES 2012 that's all set to change, with the big TV brands revealing in Las Vegas that motion sensors will be embedded in upcoming smart TVs of the very near future.

The rise of new two-way IPTV services on both smart TVs and set top boxes looks set to bring not just point-and-click Wii-style remotes, but gesture recognition to control web surfing, app-based games, and to navigate TV schedules.

Smart TVs already exist, of course, but the jury is out on exactly how clever they really are. Many TVs can be networked, though the viewing of videos on YouTube and BBC iPlayer, perhaps with a virtual remote app on a smartphone, is about as interesting as most of them get.

Basic gesture control

Content is ever-changing, but it's the way we use TVs that will change most in the next five years. Hand gestures require only a cheap webcam, while voice control is becoming more accurate; the dashboard of an Xbox 360 fitted with a Kinect can now be controlled with spoken instructions after virtually no training, and it's coming to Windows PCs soon.

Samsung and LG revealed their new ranges of TVs will indeed feature 'intuitive' control. That used to mean a well thought-out remote, but now requires a conversation with a TV.

On Samsung's upcoming top-of-the-line Smart LED 8000 series launched this Spring – as well as on its 55-inch dual core Super OLED TV due later this year – we'll see a built-in high definition camera that's able to recognise movement in the foreground, with two unidirectional microphones that can, claims Samsung, accurately recognise and interpret voice instructions even amid high levels of background noise.

Saying 'Hi TV' will activate voice control, for example, while uttering 'web browser' will … well, you get the picture. Gestures will play a part too; just pointing a hand at the TV can change the volume. We expect it not only to work with the TV's main user interface, but with specific apps, too.

"The TV is the heart of our homes and is the central device that connects our family at the end of a long day," said Robert King, Head of Consumer Electronics at Samsung UK & Ireland. "For Samsung this means providing the future of Smart TV now through new TVs that recognise and respond to you."

Lucky us. If Samsung's gesture tech uses a camera akin to the Xbox 360's Kinect, it appears that the other big hitters are concentrating on keeping the remote control firmly in play. Sony's Bravias will have a voice in this new market with a hard-button remote control – just the thing Samsung and Microsoft are trying to ditch – that carries the microphone, alongside a QWERTY keyboard.

Sony's Chairman and CEO Sir Howard Stringer recently spoke about 'a new kind of television', but he was probably talking about Crystal LED – a new screen tech rather than a way of interacting with content. LG is also pinning its hopes on an upgrade of its Nunchuk-style Magic Remote, which in Las Vegas was revealed to now feature voice recognition tech, and there are others busily innovating new handsets.

Already in use

Movea's MoveTV system, a point-and-click remote control that also deals in gestures, is being used by FREE in France, the largest IPTV provider in the world, as well as other remote control designers and makers. The user draws virtual circles, squares, lines, numbers and letters in the air using the remote to control various functions on the TV.

"The future of TV and home entertainment is changing dramatically, with a wide variety of content now all becoming available to the large screen in the lounge – DVDs, set-top boxes, the web, and cable," says Dave Rothenberg, the Worldwide Marketing Manager at Movea.

"The traditional design of remote control, with four directional control buttons, is being replaced with a new generation of motion-enabled remotes that provide not only pixel-accurate cursor positioning to rapidly navigate through menus, but also motion-enabled interactivity for gaming without consoles." Now that does sound interesting, though we're sure Sony and Microsoft are a step ahead in terms of their next-gen consoles.

Those concentrating on hand movements rather than voice will, we suspect, have more success; anyone who's used a Nintendo Wii will have no problem with hand gestures, but talking to a TV? The novelty soon wears off; in our experience on the Xbox360 that happens just after it becomes apparent that only five or six stock phrases can be used.

CLASSIC MOVES: Does the Wiimote point to the future of TV remote control?

Why are the big TV manufacturers suddenly embracing voice and gesture control, despite the tech having been around for a while? The answer is Apple; press talk about the high possibility of what's being called its Apple iTV smart TV product has sent shockwaves throughout an industry that fears it could soon be severely degraded by the appearance of a smart TV that truly lives up to the name.

So far, the only thing that's saved the rather conservative TV manufacturers has been that, unlike a smartphone, people don't change their TV very often – about once every six or seven years, in fact.

Details are light, but it's thought that Apple will offer voice and gesture control, and strike content deals around the world to offer domestic customers their TV diet exclusively over a broadband Internet connection. Already the owner of the rights to NHL, NBA, and MLB in the US, it's been reported that Apple could bid for rights to Premier League footie. In the long run might satellite dishes and TV aerials disappear from city skylines?

Probably, and though debut efforts will be expensive, gesture tech seems essential if the truly smart, connected TV is to take-off.

Netflix ends tough 2011 with strong Q4

Chris Smith — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:03:00 GMT

Netflix has drawn a line under a gaffe-ridden and tricky 2011 by bouncing back with strong Q4 figures, while adding to its streaming subscriber base.

The company acquired 220,000 new streaming customers in the last three months of the year, bringing the total to 21.67 million - each of which watched an average of 30 hours of content per month.

DVD customers shrank by 2.76 million to 11.2 million, but that fall was lower than expectations since the company separated its disc and streaming packages and seemingly lost interest in the former.

The DVD business still brought the company more than half of its profits, putting Netflix $192m in the red, while streaming brought in an improved $52 billion in profits.

Annus horribilis

In 2012 Netflix plans to expand its offerings internationally, while the company's first original series will arrive next month for disc and streaming customers.

The home entertainment giant will be glad to see the back of 2011 after a series of ill-conceived ideas alienated many subscribers and brought a sharp halt to its meteoric rise as the king of rentals.

Last summer the company decided to split its DVD and streaming businesses, which involved a 60 price hike to stay subscribed to both.

Then, in a move which led many to believe it was deliberately sabotaging the disc division, it decided to rename it 'Qwikster,' although that didn't last too long.

Vimeo's drastic new redesign revealed

Kate Solomon — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:00:00 GMT

Vimeo, the thinking man's YouTube, has just undergone its biggest ever redesign and its first since 2007. It's been a year's worth of work and a mammoth undertaking that's seen the site rebuilt from the ground up, and today it enters a closed beta.

That means that some of you will be lucky enough to try the swish new site out, but most of us will be languishing on the old version for a couple more months.

But never fear - Vimeo let TechRadar peek behind the curtain so we can show you all the design delights you've got to look forward to.

Clean and clear

The inbox is much cleaner and makes it much clearer to see what videos are listed and why – Vimeo has taken a blog-like approach and it works really well.

By far our favourite new feature is the video ticker that is sneakily hidden away at the top of each page. The cute kaleidoscopic header slides out when you click 'more videos' and offers you a bunch of video recommendations, a playlist of videos you've liked, as well as quick access to your feed and your 'watch later' list.

It's smooth, clean and convenient. When you're sick of it, just hit 'hide videos' and it'll be as though it was never there.

Vimeo is all about the videos, though. So when you go to a clip page to watch a video (like the utterly excellent Star Wars Uncut), all the extra clutter has been swept away. You get the video, the synopsis and not much else at first glance.

Options and navigation are hidden in drop-down menus across the header and under the player. Very clean and very tidy. Stoppit and Tidyup would be proud.

Other handy new features include improved search, which will allow you to use voice recognition in Chrome as well as advanced search functions that allow you to filter by license types, video length etc - it's going to be really handy for videographers.

