News and Events - February 2008
Fri 29th Feb, 2008
Anniversary
Forbidden floated AIM eight years ago today. Since then, sweeping technical advances have driven the growth of video on the internet. Starting with its core video compression and web playback technology, Forbidden has created the world's most advanced web-based video platform - supporting review, logging, frame accurate editing, publishing and hosting, running securely through any popular web browser on PCs, Macs and Linux, with customers from high end broadcast to consumer. Try out FORscene or Clesh yourself - you can get hints and tips through the built in chat system. Those readers who are shareholders can have accounts for free.
Thu 28th Feb, 2008
Saturation
The latest feature to be released in FORscene and Clesh is colour saturation control. Right dragging horizontally in the video window sets the saturation, complementing the vertical control of black and white levels. This short video illustrates the new saturation control. It also uses other features including black levels, white levels, slow motion, fast motion, fade from black, subtitles, dissolves, audio levels and mixing audio tracks.
Wed 27th Feb, 2008
Television broadcast
Channel 4 is broadcasting the series Shameless, which uses FORscene in its post production, on Tuesdays with repeats on Channel 4, Channel 4+ and 1st Look on E4. The programme has a custom built 66,000 sq ft set in Manchester.
Tue 26th Feb, 2008
Document
Forbidden is a pioneer in web based video. You can read about the background to the company and the way its markets are shaping up in this document.
Mon 25th Feb, 2008
Effects
Forbidden's consumer video platform, Clesh, supports a range of real time video effects, including video levels, fades and dissolves, which play back immediately without needing rendering. Forbidden will shortly be broadening effects into new directions - again demonstrating the power and flexibility of the Clesh video platform.
Fri 22nd Feb, 2008
Recompress
The recompress feature allows publishers to update their videos with Forbidden's latest web player technology. This feature preserves the original URL, so website links to videos don't need updating. Here is example of a republished video - taken in Japan on a Nokia N95 last year.
Thu 21st Feb, 2008
Open source
FORscene uses open source software for its web serving infrastructure; Forbidden can fix bugs as soon as they are found, without having to wait for a new release. In practice, bugs are extremely rare, but we have recently discovered (and fixed) a bug in Perlbal, closing a denial of service attack loophole.
Wed 20th Feb, 2008
Internet coverage
FORscene is covered in the DV Show's Download Vault. It describes FORscene as: "A powerful online video editing and publishing tool".
Tue 19th Feb, 2008
Web publishing
The Forbidden web player, which is independent of the Adobe Flash and Microsoft Media equivalents, has a new resize button. This video of a recent visit to the London Aquarium includes the new button in the top right of the picture.
Mon 18th Feb, 2008
FORscene 1GB
FORscene is used for advanced video editing, running directly from the web. Users with modern machines can now give FORscene access to more memory by starting FORscene with the new 1GB button. The extra memory reduces internet traffic - with minimal traffic by the end of each session.
Fri 15th Feb, 2008
Northumbria University
FORscene, Forbidden's web-based video editing platform, continues to appeal to the educators of the next generation. Northumbria University has adopted FORscene to teach students video editing on courses including Film and Television studies, Journalism and Advertising and Media. Neil Percival, Senior Lecturer, Media and Communication Division commented: "Due to an increase in demand for our programmes we enrolled a lot more students this year... This meant we needed to find a way to increase our editing capacity dramatically without swamping existing edit suites. FORscene was the answer".
Thu 14th Feb, 2008
Web player
Forbidden's Java web player has been upgraded numerous times since its launch in February 2001 - the latest version taking less memory - with Forbidden's FORscene video platform (with recently improved publishing options) the ideal tool for editing and publishing videos. You can see the web player for yourself on the Clesh website.
Wed 13th Feb, 2008
Internet coverage
Life Goggles have recently updated their page on the world's main video sharing sites, including Clesh.
Tue 12th Feb, 2008
Mac upgrade
FORscene Load Mac version 1.6.6, which enables those with broadcast quality sources to compress video locally for speedy upload, now has improved audio quality. FORscene can later upload via FORscene Load Mac at broadcast quality the frames used in the finished version, allowing complete broadcast quality videos to be finished within FORscene.
Mon 11th Feb, 2008
Television broadcast
A new series of the award winning television series Skins, which uses FORscene in its post production, starts broadcasting today on E4 at 10pm. Channel 4 is repeating the programme at 10.35pm on February 14. You can find out more on the Skins website.
Fri 8th Feb, 2008
True Tube
The leading education video site True Tube has deployed Forbidden's web-based video editing platform Clesh for use in schools and higher education. Eric van der Schaft, Editor in Chief, True Tube, commented: "Clesh gives young people the tools to make their case quickly and easily in video. They can combine their own video with professionally shot library material on True Tube".
Thu 7th Feb, 2008
PC upgrade
PC users can take advantage of the new improved audio quality by installing FORscene Load - PC. Unlike the web upload, FORscene Load compresses the video and audio locally before uploading. For high datarate formats like DV, this can accelerate the upload process by 20 times.
Wed 6th Feb, 2008
Audio publishing
The audio quality in FORscene and Clesh web publishing has been improved. For those with broadband, the previous maximum quality is now the lowest quality, with new medium and high quality options. You can hear the difference for yourself with these excerpts from the recent Corinthian Chamber Orchestra CD recording of Schubert's symphony No. 8 in B minor, the Unfinished: low quality, medium quality, high quality.
Tue 5th Feb, 2008
Stereo editing
With FORscene being used increasingly for editing, we have simplified trimming and levels controls for stereo audio sources. The new default for stereo sources is that both tracks are trimmed together, and new audio levels are applied to both audio tracks. The tracks can still be treated separately if required.
Mon 4th Feb, 2008
Internet coverage
FORscene's fame has reached Poland. A wide ranging technology article in Webhosting magazyn informacyjny (home.pl) discusses Web 2.0 services and the move of applications onto the web, with FORscene illustrating web-based video editing.
Fri 1st Feb, 2008
Mac upgrade
High volume users of FORscene and Clesh can install native applications for uploading videos and images into FORscene, giving a host of features not possible with a web upload. As well as supporting all the latest codecs, release 1.6.5 of the Mac version has better performance on the Intel Macs.
