insight :: the evolution of broadcast media
software
software & applications
STREAMING MEDIA EAST 2010 :: CONFERENCE POST WRAP UP :: HERDS & HERDS OF GEEKS & NERDS
May 13th
Welcomed by Kevin Shively, TVWorldwide
Streaming Media East 2010 – the day after report: What is it about technology conferences that makes them so exhausting?
The exhibit floor this year was smaller then last years and I heard from the exhibitors that real “customer” presence was light, but of course for my purposes… that doesn’t really matter.
Selfishly I have to say, I am only interested in technology innovations that are easy to integrate or deploy, that are affordable and of course, that actually work. There was a lot of discussion around scalable technology, SD to HD workflow transitions, adaptive (bit rate) streaming… and of course, highest on the list is the promise of “unified systems” (as it is referred to in the Enterprise) or single [video] signal transmission to multiple devices, something along the lines of TVEverywhere type availability of broadcast content, but specifically one feed that can play back on any device (i.e. Mobile, Desktop, Set top box, etc.).
That’s a lot to think about, but I was able to pin-point my priorities and focus on putting together a package that would work for me and my budget… and here is that journey. More >
BEWARE THE TWITS :: YOU TWEETS :: BIG BROTHER IS READING!
Apr 27th
I avoided Twitter as long as humanly possible, but of course one can only hold off on participating in the tech trends for so long without turning into some kind of geek prude. It started just about a month ago when I was bored on a train ride out to D.C… and there it was… Twitter.
I created my profile and eased into the whole process of pushing out itty-bits of chars to define the otherwise frenetic moments of a working day. Trends, projects and articles whiz by in twitter time and suddenly one is propelled into a world of conversations that, as it turns out, the entire world is listening in on. More >
ADOBE LAUNCHES CS5 :: & THEN ADOBE TV WENT DOWN :: iN-TENSE AS I FOLLOW THE iDRAMA
Apr 12th
AS I am watching the “Pseudo Live” launch video on Adobe.com for the CS5 suite, I can’t help but think how great everything looks in the pre-recorded video. Great production value! There are hundreds of Tweets on the subject as we all listen in for our specialized area of interest…. I heard nothing about transcoding video from Premiere or what the status of the Adobe Media Encoder is, which are the applications I use the most as a streamer of media, followed closely by good ole’ Dreamweaver.
Video looked great, Adobe Mobile Video looked great on the innocuous ”Mobile Device” they featured (ahem, iPhone?)… As far as you can tell from a video they produced and mastered in their Adobe CS5 suite… especially with all those “easy to use effects” in Adobe After Effects. Everything was great…
And then, the live launch video ended. More >
WINDOWS SERVER 2008 :: IIS 7.0 Live Smooth Streaming Walk-Through :: MICROSOFT
Mar 23rd
IIS Live Smooth Streaming
David Nelson takes us on a walk through of IIS Live Smooth Streaming now in Beta. IIS Live Smooth Streaming enables adaptive streaming of live events to Microsoft Silverlight clients and is an extension for Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 – it delivers compelling, uninterrupted live video streams that allegedly instantly adjust quality (bit rate) to match changing network and CPU conditions at the client.
I am very curious to see how this is going to work when Enterprise end users hit on an IIS 7 video that is Smooth streaming – fat live video pumping over HTTP into a locked down network, sounds like the kind of bandwidth consumption that could bring systems down… especially when systems are cloaked, how is the intelligence of the smooth streaming going to work for video coming in to the Enterprise from the outside?
The following prerequisites must be fulfilled to install IIS Live Smooth Streaming – Beta:
- You must use IIS 7.0 running on Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista® with Service Pack 1 (SP1).
- To manage IIS Live Smooth Streaming using the IIS Manager user interface, the IIS Management Console for IIS must be installed. You can install the IIS Management Console role service for Web Server (IIS) in Server Manager.