Finding new videos has always been a bit of a pain, so while the search improvements are welcome, we'd like to see a more sentient recommendations service. At present, Vimeo uses similar tags and relevant channels to make suggestions; something more algorithmic like Last.fm's recommendation service would be amazing.

New Vimeo will also allow you to upload multiple files in the redesign, which means you can set it to work uploading your trilogy of Tarantino homages, go out and shoot the fourth part, and come back to find them all online.

A redesigned website might not seem like groundbreaking news, but Vimeo's 65 million users are going to love it. (Interesting fact: London is its largest city in terms of users.)

The comparisons with YouTube are inevitable, but the two sites have grown into very different beasts. Where YouTube scrambles to make money from adverts, premium content by jamming as much content on to a page as possible, Vimeo aims to let the video shine. And the redesign, which manages to retain all of the site's quirky coolness, does just that.

The closed beta will run until all the bugs are caught and quashed, with a projected launch date of the end of Q1/early Q2 (March/April).

Video: Best tech of CES 2012

Marc Chacksfield — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:05:00 GMT

With CES over for another year and the digital dust finally settled, we have decided to cut through the mountain of product releases to bring you the Best tech of CES.

CES 2012 won't go down in history as the best tech show on the planet as there wasn't really one product which stood out. Instead it was product lines like Ultrabooks and OLED TVs which grabbed the headlines.

But that's not to say there weren't some outstanding gadgets on show – just check our video to find out to more.

brightcove : 1399303301001

Opinion: Will Netflix vs Lovefilm drive you to piracy?

Kate Solomon — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:48:00 GMT

The launch of Netflix into the UK last week has no doubt left plenty of Brits agonising over which service to go for: Lovefilm or Netflix? Annoyingly, the ideal answer is both.

What I want from my movie streaming service is everything I might ever feel like watching available for me to watch it whenever I want. What I really don't want is to discover that the one thing I feel like watching is available on the one service I don't subscribe to.

Until last week, this wasn't too much of a problem. Amazon-owned Lovefilm had the subscription streaming market pretty much to itself in the UK – sure, you could rent films from BlinkBox and Apple, but that wasn't quite the same.

Now there are two major services going head to head – a bit of extra competition is a good thing, we thought. And when the Netflix launch saw Lovefilm instantly drop its streaming prices, we thought we were right.

Lovefilx

But as time wears on, it becomes less awesome and more annoying. Both Netflix and Lovefilm are scrambling to snap up content deals to out-do the other. While the business thinking behind this may be sound – offering something the other guy hasn't got – it's frustrating for the actual users of the services.

At the moment, Lovefilm has exclusive streaming rights to Studiocanal's movies – that will include Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy when it's released. It also has a five-year deal with Entertainment One in the UK, including the Twilight films. There are also two time-dependent deals with Sony Pictures and Warner Bros that see their titles come to Lovefilm first.

Those are some pretty heavy hitters – and Netflix only has Lionsgate to hit back with. It's a pretty good exclusive deal though, giving Netflix the exclusive on subscription streaming for Lionsgate films in the UK within one year of their release, including The Hunger Games, which is set to be 2012's Twilight.

If nothing else, won't somebody think of the tweens? How can we expect them to choose between Twillight and The Hunger Games?

So what's the answer? Well, you could hope one buys the other and becomes a mega-library, or just wait and see how it all pans out. Or you could suck it up and pay £11 a month to subscribe to both.

Netfilm

£11 a month isn't that much - it's only £1 more than Spotify, for comparison. But it's annoying and a bit unfair – you'd be paying twice for some content and still have to pay more on top of that for new releases and cinema visits.

The film industry is desperate to combat piracy and film streaming was the great white hope to do so. Fast, easy and affordable – that was the idea. But in practise it's becoming a sprawling behemoth of multiple accounts, additional extras and don't even get us started on actually finding new releases to stream via legitimate routes (YouTube, apps, websites, Facebook… where do you even begin?).

As far as we can see it, someone needs to come in and sort this whole mess out. This competition between Netflix and Lovefilm isn't going to result in any winners, so the movie studios need to start making fair deals and actually working with streaming services to make it easy and affordable for everyone to access everything they might want to watch.

Until then, the piracy sites – which already offer everything we might want to watch in one place at the unbeatable price of free – are going to keep taking home the gold.

Lovefilm lands on LG Smart TVs

Kate Solomon — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:12:00 GMT

Lovefilm isn't resting on its laurels after last week's Netflix launch, having now announced that it is bringing all its movie-streaming smarts to LG Smart TVs.

LG-owning Lovefilm subscribers will be able to stream Lovefilm's 5,000-strong library of on-demand films, although you won't be able to take advantage of its pay-per-view movies which tend to be the more recent releases.

What makes this different to any other TV-based streaming service is that you can control it with the LG Magic Remote feature – so instead of languidly tapping buttons on a remote control, you can instead flail around like an octopus trying to knit.

Motion in the ocean

Lovefilm is already on a host of smart TVs from Sony and Samsung, and LG is now running to join the connected pack.

LG may have been lagging behind on Lovefilm but it has pipped its competitors to the post when it comes to Google TV integration, having announced the first Google TV television at CES 2012.

Newly-launched Lovefilm competitor Netflix, meanwhile, is currently only available on Samsung Smart TVs, although it can also be found on LG Blu-ray and home theatre systems.

Live TV still top for UK movie watching

Kate Solomon — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:36:00 GMT

You hear a lot about how people watch films today, from the legit movie stream to the shady bit torrent - but for all the fancy tech, more films are watched live on TV than any other way in the UK.

Live televisions broadcasts take a 20 per cent share of the UK's film viewing, with films recorded from the television coming in second with 14.5 per cent, according to figures released by the BFI in the UK Film Policy Review published by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

It may hearten the film industry to know that P2P sharing comes in ninth, taking only a 2.5 per cent share – but that's still more than legal online streaming which accounts for only 1.9 per cent of the UK's film watching ways.

Download shmownload

Worse by far, though, is the state of legal film downloading in the UK. Only 1 per cent of the country's share of film watching is done through legal downloads – that's 8 percent lower than bought DVDs.

The DCMS report expects that improved broadband speeds will change all this, though, making it quicker and less painful to download films (legally of course).

As well as highlighting differing viewing habits, the report reiterated the need to address online piracy, agreeing that 'pro-copyright education' and increased access to legal services are the way to go, rather than opting for heavy-handed site-blocking measures.

The report recommends that a proposed research fund be put to use looking at "how different distribution models could affect levels of copyright infringement, including the impact of theatrical windows, on the release of independent films" - the outcome of this could see films reaching streaming and download services more quickly than they do now.

Lovefilm gets Lost in ABC TV deal

Kate Solomon — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:04:00 GMT

Lovefilm is continuing its streaming offensive with a new deal that will see Disney-owned ABC TV shows come to the service, including Lost, Desperate Housewives and, Ghost Whisperer.

According to Lovefilm, ABC TV shows will hit Lovefilm as full seasons after their first run on UK television – which isn't quite as good as keeping in line with US release schedules, but is a good effort nonetheless.

As well as all six seasons of mind-melding Lost, you'll be able to catch up with Brothers and Sisters (coming later this year), Grey's Anatomy, Ghost Whisperer, Desperate Housewives and Castle.

