Artbeats.com is currently giving away 1 unique royalty free clip per day with no strings attached. Considering today’s clip was valued at $299, that’s quite a deal. What are you waiting for? Sign up and build your own royalty free library, clip by clip.

If you were to do the math on this promotion, Artbeats is literally giving away over $100,000 worth of royalty free HD footage per year. The clips are available in full HD (1920 x 1080), NTSC (720 x 486), and PAL (720 x 540). Unfortunately, 2K, 3K and 4K clips are not part of the daily Free Clip Program, however they can be purchased if available.

Royalty free clips come in handy in all kinds of circumstances and it’s a good idea to start building your very own library.

Whether you’re just starting out in the world of video or been at it for some time, it’s highly likely you’ve had to deal with codecs like H.264, which belongs to the MPEG family of codecs. Many of us have a general knowledge of codecs; a knowledge that grows every time we come across a codec problem. Others have mastered the codec; having used their knowledge to implement a vast array of technologies, forever changing the way we interact with video-sharing sites, video hardware and software.

MPEG LA has issued licenses for over 1,000 H.264-related patents. According to MPEG LA, their “initial licensing program for MPEG-2 digital video compression helped produce the most widely employed standard in consumer electronics history.”  This past Tuesday, MPEG LA announced its AVC Patent Portfolio License, which the H.264 codec belongs to “will continue not to charge royalties for Internet Video that is free to end users (known as Internet Broadcast AVC Video) during the next License term from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2015.”

This seems like good news. Being that YouTube, one of the most popular internet video sharing sites, uses the H.264 codec, I would image a lot of us would be classified as “end-users.” CNET suggests that this extension could help encourage Web sites to use it instead of rivals such as Ogg Theora, which isn’t encumbered by patents, or On2 Technologies’ VP7 or VP8.”

However, people are already starting to grumble. John Lilly, Mozilla’s Chief Executive, twittered, “And regarding that MPEG-LA announce: it’s good they did it, but they sort of had to. But it’s like 5 more years of free to lock you in 4ever.”

What do you think, is MPEG LA’s royalty-free extension good news, or bad?

20,000 New Tracks Added As Its Library Surpasses Two Hundred Thousand Tracks

AudioMicro.com, a crowd-sourced marketplace for royalty free music and sound effects licensing, announces that its users can now download more than 20,000 new production music tracks from its online library.  AudioMicro users have immediate access to 20,000 fresh tracks spanning a comprehensive range of musical genres and styles.  The new offering has been dubbed, “The Platinum Collection”, and features a selection of hand picked, award winning production music.    Read the rest of this entry »

Jupitermedia Corporation (Nasdaq: JUPM) today announced that Stockxpert.com (www.stockxpert.com), the royalty-free stock photography community, has expanded its product offerings and now includes premium royalty-free footage which are available in the most popular file resolutions and file formats and at prices to fit all budgets.
File formats include both standard and high definition video as well as Flash video to appeal to Web designers. Stockxpert.com now enables footage buyers to purchase the clips they need for their creative projects for as little as $10 at the lowest resolution to $50 for 1080 HD. Stockxpert.com’s powerful footage search engine with 16 search categories and over 150 sub-categories makes finding the right clip fast and easy. Stockxpert.com offers one of the fastest and easiest ways to upload files and encourages members of the creative community to submit their footage for consideration to be sold on the site.

“Microstock sites are playing a major role in the digital imagery business as buyers are facing tighter budgets. We’re excited to be able to provide another cost-effective, high quality option to creative professionals and Web designers to enable them to complete their projects with Stockxpert footage,” stated Alan M. Meckler, Chairman and CEO of Jupitermedia Corporation. “This is another example of Jupiterimages’ mission to provide the highest quality digital content in every format and every price point to serve the entire creative community,” added Meckler.