Memorium ...

Thoughts and prayers go out to the near and dear ones of the unfortunate casualties from the ongoing mumbai seige and terror strikes.

Incidentally, just found out Ashok Kamte was a senior ... 6 deg and all that ...

Let's all spare a moment in honor and memory ...

Bretton-nomics

The Europeans always seem to be calling on the Americans to put their house in order by reducing their trade, or budget, deficits while Washington always wants the rest of the world to increase domestic demand (and thus buy more American exports). The Europeans tend to believe in international arrangements (such as fixed, or targeted, exchange rates); the Americans do not want any constraints placed on their domestic economic policies.

So in the early 1970s, the Bretton Woods system broke down because the Americans (to European eyes) neglected their responsibility to maintain the value of the dollar relative to gold; in contrast, the Americans felt they bore an unfair burden because Europeans had the option to devalue their currencies which the US did not. In the 1980s, the Americans saw their deficits as the short-term consequences of pro-growth, tax-cutting policies; rather than being forced to cut back, they wanted other countries (and particularly the Japanese) to adopt the same approach. Jump forward twenty years and the cast has changed, but the script remains the same; Washington now wants the Chinese to play the role of consumer of last resort.

According to the Economist

Sounds like a build up to "reforming the truly global institutions" (read - build up for setting up scapegoats out of the WB and IMF so that the US has leverage to help close out the Doha talks.)

Back then in took 2 years to complete - thanks in no small part to the painstaking research contributions by the concerned - coming on the cusp-end of a war (generally a good economic time).

Now, amidst the global, cross industrial "bailout banshee" everyone wants a "2-minute Maggi" solution - while karoke-ing "Washington Consensus"-nomics.   Smells like a Drucker-Russia all over again!

Can you say - neo-world systems approach?

Lack of creativity or gumption?

News out of the UK:

Apparently, there seems to be a real steadfast inertia (PC equiv == risk aversion) on the part of the creative team to put together creatives specifically tailored for the mobile. They seem to want to just throw the respective TV ads in its place.

Which is a real shame, as it essentially means that are not leveraging the unique demographic-level advantages that mobiles offer - which should lead to more effective ad targeting and coupled with other features such as frequency, yield management and loyalty programs - resulting in - higher brand awareness, development, recall and thereby, acceptance (== ROI)!

Some of the really unique and compelling reasons to leverage the mobi space.

So, it seems the ad execs really don't like being held accountable and management couldn't be bothered.

Sad.

Enocding MKV or OGM to (XVID) AVI

Ever come across an OGM or a MKV file and try to rip it onto your DVD?
Tried burning either as a VCD/SVCD/DVD or data CD using your handy burner (Nero / Alcohol / etc)?

Didn't work, did it.

So, how does one do it?

1.  Get mplayer.  It comes with a handy little tool, mencoder.  That's what your really need.

2.  Use mencoder to translate, as follows:

"mencoder.exe "c:\video\video.mkv" -oac mp3lame -ovc xvid -xvidencopts pass=1 bitrate=1000 -o "c:\video\output.avi"

3.  Go grab a bite to eat.

You should be good to go!

A great idea is to dump it onto a pen drive which hooks into your home theatre system (or get something like this).


Details:
-- mencoder.exe = this should either be in your PATH or give the full path to the exe on your system

-- "c:\video\video.mkv" = this is the input file (either mkv or ogm)

-- -oac mp3lame = translates the audio to mp3 using LAME

-- -ovc xvid = translates the video to xvid (or just use "-o copy" to leave the video source as is)

-- -xvidencopts pass=1 bitrate=1000 (only to be used with "-ovc xvid" above)

(if you are wondering about what bitrate to use:  either don't specify the option or get a clue or use this calc )

-- -o "c:\video\output.avi" = output file


If you just want to encode one file format to xvid: use 2 pass for best results...
e.g.: mencoder input.avi -o output.avi -ovc xvid -xvidencopts pass=2:bitrate=3000

and add "-vf scale=320:240" if you want to rescale the video size.

Sampling rates vs bitrates ...

An article on how your bitrate reflects upon you

Analog audio, e.g. sound, is a waveform. Waves of air pressure, or captured by a microphone to make an electrical signal representing the waveform.

Digital audio is an approximation made by measuring - sampling - the waveform at regular intervals. So the 'Sampling Rate' is how often the wave is measured.

Music reproduction equipment attempt to handle a range of audio frequencies from 20hz to 20,000 hz. To represent a sound you need a sampling rate at least double the frequency. Compact disc sampling is 44,100 Hz, Digital Audio Tape sampling is 48,000 Hz and are thus capable of representing 20,000 Hz signals.

A musical note is tuned on its basic frequency - its fundamental frequency. But each note has higher frequency harmonics or overtones typically multiples of the fundamental frequency.

A concert piano has notes ranging from 27 to 4,000 Hz. Human voice ranges from 80 to 1,000 Hz. But the fidelity of the sound includes capturing many of those higher harmonic frequencies as well. So you want to capture frequencies 4 times higher than the fundamental up to about 16,000 Hz which is the limit of the ears of most adults.

A telephone has a sampling rate of 8,000 Hz and thus handles sound frequencies up to 4,000 Hz. FM radio handles sound frequencies up to 15,000 Hz.