Don't all ghosts whisper?

The Amazon-owned film and TV streaming site is clearly propping its available TV content up in order to compete with the newly-launched Netflix UK.

In a rather pointed statement, Simon Calver, CEO of Lovefilm, said, "Today's deal with Disney brings [Lovefilm users] access to some of the best American TV content ever produced.

"Lovefilm's unique combination of world class movies and TV shows ensures that Lovefilm is the first and only port of call for those who want subscription entertainment on demand."

As well as ABC content, Lovefilm offers BBC Worldwide and ITV programmes to its subscribers.

Meanwhile, Netflix launched in the UK last week with similar deals with ITV and the BBC in place, as well as content from Channel 4 and CBS.

Exclusive: Don't hold your breath for newer Netflix content

Kate Solomon — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:38:00 GMT

When we met with Netflix earlier this week, we asked TechRadar's Facebook pals what they'd like to ask the company.

Overwhelmingly, you wanted to know about the content – the films and TV shows that make up Netflix's service. Why are they so old? Will it be keeping up with US broadcast schedules? What's the deal?

We put your questions to Neil Hunt, chief product officer at Netflix, and he told us that Netflix isn't really about bringing you the newest movies at the minute they're out of the cinemas.

Money money money

It's all down to price – you want to stream anything and everything including new blockbusters for £5.99 a month? How about the moon on a stick?

"The newer the content is, the more expensive it is. So we try and balance having the richest possible content that we can afford for £5.99 a month," Hunt told us.

"If it's DVD window stuff, the content owner expects to be paid £3 or £4 a time, so you can't do unlimited viewing of that kind of content on a £5.99 a month subscription, it's not going to work."

But this is the fundamental problem with a movie streaming service – if this is the distribution model that's going to combat piracy, Netflix, Lovefilm and their ilk need to be offering the best and newest films. Cutting piracy is all about improving access to these titles that are hot to trot.

After all, there's a reason why Citizen Kane never makes it into the most pirated movies lists, and it's not just because it's a bit boring.

Rosebud

Lovefilm, Netflix's main competition in the UK, has got around this pricing problem in a number of ways – it offers tiered subscriptions and some films, generally newer titles, are available to stream for an additional couple of quid. So how about a premium subscription service to supplement those higher-value titles for Netflix?

"I think the very newest content is fundamentally pay per view, and the subscription will be the stuff that's post-DVD window and post current season TV," said Hunt.

"And our proposition is to offer a rich library of stuff that's not quite as new but is broad and deep and has lots of stuff that's appealing."

So we won't see a pay per view service come to Netflix then? It seems highly unlikely, given that Netflix wants to keep its sales model very simple - and doesn't want to step on partners' toes:

"Apple was pleased to partner with us because we're complimentary," explains Hunt. "We have a library of content for subscription consumption that does not overlap enormously with their pay per view offering in iTunes."

More more more

Moving on to television shows – will the UK be getting the newest and best at the same time as the US? Sadly, that's looking unlikely too:

"It's a separate content library [in the UK]. We negotiate rights buying against the terrestrial broadcasters basically, so it's a different set of rights.

"So sometimes we'll have US content in the UK before we have it in the US and sometimes the other way round – there's really no kind of fixed pattern for that."

With Netflix's rights competition in the UK including the likes of Sky and Virgin Media, we can't imagine those up-to-the-minute TV shows you're lusting after will come cheap; so Netflix users will be in for a bit of a wait for desirable US TV shows.

That's not to say that Netflix isn't worth a shot, though. £5.99 a month for a ready-made film and TV library is not bad and its recommendations engine already far outstrips what Lovefilm has to offer.

Sure, the content might not be as comprehensive as you'd like, but that library is growing all the time. And remember: when it comes to film and TV, newer isn't always better.

Exclusive: Multiple profiles coming to your Netflix account?

Kate Solomon — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:53:00 GMT

Multiple users may soon be able to make the most of the same Netflix account by way of numerous Facebook log-ins on the same subscription.

That's the dream of Netflix's chief product officer, Neil Hunt, who revealed the project to TechRadar during a private interview at the streaming service's UK launch.

One of the benefits of Netflix is its recommendations engine, which offers supremely personalised genre selections based on how you've rated other films (for example, "critically-acclaimed visually-striking cerebral films" and "wacky foreign comedies" or simply "exciting crime films").

Those wacky 'foreign' comedies just slay me

But if you're sharing an account with the rest of your household, these could become diluted quickly by your cohabitants' personal (some might say terrible) tastes.

We asked Hunt what the company was going to do about that and he offered us three options; predictably option one was to buy two subscriptions and option two was to just make do. But option three sounded a bit more promising:

"The third answer is that we certainly have ambitions to provide to the multiple individualised personality profiles."

By individualised personality profiles, we're pretty sure he means 'people'.

"One of the models that I'm contemplating is that maybe if you connect two or three different Facebook accounts to one subscription, then you can kind of say 'Okay, I'm Kate, these are my signals or inputs [ratings and preferences]'.

"And maybe when you launch the thing it says, 'Are you 'Kate' or are you 'boyfriend'?' And you choose and you get your personal presentation."

Great, sign us up. Or get back to us when it's ready, which sounds as though it may be quite far in the future:

"There are a lot of issues to solve with that. But it's sort of a point that we see [Netflix] as a work in progress - it's not finished, it's not done," explained Hunt.

"We have lots of work to do in lots of areas, in personalisation, in social stuff, in developments like that.

"But the fact that most of these user interfaces are essentially delivered in HTML, even to the smart TVs and games consoles, means that we continue to extend week by week, month by month, to deliver new features, to deliver new capabilities, and we have goals and ambitions for that kind of stuff."

Despite appearances, not everyone is nor wants to be on Facebook; we're sure Netflix will make provisions for these people in their multiple-personality strategy.

Netflix came under fire at launch for its seeming requirement for users to connect their accounts to Facebook, although the company later clarified that this is not actually the case.

Amazon signs on for a bit of the old UltraViolet

Kate Solomon — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:16:00 GMT

Amazon has joined the UltraViolet movie project (aka the Saviour of Hollywood), working with at least one studio to offer its films under the UltraViolet banner.

UltraViolet, which landed in the UK on Boxing Day, is intended to allow us to buy a physical copy of a film from any retailer and get a digital copy which is stored in the cloud and streamed to our many and varied devices whenever and wherever we fancy it.

Getting Amazon on board will be a huge boon to UltraViolet given its mammoth size and interest in media streaming to the Kindle Fire, and the mega-retailer is currently working with an unnamed studio to sell its films in UltraViolet format.

Parma violet

"The best movie and TV service for consumers is the one that provides them with the broadest choice possible," said Bill Carr, Amazon's VP of digital media.

"We're very excited about the additional possibilities from a customer's point of view that UV enables."

Other companies currently involved in the project include Lovefilm, Warner Brothers, Universal and Sony Pictures, while Disney is notably absent from the roster.

CES 2012: Sony launches rugged Bloggie Sport for Full HD video

Kate Solomon — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:40:00 GMT

Sony's latest addition to the Bloggie camcorder range is the Bloggie Sport, a rugged little video camera ideal for filming, well, sports.

Perhaps it's extreme sports you're into - Sony's thought of that, making the Bloggie Sport water-, dust- and shockproof so even if you tell it that it was adopted, it should be fine.

