by Joe Aimonetti

Recent announcements from popular video hosting Web sites YouTube and Vimeo that they will now be offering HTML5 compatible video streaming have tremendously positive affects for Mac users. YouTube kicked off the announcement on Wednesday with Vimeo following suit shortly thereafter. If video on HTML5 gains traction, we could see the end or at least a lot less of Flash online.

As many longtime Mac users are aware, Flash is one of the most notorious resource hogs available. Many issues have been related to Adobes media software, causing more headaches than many users feel its worth. With YouTube and Vimeo offering the HTML5 version for viewing its videos, users can now browse without having to use Flash videos now play using the H.264 encoding.

Of course, this new technology is still in development and is currently offered as an opt-in beta program on YouTube. The beta does have its limitations for the videos you will see. No advertising which everyone is disappointed in Im sure, no full screen options though expanding the video will play nearly double-sized in your current browser window, no closed captioning, and no annotations.

Users should be aware that the HTML5 standard is only available for compatible browsers–currently Safari and Chrome only. Firefox supports HTML5, but only for the Ogg Theora format not H.264. Also, embedded videos from YouTube on other Web sites will still be Flash-based.

A bigger implication of popular video sharing sites moving away from Flash is its impact it could have on mobile devices, specifically the iPhone and iPod touch and perhaps the Tablet. Without Flash as a “missing feature” the iPhone is sure to gain even more inroads to the smart phone market.

via Why HTML5 matters to Mac users | MacFixIt – CNET Reviews.

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October 1 marks the start of Comcast’s implementation of a 250 GB monthly cap. Sources indicate that Comcast was thinking of charging $15/10GB overage. A press release should be released shortly confirming if this is true.

Comcast also was considering a system that would potentially suspend customers who received more than 4 DMCA letters in a 12 month period. This is unlikely, I think.

An insider, speaking confidentially, said this:

The intent appears to be to go after the people who consistently download far more than the typical user without hurting those who may have a really big month infrequently. As far as I am aware, uploads are not affected, at least not initially.

Only the top .01% of Comcast’s customers will be affected, supposedly.

Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas directs attention to Comcast’s Network Management Policy.

250 GB/month is an extremely large amount of data, much more than a typical residential customer uses on a monthly basis. Currently, the median monthly data usage by our residential customers is approximately 2 – 3 GB. To put 250 GB of monthly usage in perspective, a customer would have to do any one of the following:

• Send 50 million emails (at 0.05 KB/email)
• Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song)
• Download 125 standard-definition movies (at 2 GB/movie)
• Upload 25,000 hi-resolution digital photos (at 10 MB/photo)
• Send 50 million emails (at 0.05 KB/email)

This is the same system we have in place today. The only difference is that we will now provide a limit by which a customer may be contacted. As part of our pre-existing policy, we will continue to contact the top users of our high-speed Internet service and ask them to curb their usage. If a customer uses more than 250 GB and is one of the top users of our service, he or she may be contacted by Comcast to notify them of excessive use. At that time, we’ll tell them exactly how much data per month they had used. We know from experience the vast majority of customers we ask to curb usage do so voluntarily.

250GB is a fairly generous cap. Time-Warner Cable and Frontier cap at 5-40GB. Comcast will print notification in their bills soon, which is good. Customers will know what the limits are, and for now, won’t have to pay the overage fees.

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