The following options are available for installing IIS Live Smooth Streaming - Beta:
- Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta
- Web Platform Installer 1.0
- Windows Installer files (for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista SP1 operating systems)
The “Installation Notes” section of the IIS Live Smooth Streaming – Beta Readme contains detailed instructions for each of these installation options.
Read the entire post
Here is an interesting thread from the WMTALK LIST:
For Live Smooth Streaming today, you've got just three products announced.
Inlet Spinnaker (with a forthcoming update) ENCODES
Windows Server 2008 (with Live Smooth Streaming module for IIS7) HOSTS
Silverlight 2+ CONSUMES
A live encoder basically pushes the same chunks the server would deliver to the
client to the server, with some extra metadata and stuff. So the file format is
still Fragmented MPEG-4. Supported codecs are:
VC-1 and WMA 10 Pro for Silverlight 2+
H.264 and AAC-LC for Silverlight 3+
Ben Waggoner
Principal Video Strategist, Silverlight
Microsoft Corporation
Compression Blog: on10.net/blogs/benwagg/
Compression Classes at Stanford and PSU: tinyurl.com/benwaggclasses
-----Original Message-----
From: WMTalk [mailto:WMTalk@DISCUSSMS.HOSTING.LSOFT.COM] On Behalf Of Harry
Emerson
Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2009 7:32 AM
To: WMTalk@DISCUSSMS.HOSTING.LSOFT.COM
Subject: Live Smooth Streaming: Goesinto & Goesoutta
Hi All,
I've read a bunch now about Live Smooth Streaming, and there's chatter about
mpeg4, H.264, etc., but I'm still confused about who does what to whom. If
anyone can help put the pieces together, that would be nice. What I'd like
to understand better right now is the goesinta and goesoutta formats for
each piece
WME9
EE2 SP1
IIS7
WMS/2008
Silverlight Player
WMP (v11?)
Starting points:
EE2 SP1: what input formats does it accept? What will it output to IIS7
(e.g., native mpeg4, a proprietary format, etc.)? What will it output to
WMS/2008? Will it output directly to a Silverlight player (and if so, in
what formats)? Will it output directly to a WMP?
WME9: we're probably familiar enough with input formats, and we know it will
output to WMS/2008 and to WMP 11 in a proprietary ASF format. Will it output
to an IIS7 publishing point? Will it output directly to a Silverlight
player?
IIS7: for a Live publishing point: what input formats will it accept (e.g.,
only a proprietary format from EE2?)? What are the output formats (e.g.,
only the .ismv chunked up smooth streaming file format?)?
WMS/2008: I'm guessing there's not much change. I assume it will accept
input from EE2, but not EE2 smooth streaming? I also assume the output is
the same (wma/wmv in an asf wrapper that can be digested by Silverlight or
WMP?)?
Silverlight: I think I understand that it can receive a million little
chunks of a video as miniscule progressive downloads from IIS7 Live Smooth
Streaming. Can it also receive that from WMS/2008? Will it accept other
input formats like mp3, mpeg4, etc. (I mean, in native mode, not in
programmer-hell mode -- meaning, can I just point an mp3 stream at it?)?
Maybe some of these answers should be obvious to me.... I'm also hoping to
learn of interplay between these systems and the broader ecosystem out
there. In particular streaming live and on-demand audio and video to the
wealth of smart phones that don't support Windows Media, the iPhone in
particular. For me, reaching that market is mandatory.
Thanks,
Harry
Harry Emerson
SurferNETWORK
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VLC MEDIA PLAYER :: WHERE HAS MY WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER GONE :: WHOA WHOA WHOA
Feb 25th
A word of warning: To all those who dabble in the world of streaming media, I recently installed VLC Media Player on to my desktop and discovered that it became the default player for ALL MEDIA content in Fire Fox and destroyed my gorgeous embedded Windows Media video content’s functionality… We are totally dependent on the reliability of players and plug ins in this game and when Windows Media Player embed tags stopped working completely, I discovered that the only fix was… Uninstall the VLC Media Player…
VLC is great, but if you work in multiple formats/players/embed tags, BEWARE… It’s a MIME type hog in FF… Anyone have a better fix for this yet other than this for the VLC Media player ? Of course, if you use OBJECTY in your tags, maybe you can skip all that pain, but if you can’t change the tags… You know what to do!
