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Biographical Information

Bill Bernat

Technical Editor

Bill Bernat spent 15 years in the information technology industry at a wide variety of companies (NASA, investment and retail banks, dot-coms, and others), before joining Streaming Media as a journalist. He has also been writing and performing comedy in a variety of genres for as many years, and puts together Streaming Media's weekly industry commentary as the character Floppy McBuffer. http://www.streamingmedia.com/floppy

Articles for Bill Bernat

See David Lynch Stream

In an interview, filmmaker and Internet producer David Lynch talks with Tech Editor Bill Bernat about how TV is dead and his new number one passion is davidlynch.com -- the recently launched subscription and pay-per-view site, filled with streaming media and a great deal more.

MPEG LA Responds to Licensing Criticism

Larry Horn, MPEG LA’s vice president of licensing, responds to the flurry of criticism generated by last week’s proposed licensing terms for MPEG-4 Visual, and invites the industry to make its concerns known.

Proposed MPEG-4 Licensing Draws Fire

The MPEG LA has proposed initial licensing terms for the MPEG-4 Visual technology, and industry reaction is mixed at best, with Internet streaming media interests moving fast to have their concerns addressed. Technical editor Bill Bernat reports.

Anark Studio Goes Gold

At the Streaming Media East trade show in New York this week, Anark Corporation announced the availability of Anark Studio 1.0, a cutting-edge interactive media platform.

Pittman Says Internet Revolution Realized

In a keynote address at the co-located Streaming Media East/Internet World Conference, Robert Pittman of AOL Time Warner, tells how the Internet has arrived as a formidable commerce and marketing business, and the future of digital media to be found in networked households.

Microsoft Unveils Corona

During his keynote at Streaming Media East, Will Poole, VP at Microsoft’s Digital Media Division unveiled the newest version of its Windows Media technology, code-named "Corona". Technical Editor Bill Bernat and Senior Editor José Alvear spoke to Microsoft about Corona on Tuesday.

The Decoder: Is Windows XP Smarter Than You?

Technical Editor Bill Bernat ponders the intelligence of Windows XP.

StreamingHand Services Claims Streaming Cost Breakthrough

Anystream Agility Workgroup: Encoding Warrior

Video producers repurposing content for the Web — or dual-purposing it from the start — have a growing number of confusing choices for dealing with encoding issues. Associate Technical Editor Bill Bernat begins mapping the landscape by taking a look at Anystream’s Agility Workgroup 1.5.

ISMA Unveils MPEG-4 Specs

The ISMA unveils MPEG-4 interoperability specifications, calling it a "blueprint" for streaming media. But critics, like Microsoft, see MPEG-4 as an incomplete solution. Senior Editor José Alvear and Associate Technical Editor Bill Bernat report on what the specification means to the industry.

On2 Offers Up VP3.2 Source Code

New site provides development community structure — and the code for the streaming media codec.

Apple Responds to Dumping of QuickTime Support in Internet Explorer

Company is quick to offer solution to QT install base.

Microsoft Approves of Vividon's Appliance

Vividon says its streaming appliance received Windows Media compliance from Microsoft.

Express your Rights

New Napster Will Look Out For You

Napster’s service is temporarily down, and the world is watching to see what the new service will bring. Associate Technical Editor Bill Bernat asserts in this commentary that one thing is certain about the mysterious changes — the reborn Napster will be watching you.

Sorenson's SV3 Heats up Codec Battle

The new video codec, part of Apple's QuickTime 5, sports multiple new features designed to improve data efficiency and speed encoding times.

MPEG-4 Roars at Streaming Media West

The potential of MPEG-4 far outpaces what has actually been delivered, but several vendors at the show were indeed demonstrating actual, shipping, purchasable and implementable solutions.

Caching Appliances to the Enterprise WAN Rescue

At Streaming Media West 2001, vendors are showing proven, new, and upcoming caching appliances that will be of interest to any IT manager who hasn’t already implemented caching for corporate streaming.

Audio Balancing Act

Pros, Cons and the Bottom Line

Director: Solid Remote Management

Video Multicasting with Appliance Ease

Optibase’s MGW 2000 server makes intranet/extranet streaming nearly as easy as buttering bread, and saves your bandwidth with multicast capabilities. Associate Technical Editor Bill Bernat takes a look at this user-friendly appliance.

Slick Capture

Osprey 2000 DV Pro Brings Welcome Improvements

ViewCast's latest capture solution has a voracious appetite for video and audio data, and it's omnivous, devouring everything from unbalanced analog audio to SDI video with embedded audio. Associate Technical Editor Bill Bernat takes a closer look at this follow-on release to the Osprey 500 DV Pro.

Agnostic Streaming Delivery

The Generic Media Publishing Service offers webcasters a soup-to-nuts streaming publishing solution that will easily support new formats and bit rates for all of your content, instantly. Associate Technical Editor Bill Bernat puts the service through its paces.

Supertracks: Breakthrough Sum of Common Parts

While the music industry and Web consumers grapple with the trade-off between an online music solution that won’t cost listeners a penny and one that is profitable for content owners, Supertracks has tossed its hat into the ring with a solution that caters to both needs.

Advanced Video Capture: The Beauty of Integration

ViewCast’s Osprey 500 DV Pro makes a great choice for advanced capture and processing — unless you also need to encode live in the Real format.

Sun Still Betting on Java Multimedia

Sun unveils new Java Media Framework with streaming built-in.