James Bond "Quantum of Solace" web trailer is deadly sharp

Daniel Craig, who plays Bond, and Bond girl Olga Kurylenko. 
(Photo: Karl-Josef Hildenbrand / EPA)

"Quantum of Solace," as a title, has a modicum of dullness. But from the trailer that's now circulating online, the new James Bond movie looks like it might follow on the heels of its dark, Daniel Craig-led predecessor in reviving a franchise that had descended into schmaltz, explosions, and formula. 

If you haven't seen the trailer, check it out by clicking on the above link (caution: doesn't seem to work on a Mac). The player, by a company called Vividas, will instantly seize your computer and begin playing the trailer at full screen size.

But the vividness and resolution is impressive--it almost looks like you're watching a DVD. (For a kick, compare the streaming quality to the same trailer on YouTube.)

Also like the protected parts of a DVD, you can't fast-forward, pause, or rewind either--an irritating and un-webby feature.  The software didn't let me take a screen shot either, so I'm thinking there's all kinds of anti-piracy software built into the Vividas player (their web site offers a pledge to deliver content owners "ultimate security through advanced Digital Rights Management.")  Not sure what that means, since we all know how long those promises last.

Still, the player is pretty darned hi-fi, and it's a good example of how online video technology is continuing to evolve. Pretty soon DVDs, along with old vacuum parts and boxes of polaroids, will be among the funny things kids find in the back of the hallway closet. 

Comments

[John H.]

I'm sorry but that clip didn't work on my machines. I have DSL connected to 2 P4 computers and I use verizon wireless for my Pentium M laptop. First, the clip doesn't play at more than 15 or 16 frames per second - at the most. Second, that player takes a lot of CPU resources. Third, the picture is degrading a lot during fast motion scenes. And fourth, although I have 2.5 mbps connection the clip was stalling at least 10 times. Why is that?

So.. I'll stick to Quicktime for now and its trailers site. I know there are other technologies out there but vividas is not the one I'd pick for streaming movies over the Internet.

Last week I tested a much better streaming delivery technology but they are still in beta so they don't have much content. The company is called Vircas and they are offering free video widgets :) Hopefully they will soon get some content because trailers don't really excite me anymore ...

Oh.. And as far as DRMs are concerned they have ALL been broken/hacked. There are also software out there that can record videos from your computer at a very high resolution, which makes DRMs purely useless.

The only good thing about vividas is that they are not using P2P. But I will give them a second chance tomorrow as I will have access to a T1 connection. We'll see.

-J

[David Sarno]

John,

Thanks for your comment. I was interested to hear that the software performed so poorly on your machine. It's true 2.5Mbps isn't much bandwidth for video streaming, and my feeling is this software is a real hog (I have about 4.5Mbps and it works okay)--but you'd think they'd be catering to people that had less than 4M. Please let me know what you find out when you try it on a T1. If you want to post another comment about it, that'd be great.

--David

[giorgio]

I am surprised that the Vividas player didn't work. It will work over 256k, I have tested it many times. May be your wireless connection is degrading the speed.
As to the DRM, Vividas address the graphic subsystem directly bypassing the operating system, which is the reason your print screen didn't work. For the same reason, you will not find it in the cache either. And yes it is P2P architecture and it will scale to millions of connections making it ideal for live events.

[John H.]

@David: Yes, I will let you know how vividas performs on T1. Regarding the minimum requirement if we need a 4.5mbps connection in order to watch a DVD quality clip with vividas then I guess their technology is not really impressive. At 4mbps any player using any streaming technology works great with sharp pictures too. Also, the impression of sharpness you get is mainly due to the noise filter vividas adds to the picture. That's a well known trick. The rest is due to Adobe/h.264 codec, not vividas.

@Giorgio: It will work on a 256k, really? At 24fps? I doubt it but I won't bother double checking since I got DSL now :0) And P2P is really a very bad choice because that technology isn't designed to stream but to download files. It depends on so many factors for any viewers to enjoy a flawless streaming experience. On the ISP side, check how P2P is doing in the UK and you will get an idea on what is going to happen here in the US. ISPs in Europe are not quite happy with software that are stealing their bandwidth. Regarding P2P being able to scale to million we heard that before. It’s great on paper but no realistic. For a P2P streaming to be flawless you need to have several thousands of peers to download the same file and share it, thus with no latency and at a constant bitrate. There are existing software using live P2P already but they can't go higher than a 450kbps type quality (worst than Youtube quality).

I read a lot about vividas today. On the technology side they offer nothing special - Adobe or even Quicktime does a better a job. In fact, the video quality that you are impress with David is not due to vividas’ technology at all. It’s due to the h.264 codec and flash technology. On the business side they have been around since a while and never quite left the beta level. How many clients do they have right now ? – I mean for real.

Please allow me to tell you what viewers want – at least what my friends and me would like to experience. First, a flawless stream at a constant birate (24fps is fine). Second, a picture that is decent such as “near DVD” quality. Unlike many geeks we don’t stick our noses to the screens in order to catch any artifacts. Third, a stream that will not suck up all the bandwidth because my kids will kill me – not to mention my wife. Finally, I don’t care about DRM. Don’t make it a viewer’s issue!!

Thank you Dave for giving me the opportunity to tell your readers what I think about vividas and the streaming world in general. I’d like to read more in-depth and honest reviews on new technologies sometimes. Look at what the media said about Netflix and the Roku box recently. Ugly picture and poor content became: the greatest streaming solution ever. For Joost it was: TV is dead, viva P2P. Really? Their reached what? 2 million downloads of their software - which means from 2000 to 20 000 active users in average. If you call Joost a success after they received $45M from Viacom and got the maximum exposure from the medias I don't know what you call a failure. So please, don’t make Vividas the next new comer that will revolutionize the TV / Streaming world… again.

-J

[Rakhi Sabant]

I think this movie won't earn like its previous one!

[Katie]

As far as I'm aware they don't deliver over P2P they use Akamai CDN services. They encode to multiple bitrates. Starting at 220 kbps going through to 2.2 mbps. I don't think they use the CPU for the rendering and scaling of the media. My PC is barely registering the video stream when it's playing. I'm an independent film maker and have looked at their services in the past because their format plays long form content so well. I've been able to sit down and watch a full length movie (The Secret) full-screen with none of the usual interruptions. I think what's being missed here is that it's great quality but also very simple to use. They deliver the player to the user at the start of playback, you don't have to install anything or update previously installed software. I've been watching Sony trailers through their player for the past year or so hence why I got in touch with them. They did the original Casino Royale trailer. Looked good then, looks good now. As for Mac players, they're improving but unless you're Adobe and have the Macromedia flash player to fall back on or Apples own Quicktime you're at the mercy of the company's ever shifting development prgram and as we all know Apple never share until it's time to release a new product. I think Vividas are being unfairly singled out here, it's companies like Vividas, Move, DIVX etc that are changing the way we enjoy TV, increasing choice and making it accessible to all. We should be celebrating this progress not panning it. Oh and the only filter they added to my media when they encoded a test was to de-interlace it to solve the combing effect of my NTSC video. I hope your friends and you find what it is your looking for, I fear you might have to go back to conventional TV for a few years though until the internet meets your exacting standards.

[Nick]

Not sure what you read about Vividas but you seem to have got most of it wrong! They dont use h.264 or flash and dont use P2P either......looks pretty good to me and I'm only on 2mb downstream.