Happy Streaming, Suckers!
How to Convert FLV to AVI Using Open Video Converter
Feb 19th
from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit
If you are looking for a program that can convert FLV to AVI, maybe using Open Video Converter developed by Digitbyte Studio will help.
Steps
- Download Open Video Converter. Launch Open Video Converter.
-
Open Video Converter.
- Click the “Options” button from the main interface, then press “Browse” button to select a directory where you like to save your output file in your pc, or change the default output file name; As you know, you can also set Resolution, Frame rate, Resize mode, Video Compressor and Aduio compressor in their properties dialogs; The app sets Microsoft ADPCM as the default audio compressor. Press OK icon when all settings are completed.
- Then come back the main interface, Click “Open Video” button, select a directory in your computer where the FLV file is stored, change “Files of Type” to “All Files” from the menu drop-down list, and select a FLV file you wish convert, then click the Open icon.
- Now, you have loaded the FLV file in the program, you can preview your FLV file by clicking “Play” botton to make sure this app working well.
- At last, click “Convert” button to start the process of converting FLV to AVI.
Tips
- FLV Definition: FLV stands for Flash Video, FLV streaming media format is a new video format developed by Macromedia, it is a good streaming media solution. Because its higher compression ratio and superior download speed, any video/audio files can be compressed or converted to Flash Video format, and then FLV can be played in websites.
Warnings
- Before your converting Flash Video to AVI, there is an additional requirement, please install “Combined Community Codec Pack” to your pc, just search in google and find it out.
Things You’ll Need
- DirectX 9.0 or later
- Trp Converter
Related wikiHows
Sources and Citations
Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Convert FLV to AVI Using Open Video Converter. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.
Secret Sauce :: VIDEO SEO :: Tastes great! Less Filling!
Jan 29th
Today was an especially productive day – I sent the final draft of an article I wrote for Streaming Media Magazine on The “search” for real VSEO… to the editor.
It was an exhaustive journey into the realm of SEO. I spent a lot of time in WebEx sessions and engaged on my own traveling the paths of the end user to discover video on-line. I asked myself a lot of questions, went a step further and really tried to listen to some experts for guidance. I’d like to thank Mark Robertson publisher and founder of ReelSEO for his patience and enthusiasm, Accordent Technolgy’s for being my Enterprise go-to guys/gals and EveryZing that let me get inside their product and their minds!
Here is just one of the fascinating revelations passed down to me from Tom Wilde, CEO of Everyzing :
There are many tools that can be used to help users select keywords that result in good positioning for Google results; such as Google Insight for Search.
Google Search Insight provides... Insight
Google Insight reports that over the last 90 days, searches with the keyword video outnumbered keywords searches for sex, god, and Obama. So what do the numbers on the graph mean? According to Google Insight for Search, “The numbers on the graph reflect how many searches have been done for a particular term, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. They don’t represent absolute search volume numbers, because the data is normalized and presented on a scale from 0-100; each point on the graph is divided by the highest point, or 100. The numbers next to the search terms above the graph are summaries, or totals.”
In practice, simply adding the word video to a site makes it more likely to come up in a search, but there are also 3.38 billion other results for the keyword video on Google, so the competition is tight. The trick is to find the magic combination of keywords that eliminate the competition and push results for your content to the top of the list. You must take the same route one would take to Carnegie Hall, “Practice, practice, practice.”
When asked, “What makes for good VSEO,” Wilde points back toward the fundamentals of “old school” SEO: “Optimize the video’s presentation page using standard SEO techniques; this is also true for videos uploaded to sharing sites. