Writing about web page http://soapbox.msn.com/betaplayer.aspx?vid=c1b72697-d9aa-41eb-a72f-a71812096b8e

Hmm – Microsoft follow the crowd yet again with Soapbox, a YouTube/Google Video clone. I was most interested in the platform choice; my immediate thought was that they would base it on WMP and apparently that will be the case for users accessing via Windows, but it’s interesting to note that everyone else will see Flash. So all submitted videos will be converted to both formats. The reason given for this it that it will provide optimum experience, but transcoding twice must incur some infrastructure cost. Soapbox is clearly an attempt to push Windows Media back into the spotlight, but catching up with the current video-sharing sites is going to be very tough.

Writing about web page http://www.onlinelib.de/VCS/DRM/drmPlayer1.html

Via the flashcomm list today, a new system that implements DRM and anti-caching for Flash video. There isn’t much of an explanation other than a single diagram, but worth watching for the future. The site is offering free DRM licences for a limited time.