I must clearly be missing something, but I just don't understand how this is useful. As a stock option owner myself, I am not required to keep the shares I buy when exercising options. Our stock option plan administrator allows immediate turn-around and sell, using the proceeds to finance the purchase of the discounted stock. I would think every plan allows this. Maybe that's what I am wrong about...
1) Share price > option price : Why would anyone pay more for an option than the difference in actual and discounted share price? 2) Share price option price : The options are worthless.
Below I am talking about video only. I will leave audio comparisons to others.
I have seen side-by-side comparisons between the codecs from Real, M$, and Apple QT, at exactly the same bitrates / conditions.
IMHO, M$'s MPEG4 and Real's video codecs are very close in video quality. Real encodes some 30% faster (single stream / not taking disk i/o into account), decode speed about the same. In general, if you see differences in video quality between these two, it is most likely caused by how the video was encoded, i.e. resolution, frame rate, differences in bitrate, or network conditions. For example, if the user does not change default encoder settings, M$ allocates 37 kbps for video when encoding for 56K modem, while Real uses 34 kbps.
In my opinion, Apple's QT streaming codec is nowhere near Real and M$ (Flame protective suit ON). Its compression efficiency is visibly worse, and the encoder is very slow. QT videos sometimes look pretty good, but this can be achieved by using a higher bitrate, and then pre-buffering enough to make it look like it is streaming, while it is in fact more like downloading.
I have read that licensing the use of the WMF SDK is free. M$ wants to spread its Windows proprietary audio format as far and wide as it can ("resistance is futile").
WMF pales in comparison to MPEG2
Not true. This all depends on bandwidth. MPEG2 is much less effective than WMF (MPEG4), as well as Real's codec, but when you see MPEG2, it is usually given lots and lots of bits. Side by side at the same bitrate, MPEG4 would be significantly better.
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Yes, I didn't think too far ahead. All is clear now. Thanks.
I must clearly be missing something, but I just don't understand how this is useful. As a stock option owner myself, I am not required to keep the shares I buy when exercising options. Our stock option plan administrator allows immediate turn-around and sell, using the proceeds to finance the purchase of the discounted stock. I would think every plan allows this. Maybe that's what I am wrong about...
1) Share price > option price : Why would anyone pay more for an option than the difference in actual and discounted share price?
2) Share price option price : The options are worthless.
Below I am talking about video only. I will leave audio comparisons to others.
I have seen side-by-side comparisons between the codecs from Real, M$, and Apple QT, at exactly the same bitrates / conditions.
IMHO, M$'s MPEG4 and Real's video codecs are very close in video quality. Real encodes some 30% faster (single stream / not taking disk i/o into account), decode speed about the same. In general, if you see differences in video quality between these two, it is most likely caused by how the video was encoded, i.e. resolution, frame rate, differences in bitrate, or network conditions. For example, if the user does not change default encoder settings, M$ allocates 37 kbps for video when encoding for 56K modem, while Real uses 34 kbps.
In my opinion, Apple's QT streaming codec is nowhere near Real and M$ (Flame protective suit ON). Its compression efficiency is visibly worse, and the encoder is very slow. QT videos sometimes look pretty good, but this can be achieved by using a higher bitrate, and then pre-buffering enough to make it look like it is streaming, while it is in fact more like downloading.
I have read that licensing the use of the WMF SDK is free. M$ wants to spread its Windows proprietary audio format as far and wide as it can ("resistance is futile").
WMF pales in comparison to MPEG2
Not true. This all depends on bandwidth. MPEG2 is much less effective than WMF (MPEG4), as well as Real's codec, but when you see MPEG2, it is usually given lots and lots of bits. Side by side at the same bitrate, MPEG4 would be significantly better.