You can also drop it from a height of 1.5m, if you fancy it.

Modal

Movie recording is available in Full HD, with a number of different modes including Lite (non-HD, for smaller files) and HD Sports for fast-moving subjects.

The Sony lens offers a 4.50mm (1/4.0) Exmor CMOS sensor, while 4x digital zoom and 4GB of internal memory round out the package (that's enough for two hours of HD video, according to Sony).

The 6.7cm LCD display is touch-enabled, and the camcorder weighs 148g, which shouldn't weigh you down too much when you're on the track or the pitch or whatever.

No official word on a Sony Bloggie Sport UK release date or price yet, but expect it to be fairly wallet-friendly when it does arrive.

Netflix takes aim at PlayStation Vita

Jools Whitehorn — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 07:49:00 GMT

Netflix, the formerly US-only movie and TV streaming service that has just launched in the UK, will be available to users of Sony's upcoming handheld console the Playstation Vita.

Film lovers will have to wait until after the PS Vita's launch on 22 February to enjoy the service on its 960 x 544px 5-inch OLED screen. Meanwhile PS3 users are eagerly waiting news of when the recently-appeared Netflix appwill go fully live in their XMB.

War games

Since Netflix launched in the UK yesterday, a price war has started with UK-based service Lovefilm. Netflix first undercut Lovefilm with a £5.99 a month unlimited streaming deal, then Lovefilm returned with a new price of just £4.99.

Where Netflix goes Lovefilm will surely follow, and vice-versa. So expect to see Lovefilm appear on the PS Vita soon after launch as well.

It's all great news for movie lovers, and the competition between the two should see them work harder to launch quickly on new platforms.

Lovefilm is already available on PS3, Xbox 360, iPad and other devices, and both Lovefilm and Netflix are offering one month free trials of their unlimited streaming services.

Lovefilm cuts unlimited streaming price

Kate Solomon — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 10:41:00 GMT

Amazon-owned Lovefilm isn't about to go quietly into the good night, having reacted to the news of Netflix's launch with a little price cut.

An unlimited streaming package has been introduced for just £4.99 a month, with a 30-day free trial to boot - as one commenter points out, this deal has been around since December but Lovefilm has now confirmed that the launch price of £4.99 won't be going up.

This fiver gives you access to any amount of film and TV show streaming through Lovefilm, which, the company is keen to remind you, is available on PlayStation 3, Xbox and iPad, among other devices.

Convenient timing

Lovefilm has also taken this opportunity to reveal that it now has 2 million paying subscribers after a record number of people joined in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Although exact figures weren't given, the company says it added "hundreds of thousands of new customers" in October to December 2011 and describes it as "the fastest customer growth rate Lovefilm has experienced since 2009".

The company's staying schtum on the subject of today's Netflix launch, preferring not to comment on its competitors' activities. But reading between the lines, what the company is essentially saying is, "We've been streaming video in the UK since before you were even born, yeah Netflix?" (It hasn't though, if you want to be literal about these things - Netflix-the-company came first.)

Buying Guide: 12 best Blu-ray players in the UK 2012

James Rivington — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:35:00 GMT

Best Blu-ray player 2011

When big and bulky Blu-ray players first appeared on the shelves a few years ago they were all about high definition.

Back then, simply getting HD content into your HD Ready TV was the hottest ticket in town - and it came at a high price.

Come Christmas 2011 and those first-gen players are buried in the distant past. We've now got super-slim machines with loading times in single figure seconds, 3D Blu-ray playback, 2D-to-3D conversion, movie streaming and all kinds of networking and digital file possibilities.

Most of those features are now standard and shouldn't be considered particularly high-end, though the likes of iPhone App control, genuinely engaging online content hubs that include BBC iPlayer, and built-in Freeview HD tuners are harder to find.

Here are 12 of the best Blu-ray players to give you a flavour of what's available, but do expect a slew of new machines in the new year...

Panasonic DMP-BD75 - £65

If 3D turns you off, this competent Blu-ray player delivers great pictures

If you're in the market for a basic Blu-ray player that serves up eye-popping pictures, and you have no need for bells and whistles, then you could do far worse than plump for the DMP-BD75. For just £65 you get a great basic Blu-ray player, but if you're feeling that techy twinge in your digital loins, you may want to have a goosey gander at what else is on offer further down our list.

Read: Panasonic DMP-BD75 review

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Panasonic DMP-BDT110 - £92

This entry-level 3D Blu-ray player is low on luxuries but big on performance

For just £27 more than the BD75 currently costs, you can bag yourself Panasonic's entry-level 3D Blu-ray. If you have a 3D-capable TV, this player is definitely a better bet. The wide range of features to play with, the highlight of which is Skype video calling, is superb. The deck also provides stunning HD picture quality with both 2D and 3D discs, and the new on-screen design is the epitome of user-friendly.

Read: Panasonic DMP-BDT110 review

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Sony BDP-S480 - £99

The BDP-S480 offers so much on-tap entertainment, you may never spin a disc

This Sony matches up quite nicely to the Panasonic model above, and represents another entry-level step into the world of 3D Blu-ray. And where the Sony truly shines is in its media performance. File compatibility is great, and you also have access to BBC iPlayer and other IPTV services if you connect it to the internet.

Read: Sony BDP-S480 review

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Philips BDP7600 - £137

Philips' deck offers a web browser and excellent media streaming

Philips has created a thing of beauty with its 7 Series 3D Blu-ray deck. Finished in a greyish-silver and sporting a sculpted lip with illuminated soft-touch buttons, it's a real step up from the humdrum. The smorgasbord that is Net TV is accessed via a simple grid system. Buttons lead through to an App Gallery where you'll find the BBC iPlayer, YouTube, Picasa, Twitter, TuneIn Radio and CineTrailers. It should also be noted that our test sample ran extremely hot. The right rear underside of the unit became uncomfortably warm after just a few hours use.

Read: Philips BDP7600 review

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LG BD670 - £140

A decidedly scruffy machine for a smart Blu-ray player, but with a feast of Wi-Fi and connected functionality

High-definition image quality is suitably sharp from the LG BD670. The Blu-ray deck scrapes a massive amount of detail from 2D HD platters.Battle: Los Angeleslooks sumptuous. Shot in a high frame rate HD, shaky cam-style, skin tones and textures pop from the screen. The smart, connected Blu-ray player also does a reliable job disgorging the DTS-HD MA soundtrack. Overall, the LG BD670 is a great value internet-connected 3D Blu-ray disc player. Sure, it might have the sartorial style of an impoverished funeral director who dresses in the dark, but it's jazzy where it counts.

Read: LG BD670 review

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Sony BDP-S570 £154

Lean and fast, this modestly-priced deck boasts SACD compatibility

The user interface, a copy of the Xross Media Bar on the PS3, is superbly intuitive and very responsive using the no-nonsense remote control. And on the menu you'll also notice lots of online content that includes Daily Motion and catch-up TV services, all of which pop open quickly. Picture quality is spot on, too. A clean and naturally coloured picture hits your screen – a factor that also helps in 3D mode. We made the BDP-S570 a five-star Grouptest winner when we first got our mitts on it, and in the intervening months nothing seems to have changed.

Read: Sony BDP-S570 review

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Panasonic DMP-BDT310 - £194

Panasonic includes Skype and 3D conversion to its flagship Blu-ray player

The DMP-BDT310 crams in a lot for the money. The feature list is extraordinary, throwing in everything from Wi-Fi enabled networking and Skype functionality to iPhone control and 2D-to-3D conversion – and that's before we've even mentioned Blu-ray playback. That said, the 3D conversion isn't always effective, and it's a shame the new-fangled Viera Connect hasn't yet filtered down to Panasonic's Blu-ray decks. But any such concerns are wiped away when you clap eyes on the deck's immaculate 2D and 3D pictures and hear its surprisingly good CD playback.

Read: Panasonic DMP-BDT310 review

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Samsung BD-D7500 - £260

Samsung's ultra-thin deck is more proof of the brand's style ambitions

This achingly petite BD player claims to be the world's smallest Blu-ray player and it's more of a lifestyle statement than a traditional AV component. Available in trendy silver or gloss black, it's a remarkable example of 'Harry Potter' engineering. Because of its size, there are no rear-panel connections. Instead, outputs have been consigned to a small cavity on the undercarriage.

Read: Samsung BD-D7500 review

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Samsung BD-D8500 - £299

A combination package of Blu-ray player with Freeview HD PVR

Why take two hi-def sources into the shower when you can simply watch 'n' go with Samsung's latest BD-D8500 Blu-ray player/Freeview HD PVR combi? By forcing these two products into shared accommodation, Samsung is putting an unfeasible amount of content at your disposal, as well as saving you some space in your AV cabinet. The BD-D8500 is so cutting edge you could shave with it!

Read: Samsung BD-D8500 review

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Denon DBP-2012UD - £649

This is not the budget Blu-ray player you're looking for

And from here on, the prices start getting a lot less friendly. This Denon Blu-ray player is built for the AV enthusiast, not the casual consumer. So if you just want to play the odd 3D Blu-ray on your new telly, stop here and wind your way back up the list. Apart from the headline 3D capability, this is also a universal player, which means it spins Super Audio CD and DVD-Audio, too. A USB port and DLNA 1.5 support also boost the deck's multimedia cred. Jaw-dropping picture and sound quality.

Read: Denon DBP-2012UD

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Marantz UD7006 - £760

The term 'universal', as applied to pretty much anything in home electronics, is generally only valid for a few minutes these days. That said, we can't actually think of anything this player won't do. The big news, the thing that makes it more universal than last year's crop, is 3D video support as well as Blu-ray audio and video discs, every flavour of DVD we can recall encountering, SACD, CD, photo discs, all the various data disc formats with all the various compressed file formats.

Read: Marantz UD7006 review

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Cambridge Audio Azur 751BD - £799

The first universal 3D Blu-ray player from Cambridge Audio

The 751BD is a brilliant disc-spinner. With its sturdy build and broad playback options, it's a relevant, powerful performer. While it may lack the net-connected niceties of mass-market machines, it stomps all over them when it comes to sonic finesse. Everyone in the Shire will soon want one.

Read: Cambridge Audio Azur 751UD review

Xbox LIVE gets 4oD, Demand 5 in new update

Chris Smith — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 03:57:00 GMT

UK-based Xbox LIVE members can now access on-demand portals from Channel 4 and Five after Microsoft rolled-out its latest batch of video apps.

Following the arrival of LOVEFiLM and YouTube, among other apps earlier this month, Microsoft has now unleashed 4oD and Demand 5.

Demand 5 will being the likes of The Gadget Show and Neighbours, while 4oD will allow viewers to catch-up on My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and This Is England '88.

The Dailymotion application is now also available in the United Kingdom as well as 34 other territories, while the BBC iPlayer will finally arrive on Xbox LIVE in 2012.

More than a gaming machine

Microsoft has made it abundantly clear that it sees the Xbox 360 as way more than a gaming machine, with a host of new entertainment content joining the likes of mainstay app Sky Go.

The likes of Blinkbox, Crackle by Sony and MSN video are also available as apps, giving members a huge array of online video to choose from.

Viewers in the United States can now also access Vudu and UFC channels.

iTunes nabs exclusive Avatar special edition

Chris Smith — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:50:00 GMT

A new digital edition of James Cameron's Avatar will arrive exclusively on iTunes next week.

The Avatar iTunes Extras Special Edition will bring never-seen-before special features, offering a behind the scenes insight into how the biggest movie of all time was made.

The new edition, which arrives on December 20, brings a Green Screen X-ray feature which allows viewers to movie around a scene viewing the original green screen footage, prior to the addition of CGI.

Avatar special edition for iTunes also allows lets fans "deconstruct scenes" from the movie with picture-in-picture views of how the special effects were applied.

Simultaneous views

The official press release says: "Fans can experience the global box office sensation like never before as they control scene deconstructions in simultaneous views.

"This new feature will also enable consumers to interact with the performance capture and visual effects levels in 17 of the film's scenes.

"For the first time ever, Green Screen X-ray gives users an interactive look through the visual effects levels to see the original green screen footage behind a pivotal scene."

iTunes Extras launched in 2009 aiming to compete with physical discs by offering the same range of special features, but this exclusive is the first real evidence that content providers are taking it seriously.

The iTunes special edition of Avatar is available to pre-order now from iTunes in HD and SD, but there's no 3D version as yet.

Tutorial: How to convert video for your iPhone or iPod

Ian Osborne — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:46:00 GMT

How to convert video for iPod, or iPhone

There are plenty of comprehensive and capable media conversion applications on the Mac, such as Roxio Toast/Popcorn, Handbrake and Elgato Turbo.264 HD.

But if all you want is a straightforward means of converting your music and video to an iTunes-friendly format, ready for streaming to an Apple TV or playing on your iOS device, look no further than Kiwi Fruitware's Media Converter.

A free download, Media Converter is surprisingly powerful and versatile under the hood. Using a simple drag-and-drop interface, you can convert your media files into a variety of formats. It also comes with a list of presets. Standard settings exist for iPod, iPhone, DivX, DVD Video in PAL or NTSC formats, MP3 audio and WebM, an audio/video file format built for use on the web and compatible with HTML5 video.

Media Converter is based on Burn, Kiwi Fruitware's disc-burning utility. Its user community has created numerous custom presets that can be downloaded from here, and you can even create your own.

1. Select output format

On opening the application for the first time, you're invited to update the presets to take account of its new subtitle support. Do so – it doesn't take long.

You're now ready to convert your media. Using the pull-down menu labelled Convert To, select which format you wish to save it as. By default, DivX, DVD-Video (NTSC), DVD-Video (PAL), iPod/iPhone (H.264), MP3 and WebM are available.

2. Drag and drop

After selecting your output format, simply drag and drop the media file onto the Media Converter window; it's as simple as that. Conversion starts automatically, and by default, converted files are saved in your Movies folder. Here we're converting a sample video for playback on an iPod or iPhone, or streaming to an Apple TV.

3. Conversion in progress

While the conversion is being carried out, a progress bar shows how far the encoding has got, with a percentage displayed too. You can cancel the conversion if you wish. Completed conversions retain the original's filename, but with an extension that reflects the file format you've converted it to. In this case, it's M4V.

