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
01 Mar 2002
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
06 Feb 2002
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
04 Feb 2002
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
12 Dec 2001
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
11 Dec 2001
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
11 Dec 2001
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?
07 Dec 2001
Technical Editor Bill Bernat ponders the intelligence of Windows XP.
StreamingHand Services Claims Streaming Cost Breakthrough
03 Dec 2001
Anystream Agility Workgroup: Encoding Warrior
12 Oct 2001
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
02 Oct 2001
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
07 Sep 2001
New site provides development community structure — and the code for the streaming media codec.
Apple Responds to Dumping of QuickTime Support in Internet Explorer
21 Aug 2001
Company is quick to offer solution to QT install base.
Microsoft Approves of Vividon's Appliance
23 Jul 2001
Vividon says its streaming appliance received Windows Media compliance from Microsoft.
Express your Rights
13 Jul 2001
New Napster Will Look Out For You
06 Jul 2001
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
05 Jul 2001
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
22 Jun 2001
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
21 Jun 2001
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
18 Jun 2001
Pros, Cons and the Bottom Line
20 Apr 2001
Director: Solid Remote Management
20 Apr 2001
Video Multicasting with Appliance Ease
20 Apr 2001
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
17 Apr 2001
Osprey 2000 DV Pro Brings Welcome Improvements
17 Apr 2001
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
10 Apr 2001
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
02 Apr 2001
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
27 Mar 2001
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
16 Mar 2001
Sun unveils new Java Media Framework with streaming built-in.