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By now you've probably heard about OLED, or organic light-emitting diodes. LG and Samsung both revealed potential models at this year's CES, with the LG winning CNET's Best of CES Award.

Make no mistake, this is the most important advancement in TV technology in over a decade, and a vast improvement over both LCD and plasma.

Here's why.

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Understanding video standards is fundamental to aspect ratio correction. Back in the predominantly analog days we had three main standards referenced or used for most video recordings; NTSC, PAL, and SECAM. Then in the early ‘90’s came the first digital multimedia frameworks to reach the average consumer; QuickTime and, shortly thereafter, Video for Windows (VfW).

Today we have dozens of multimedia frameworks, digital video and digital display standards, all of which lead to a great deal of confusion regarding the plethora of acronyms and what they truly mean. AVC or H.264? HEVC or H.265? CIF or SIF? Don’t even get me started on the profiles and parameters available for each standard, as the combinations are truly mindboggling. When it comes to proper Display Aspect Ratio (DAR) though, it really boils down to “Are the originally recorded pixels square or non-square?”

On March 11th, 2009 the mixed martial arts community, and quite frankly the world, lost a great man. Charles "Mask" Lewis was a pioneer, and probably the best example in recent history of why you can't judge someone by the way they look on the outside; it's what is inside that counts. I'm still struggling with this tragedy and although this isn't typically the forum where I'd share MMA or fighting related posts or issues, this is much more than that. Below is the post I left for Punkass and Skrape on 3/12, as well as a tribute video put together by the TapouT Live radio crew. RIP MASK - Always Believe.

Encryption is all the rage, again. Politicians and government officials apparently have no problem with using fear mongering to conjure up support for backdoors to encrypted devices and data. Privacy advocates keep doing the same, basically, warning that providing big brother with backdoor access to encrypted data is like leaving the cookie jar in your wide-open kitchen window, on Sesame Street.

(The original post included a link to my complete post on this topic on LinkedIn, but those articles no longer exist.)

Apple has discontinued the "prosumer" Final Cut Express and its high-end Final Cut Server products in the process of its release of Final Cut Pro X earlier this week. And, to the surprise of no one, the complete restructuring of Apple's direction for its video editing software aimed at professionals has been met with loud criticism. But Apple plans to quickly improve Final Cut Pro X over time, addressing many of the complaints with incremental feature updates.

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(Credit: Lexar Media) Lexar announced a 1000X-rated CompactFlash memory card line today that the company guarantees can keep pace with professional-quality video recording.

Full story:
http://m.cnet.com/ces2012/Article.rbml?nid=57353184

Today, after nearly fifteen years of developing personal & business Web sites, I'm launcing Media-Geek.com. While Media-Geek.com will certainly serve as the successor to my personal business site (larrycompton.com) and I am always excited when deploying a new site or layout, I am even more excited about the community-based functionality that is to come.

I should point out that this is a pre-launch of Media-Geek.com, which allows me the opportunity to test the various components and functionality in the exact environment where it will be fully deployed.  All of the content from my previous site(s), as well as a ton of additional functionality will be published with the official launch.  While there won't be any parades, balloons, or free donuts, the official launch is scheduled for Monday, February 11th.   Thanks for visiting...stay tuned!  😎

Registration...

If you have a Dropbox account, you have Dropbox Replay.  I've been so impressed with the implementation, and I keep thinking of more ways to use it.  Obviously, you can invite others to comment on and review videos in your Dropbox account (Frame-level review with comments & annotations), but you can do so much more. 

One of the coolest features is the live review capabilities, IMHO.  In any case, rather than regurgitating all of their marketing stuff about it, here's a short video from Dropbox. 😎

It's Saturday afternoon and I'm in the lab today working on the cellular phone of the suspect from yesterday's tragic mass murder here in Binghamton, NY.   While waiting for the device to image I wanted to take a quick moment to thank those from the Media-Geek community who've reached out to me and my family since the tragic events began unfolding yesterday morning.   

http://media-geek.com/images/myblog/QuickWave-Multi.jpg

Over 20 proprietary DVR players were added to our downloads area this week, along with a few proprietary codecs and other resources.  The DVR file extension listing was updated to include nearly two dozen additional listings as well.

We hope you find these updated resources helpful.  Next time you come across a proprietary codec or player that's not listed on Media-Geek be sure to take a minute when time permits to share it with us.  Thanks for participating!  All the best - LC

Two new features introduced this week allow members to easily share their profile with non-members, should they so choose.  Members can now choose if they'd like to allow non-members to view their profile by editing their profile options; the default is set to not allow non-members to view your profile.

Additionally, members can now create their own custom URL to their profile page.  The custom URL can be set right from the member's profile page, and can be changed to whatever you like (e.g. http://www.media-geek.com/larryc will bring visitors directly to my profile, which I've set to allow public view).  Furthermore, members can now choose as to whether they want visitors to their profile to be able to view their personal files/images via the associated settings tab when editing your profile.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems every other week someone's releasing a new "SmartPhone" that's going to change the way you do business as a mobile professional. But in my opinion, when you peel back that slick new protective plastic and fire it up it's the same old thing. No new killer apps, nothing really new as far as functionality or capability, and more often than not each new "exclusive release" seems to have more bugs than your local landfill on a hot summer day.

How long have they been making "Smartphones" now anyway? Well, to be honest, that I don't really know. I can tell you this, my first Smartphone was a Kyocera QCP6035 that I picked up in 2000 or early 2001. I can't remember for sure, as I think I might have killed those brain cells banging my head on my desk while trying resolve the plethora of issues I've been having with the latest generation of Smartphones. Either way, I'm pretty sure it was one of the first available and can remember how giddy I was to be able to toss my cell and my Palm Pilot for one device.

HP made some big product announcements today that I've been patiently waiting for.  My patience is wearing thin though, as the two devices I am most anxious to get my hands on won't be out until this summer.  I was a bit peeved earlier when I heard that, but there's no doubt I'll wait rather than jump ship to another OS (he says as he writes this post from his original Palm Pre).

For those who have spent any time with all of the major mobile operating systems, it has been clear from day one webOS has the most potential.  True multi-tasking is a biggie, and nobody does it better.

Yes, I'll wait for the Pre 3 and HP Touchpad, but I'd better get a nice loyalty discount HP! 😉

Here's more (with video & pics) from CNET - http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20031111-1.html