4. Batch conversions

You can drop a bundle of files or even entire folders into the Media Converter window, and re-encode them as a batch. Here we're converting a folder full of OGG files into MP3 files. Unlike the Ogg Vorbis audio format, MP3s can be played using iTunes, copied to iOS devices and streamed to an Apple TV using your wireless network.

5. Preferences

The app can be customised using its Preferences window (found under the Media Converter menu bar). You can set up a new target folder (Movies by default), or have it ask where to save. This is useful when batch-converting a folder, as the folder itself isn't retained; completed files are saved loose in the target folder.

6. Changing presets

Under the Presets tab, you can reorder or customise your preset encoding settings. Modified presets can be saved, though doing so overrides the original. If you need both, just change the name of the custom preset before you save it, then download and reinstall the original preset using the method described in Step 7.

7. Adding presets

The Get More Presets button takes you to the Media Converter website, from where you can download the default presets and also custom-built settings created by other users. Click on a preset's icon to download it, then double-click on the downloaded file to install. You can even email your own custom presets to the developers.

Tutorial: Best codecs for video and how to encode

Graham Morrison — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 09:00:00 GMT

Best codecs for video

Our mobile devices are faster, the way we watch videos on our TVs has changed, and the way we buy and store content is completely different from 20 years ago. We're in the middle of a home media revolution, where shelves of DVDs are being pushed into NAS boxes and discreetly hidden away.

We're only in the infancy of this revolution, though. That means we've yet to find a definitive method, and there are as many good solutions as there are pitfalls.

Codecs are the best example. If you've had anything to do with digitised video over the last 10 years, you'll know that video performance is dominated by the black art of manipulating these encoding and decoding programs. Finding the right one is a balancing act between the amount of processing that goes into creating the video file and the amount required to decode it.

Too much on the input and you'll be waiting until next Wednesday for your file. Too little and the new generation of HD decoders plugged into your TV won't have enough grunt to reconstruct the video stream at 60fps.

Codecs call for careful consideration. That's why, for high definition, it's often better to use a codec designed specifically for the job rather than one from the '90s shoe-horned into a higher bit-rate and resolution than it was ever intended for.

The same is true for any other disparate playback devices. You get the best results from a movie encoded specifically for your usage scenario, whether that's mobile access across the 3G network or playback on a wireless tablet.

We're going to help you solve these challenges using a mix of hand-on tweaks, free software and plenty of acronyms, taking you from 1990s DVD diva to 21st century streaming media mogul. You'll find everything you need to become an expert over the next six pages.

The best codecs

Best codec for high definition

H.264 & MKV

Before we start, we need to first make a distinction between the codec used to store the video data and the container used to encapsulate everything else, because the two are often confused.

The most popular container for high definition content, for example, is called Matroska, as denoted by its MKV file extension. Matroska isn't a codec in itself, because it doesn't define how to encode and decode the video data - it simply stores the bytes from a codec in such a way that MKV-compatible applications know where to find everything for playback. That could be the video, audio and subtitle data (if present), all of which can be encoded using different MKV-compatible formats and codecs.

That's why you always have a choice of which video codec to use with a container. With MKV files, for example, the choice is usually between H.264, MPEG-4 and VP3, the latter of which is based on Theora. All three use similar technology, but the first two are far better than the third.

For high definition, we'd recommend H.264. This is often represented by x264, which is the free software implementation of the codec.

Bit-rates and resolution are important too. 1080p source material has 2.25 times more pixels than 720p, and higher rates can be harder to decode on your playback hardware. As a rough approximation, we recommend generating a file with a size within the 8-12GB region for a typical two-hour HD movie. To maximise quality, aim for a 12GB+ file with a bitrate of 10+ Mbps.

As for the choice of audio codec, this is down to your AV setup's capabilities. Our preference is not to touch the audio at all and use the 'pass-through' option in your encoding software. DTS and AC3 audio streams can be passed within MKV, and this will embed an exact copy of the audio tracks, as found on your original media, within the MKV file, which should play back on your equipment the same way it would with the original.

Best codec for streaming

MPEG-4

H.264 has become one of the most common codecs for high-quality streaming across the internet thanks to portals like YouTube and Vimeo. It's therefore no surprise that it's good at providing a high quality, homogeneous and predictable video stream across a limited bandwidth.

It's a great choice for streaming too, if you encode your video and drop it into a MOV or MP4 file, but we've found that its closely related alternative, MPEG-4, offers a similar pedigree and is usually a better choice at low bitrates over limited bandwidth.

The relationship between MPEG-4 and H.264 is complicated, as they're both parts of a wider MPEG-4 specification, but it's also a codec that's closely related to the data on a DVD that's streamed as digital television. That means it can produce better and more robust results under bandwidth and processor limitations.

There are as many container formats for MPEG-4 as there are for H.264. They include stalwarts like AVI, MOV and the raw transport stream (TS), which you will often have found dumped from your DVB hardware, as well as newer variants like MP4 and MKV. Which you choose will depend on the compatibility of your playback device, but encoding them shouldn't be too difficult.

The only reliable free tool is the open source FFMPEG utility, which you can use to create MPEG-4 compatible files, although there are plenty of expensive commercial options available that may stick closer to the original specification.

When it comes to encoding, the main limiting factor is available bandwidth rather than playback hardware. You may want to stream video across a wireless-N network, for example, and while its specification may boast a transfer speed of 108Mbps, the results are seldom as fast as promised.

Thanks to the vagaries of distance, interference, other users and hardware, wireless 802.11n is seldom fast enough for high definition video, and anything with a lower bandwidth is going to require a compromise. The same is probably true of your broadband connection. You might want to stream videos across the internet from your NAS, for instance, but this operation will be limited by your broadband upload speeds, which are often far less than 2Mbps.

This means you need to find a compromise between resolution, bandwidth and quality that hits your bandwidth sweet spot, and unlike the limitless world of high definition, you'll also need to compress the audio. The codec you choose will depend on the playback hardware, but the most common options is MP3 encoded through Lame.

Best codec for iOS

H.264 and MOV

Even Apple's portable devices are constrained by bandwidth and hardware. That means you need to make as many cuts as you can without sacrificing quality. If you're encoding video for playback on an iPad, for example, it makes good sense to scale your original material to 1,024 x 768 before encoding.

This is good practice for any encoding job where you know the end platform is the only place your files are likely to be played. You should also consider whether you plan to output the video from the device to a bigger screen. For example, you can connect an iPad to a TV and get 720p output, which may affect your choice of resolution. Apple's mobile devices also combine with the software to provide excellent video acceleration, getting the best possible video quality and battery life from your device.

In order to capitalise on these advantages, your video files need to adhere to Apple's strict codec discipline, which at least makes the job of choosing a codec easier. For best results on your iOS device, you need to choose an MOV container using the H.264 codec. 29.97fps (NTSC) is the best framerate to choose, which you can enter as 30,000/1,001 if you're using FFMPEG, and audio should use the AAC codec with a bitrate of around 160kbps.

Best codec for Android

H.264 or AAC-LC

Android devices don't have the same degree of lock-in as their Apple counterparts, which means you're free to install a media player like VLC that can handle many kinds of video file. There's no standard hardware configuration, so playback performance and capability are specific to each device.

Many will accelerate Flash, or even DivX files, because hardware acceleration is more general and not limited to a single codec, but there are still some Google-endorsed standards based on H.264 and MPEG-4. Google's documentation recommends H.264 with a bitrate of 500kbps, and AAC-LC at 128kbps for audio.