For a speech, a sampling rate of 8,000, 11,025 or 12,000 Hz should be fine. Further, the sound can be recorded as one channel Mono as opposed to Stereo for further space savings.

For singing, you want a higher sampling rate like 16,000, 22,050 or 24,000.

For instrumental music, or movie soundtracks you want at least 32,000 Hz sampling or the 44,100 or 48,000 standards.

Bit-rate, a number like 128Kb, is a different concept altogether.

A CD stores music uncompressed at a sampling rate of 44,100 Hz; a sample size of 16 bits and in stereo - 2 channels. The bitrate is 44,100 X 16 X 2 = 1,411,200 bits per second.

MP3 encoders vary in quality, but generally can produce a fair-quality representation of CD music using 128kb/s (11:1 compression ratio) and a very good representation at 320kb/s (4.4:1 compression ratio). AAC compression can produce equivalent quality with only 3/4 of the bits, so a 96kb (14.7:1) AAC file with the quality of a 128kb MP3.

The MPEG standards specify a list of bitrates, and all players should be able to handle all of them. Some MP3 encoders will allow non-standard bitrates that can make smaller files with adequate quality, but for compatability your bitrates should be on this list: 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 144, 160, 192, 224, 256, 320 kb/s

Standard sampling rates are: 8,000; 11,025; 12,000; 16,000; 22,050; 24,000; 32,000; 44,100; 48,000 samples per second (Hz)

Here are some typical sampling rates, their uncompressed sizes and standard mp3 bitrates that correspond to fair and very good compression ratios:

8,000 Hz, Mono = 128kb uncompressed : 8kb(16:1) to 24kb(5:1)

8,000 Hz, Stereo = 256kb 16kb(16:1) to 48kb(5:1)

22,050 Hz, Stereo = 705kb 48kb(15:1) to 144kb(5:1)

32,000 Hz, Stereo = 1mb 64kb(16:1) to 192kb(5:1)

44,100 Hz, Stereo = 1.4mb 80kb(17:1) to 320kb(4.4:1)

48,000 Hz, Stereo = 1.5mb 96kb(16:1) to 320kb(4.8:1)

-- credit: Wisegeek

US market realities ...

Take-aways:

4,4 m subscribers for Video on Mobile (2% of total user base)
42% of TV watchers also watch content over the Internet
However, they spend >50% more time watching video on the phone vs. the Net

A18-24 watch longer, but A25-34 watch more (with A12-17 coming in a second) video on Mobile
Pie: MVT (mobile video time) = 3% of TV time; NVT (net video time) = 11% of TV time;

62% of mobile audience is in the 12-34 bracket

Gender-wise:
TV: F - 54%; M - 46%
Mobile: F - 46%; M -54%

Free seems the way to go:
36% (91m) own a video-capable mobile phone with 15% (13.9m) having a paid subscription for it.

73% of the online pop watches video online! - and its NOT news!

-- According to Nielsen

Meter down ...

HotGigs reports on current rates for contractual work:

WAP hourly bill rates
WAP bill rate (low): $85.00
WAP bill rate (high): $95.00
WAP pay rate (low): $55.25
WAP pay rate (high): $61.75

Raises more questions than it answers
- type of project (small / med / large)
- location
- how recent is this information
- accuracy
- exp/skill set of people reporting, and
- onshore / near-shore?

Still, some noise is better than the sound of ().

Demographic Potpourri

Nielsen says Indian's play games, email and bollywood on phones.Sports is a distant 5th!?!

As expected almost 50% girls gossip on phones actively; 26% boys.

Estimated total number of social networking mobile users: 4 mln US; 800K UK.  Every other progressive market is at the 2% of population level (give or take).  All chasing the elusive pie-in-the-sky.

All the existing cell phone user base, almost 85% expect to use the net through the cell phone.  I hope they all have 3G access!

Haste makes waste?

Michael Shayer of King’s College London has been testing children’s thinking skills since 1976, when he and colleagues started studying the development of reasoning abilities in young people. In 2006 and 2007 he got 14-year-olds to take some of the same tests as 30 years earlier. The findings, to be published early
next year, are sobering. More than a fifth of youngsters got high scores then, suggesting they were developing the ability to formulate and test hypotheses. Now only a tenth do.

The tests did not change, so the decline was not caused by different content or marking. And since they explored the ability to think deeply rather than to regurgitate information or whizz through tasks, the results matter deeply. In the purest test of reasoning, pupils were shown a pendulum and asked how to
find out what affects the rate at which it swings. “Their answers indicated whether they had progressed from the descriptive thinking that gets us through most of our days, to the interpretative thinking needed to analyse complex information and formulate and test hypotheses,” Professor Shayer explains.

In 1976 more boys than girls did well, a fact the researchers put down to boys roaming further out of doors and playing more with tools and mechanical toys. Both sexes now do worse than before, but boys’ scores have fallen more, suggesting that a decline in outdoor and hands-on play has slowed cognitive development in both sexes. Britain’s unusually early start to formal education may make things worse, as
infants are diverted from useful activities such as making sand-castles and playing with water into unhelpful ones, such as holding a pen and forming letters.

from the latest issue of The Economist, Nov 1, 2008