Resolution should be the same as the destination device, and you can use an MP4, 3GP or even a raw TS as a container. Google now has its own container and codec combination in WebM. This is also worth a try, because the VP8 codec it uses is closely related to H.264 and is likely to benefit from acceleration now that Google owns Motorola's smartphone division.

The law

Here in the UK, when you format-shift your CD and DVD collection from the discs you own to another device, you're currently breaking the law. That's because, in legal terms, only the owner of the copyrighted material can permit its duplication.

This is also a law that's been openly flouted since the 1980s, when we all started taping singles from the top 40 countdown on a Sunday evening. Music and video players, from Microsoft's Zune to Apple's iPod, have been allowed to flourish despite this obvious flaw in UK law.

This is unlike the US, which has a fair-use caveat that allows personal copying if you're moving the media to a different device for personal use, but things in the UK could be about to change.

The Hargreaves report on intellectual property, a preview of which was published in May [PDF], recommends that the government amends the rules on format shifting to allow for a stance similar to that of the US.

In August, the cabinet declared its full support for those recommendations, hopefully paving the way for a change in the law. Until then, you can't legally copy a DVD or CD that you own and stream it to another device. Consider yourself warned.

Handling audio

We've spent a lot of space discussing video encoding, but in some ways, audio can be even more important. When you're streaming a movie, video data can be scaled to fit the end resolution and format regardless of the input format, but audio isn't as flexible.

If you only include the surround channels, and your playback device supports only stereo, you won't typically hear anything. Some players can downmix a surround stream, but not many, and the ones that can are usually PC-based.

The solution is to encode the stereo and surround tracks if you want to keep the surround data, or just the stereo mix if you don't. Tools like Handbrake will let you downmix a surround stream if that's the only one available, or choose the stream you want to encode from the Track dropdown menu.

If you want to re-encode a surround stream, you can usually choose between AC3 and DTS, depending on which codecs are installed, and lower their bitrates. This will preserve the multi-channel aspect of the audio, but you will need to make sure your playback device is connected digitally to an amplifier that can decode it.

How to encode your movies

Encode your movies

Provided you're legally entitled to do so, getting your data off an optical disc and onto your streaming server or portable device isn't difficult. There are two stages.

The first decodes the disc and grabs the raw data from it, so you'll need the hardware required by your media. This step might be redundant if the source of your material is a legitimate unlocked download, or perhaps a recording from a digital television receiver or PC-based DVB card.

The second stage takes this raw data and runs it through the number crunching routines that generate the final file. Success on the first part depends on the protection used by the source disc. If there's none, then you'll be able to copy and encode your movies in a single step. If there's encryption, then you'll first need to remove this from the data before you can begin the transcoding stage.

Selling software that side-steps this protection is legally dubious, especially in the UK, but there are free tools available that will do the job, leaving you with either a copy of the DVD on your hard disk, or a new ISO burned to disk.

The best tool we've found for transcoding is called Handbrake. This is an open source application that harnesses the power of several free codecs, including FFMPEG, x264 and libtheora, and turns your video data into a file you can easily stream or move to a portable device. You don't even need to worry about the intricacies of codec configuration.

Handbrake includes a list of profiles you can use to quickly select the end device to load the best values into the codecs. These can be previewed and altered before you commit yourself to the final process.

Encoding a film, especially in high definition, can easily take several hours. But the length of time is dependent on the power of your system, so this might be a good time to upgrade that aging Core2Duo you're sitting at.

How to encode your movies with Handbrake

1. Select a source

We installed the the nightly build of Handbrake because it often has cutting edge features and speed improvement, but the official release is more stable. When you run it, you need to select the source location for your movie. After clicking in the 'Source' icon, select the optical drive, folder or file you want to convert.

2. Choose a profile

Once Handbrake has scanned for chapter information, select a preset for the destination format and choose a title from the source. If your presets don't include Android devices, choose 'Reset' from the Options menu. Handbrake defaults to the longest title, which is probably what you need unless you're after the outtakes.

3. Tweak presets

Adjust the video and audio encoding options to suit your own requirements (see the main text for some hints), and use the 'Picture' page to change the resolution, if required. You can use the 'Preview' window to generate a 10-second clip with your settings, then click 'Start' to generate the final file.

How to build the best media PC

Transcoding a video from one format to another takes a lot of CPU power, so a powerful machine will save you hours of waiting and, eventually, your sanity. But before you hand over your credit card details to your favourite retailer, you should first consider whether an upgrade is really necessary and how often you're likely to want to encode a movie.

Initially you'll want to transfer as much of your current collection as you still watch to your digital library. That's a big hurdle, but also a finite one. It might not be worth investing in the best hardware if it's only going to save you a couple of weeks of pain.

Your super video transcoding PC might become a costly white elephant whose resources you're unlikely to test again after an initial splurge. If you only buy a few movies a month, there's no real need to upgrade your hardware. Anything from the last five years will handle even a high definition movie overnight. That said, if you want an excuse to upgrade your machine, a big encoding job is the perfect opportunity.

Processor overheads

As with any upgrade, the best place to start is with the CPU. Most of the codecs we've mentioned use the free x264 library, which is widely considered to be one of the best available, regardless of price. It will use as much processing power as you throw at it, so the CPU question is easily answered with 'the best you can afford'.

If money is no limit, that means something sporting Intel's Sandy Bridge architecture, with its requirement for a LGA1155 CPU slot and memory accelerating potential of up to quad-speed DDR3-1333. We'd recommend the Intel Core i7 2600k, which can now be had for around £240. It has four cores and it's fast.

If you're looking for something a little cheaper, or a CPU that might not require a complete architecture overhaul, AMD's six-core Phenom II X6 Thuban represents great value for money for that amount of processing power, as it can now be bought for around £120.

Video encoding is also hungry for memory, so fit as much as either your motherboard or wallet can take. The more you add, the less your system will have to read either your slow optical drive, or the hard disk.

Unfortunately, graphics cards don't change the CPU equation, despite the promise of GPU-accelerated movie encoding. Modern graphics cards, and the APIs their vendors have built to access their raw number crunching abilities, have failed to offer the advantages that seemed imminent in 2008.

The current consensus on the encoding software that's able to shoe-horn a GPU into encoding duties is that the quality of the output just isn't good enough. As a result, CPU grinding is still the best route for the serious media collector.

The only good news is that this could save you a few pounds, because the latest Sandy Bridge Intel CPU's offer SoC - systems on a chip - and these include graphics. They might not be good enough for the latest games, but they're definitely good enough to show you what you're doing while you fine-tune your Handbrake codec parameters, and for playback.

It might also be worth investing in a screen capable of 1,920 x 1,080 if you want to check the encoding quality of your high definition material without moving it to your television.

Finally, for the hardware, don't forget to add an optical drive that can read your media. SATA II Blu-Ray players can be bought for as little as £50.

With your hardware sorted out, you just need to choose your operating system. There's nothing wrong with whatever version of Windows you've already got, but you will need the latest updates to version 7 for the modern chip designs and drivers, and a 64-bit installation is essential if you've got more than 4GB of RAM at your disposal.

Storage issues

There's no getting around the fact that movies take up a lot of space, which means your storage provision is just as important as the rest of your hardware. Capacity is probably the most important feature to consider, because you may be storing your entire collection on the same machine.

However, you don't need to store all your films on an internal drive. A portable remote drive attached to a PogoPlug is a great solution, as external drives are readily available with 2TB of space, for example, for about £60. Failing that, look for a NAS that offers streaming built-in.

For the internal drive, speed becomes a more important factor. The faster the drive, the more quickly your super-fast CPU will be able to crunch through the data. The fastest drives you can get are solid state, and while they're relatively limited in terms of storage capacity, as long as you're not planning to store the resulting files on the same drive, you won't encouter any problems. You can now get 120GB of SSD storage with a SATA II interface and a 3.5-inch form factor for £140.

Media playback hardware

The hardware you use to access your newly complied media collection is utterly dependent on the device it's being connected to. Our recommended storage solution is a Pogoplug, which is capable of streaming media using a wide variety of protocols. If you're playing your movies on an Android or iOS device, you can download a free app that can access your data through the cloud and stream content directly from your storage device, for example.

Unless you're happy connecting your laptop directly to your TV, you'll need a hardware streaming client. The premium version of Pogoplug, like many other streaming servers, can send video data using the UPnP protocol, and dozens of devices will be able to transform this into high definition video.

You might already have a suitable device sitting under your TV, because two of the most readily accessible devices are Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 games consoles. If you do need a separate unit, we recommend investing in one of the latest Popcorn Hour boxes, which are quiet, simple to use and capable of playing virtually any codec you throw at them.

Local streaming and movies on the go

Local streaming

Now you've got your content encoded and ready to go, learn how to stream it across your local network to any device Networking is the most important part of your setup to get right and can easily become the weakest link in the chain, making all those codec refinements you've just spent an hour on redundant.

There are two principle aspects of networking that affect video streaming. The first is bandwidth, because streaming high definition video is probably the most bandwidth intensive task you're likely to perform, short of running a Tor exit node.

The second is reliability. This is important because even if you have the bandwidth, you also need to ensure that packets are transferred not just quickly, but with enough consistency to ensure your player never goes hungry. It's not like web browsing or downloading game updates - video needs to arrive at your playback device as a predictable and constant stream of blocks.

This provision of data starts at the PC or NAS that holds the videos. Data access needs to be quick enough, which isn't always the case with older units or cheaper NAS devices. You can easily work out how much bandwidth you need because the bitrate value for video encoding is often the same metric used for network speed. If your total bitrate exceeds that of the available bandwidth, you're likely to run into problems.

This competition for bandwidth can cause problems with wireless networks in particular. Any 802.11n wireless gateway will have enough theoretical bandwidth, but not if slower devices are connected at the same time, or if several people are streaming video at once. That's what makes them fail.

The obvious answer is to have two networks - one for video streaming and the other for everything else. Both networks could even be wireless, because several modern wireless routers, like the FritzBox 7390, can now run two frequency bands side by side, effectively offering the advantage of two networks without the hardware overhead. This lets you set your family up on one, for example, and your video network on the other.

As the hub of your network, the router is vitally important. You might want to consider using a standalone switch rather than an ADSL/wireless/router combination, because these are less likely to overheat in use and let you siphon off your video network from your standard connections.

For the ultimate in bandwidth provision, we recommend using a powerline network for your video data and a wireless router for everything else. Ethernet through a powerline network is slightly more costly than wireless, as you'll need a plug capable of AV speeds for both the router, your NAS and each playback client. But if you've already spent a fortune on the equipment that can make the most of HD content, as well as the movies to play on it, the extra £100-150 for those three units is worth it.

They're also plug and play, and after a few button presses, you'll have a network that won't destroy the suspense in the gas station scene from No Country for Old Men just because someone else is microwaving noodles.

The final network consideration is the limit on your upload bandwidth. For domestic ADSL installations, this is likely to be the most limiting factor in streaming your movies to your devices while you're out and about. Typical upload speeds are in the region of 500-800Kbps, for example, which is enough for a low resolution, medium quality film.

But even this number can vary, depending on your distance from the exchange. Users of an ISP that support Annex M, like O2 and Be, or BT's new Infinity broadband will have between 2 and 10Mbps, which are slightly more flexible. But it does mean you'll have to re-encode high definition material for both your television at home and for your portable devices, if you want to stream movies to your phone, tablet or laptop while you're stuck waiting for delayed aircraft at Heathow's Terminal 5.

Movies on the go

Getting content off your LAN and onto the internet can be tricky. You could run your own server, forwarding ports manually and ensuring the setup is secure, or you could use cloud storage like Dropbox, but both are convoluted.

The best option we've found is to use PogoPlug. This is a software and a hardware solution, and the best description of its facilities is that it provides a DropBox replacement where you supply the storage. With the desktop software installed on your PC, for instance, you can share specific files and folders with your online account. As long as your PC is on, you can access those files though a suite of mobile apps, desktop tools and web portals without any further configuration.

If you don't want to leave your PC on, you can buy a hardware PogoPlug unit that will connect to a USB hard drive to provide always-on access.

For movie lovers, the Android and iPhone apps will stream your movies from any PogoPlug source, depending on the video format, and you can use the web browser interface for any other device like a laptop. This works brilliantly at home, where fast wireless provides a seamless stream of data to your palm.

But the PogoPlug software can also stream video outside of your LAN. For a one off $29 payment, you can stream data from your LAN through the internet to any other Pogo-compatible device without any further configuration. This is ideal if you don't have the patience for messing with firewalls or setting up your own servers, and PogoPlugs web interface makes managing your content easy.

Just install the desktop client, select the folders you want to share, and install the client apps on your chosen device. As soon as you've created an account, registered the premium upgrade and synced your collection, you'll be able to stream movies and browse your image collection immediately.

UPnP servers

The PogoPlug is a great plug-and-play solution, but there are many alternatives that may not be quite so convenient but might offer greater flexibility.

Even Microsoft's default media player can act as a UPnP server, automatically streaming your content to other UPnP clients on your network. But another good option is a modern NAS from the likes of Qnap and Synology.

The latest firmware on these boxes include UPnP, iTunes and web streaming without any extra effort, and both manufacturers also offer iPhone and Android helper applications that can be used to view content and upload data to your NAS box while you're out and about. If you need terabytes of storage, a NAS box is the best option.

Alternatively, you can run a server on a PC. This has the disadvantage of always needing to be on to be accessible, but it is cheap. The free TVersity server, for instance, can stream almost any format to any UPnP client and is also very good at converting between formats on the fly. This is great if you've got an MOV file that won't play on a PlayStation 3, for example, because TVersity will make the changes itself.

Stream movies to your mobile with PogoPlug

1. Install the software

A PogoPlug source can be either a desktop application for Windows and OS X, or a hardware device connected to some storage. The desktop option is free if you'll limit your streaming to your LAN, and confi guration is easy. Register an account at PogoPlug.com, install the software and select the folders you want to share.

2. Add the content

You can now add the files you want to have access to. If you've shared your Windows 'My Videos' folder, for example, move your transcoded movie fi les into this folder and log into the web interface. Within a few moments, you should see your content overview updated to include the new fi les you've just added.

3. Watch a movie

Now your content is accessible from your desktop and registered at PogoPlug, you can use any access route to play back your collection. On an iOS device, for example, log in with the same account credentials and navigate to the file. You can stream immediately or download to watch later in another application.

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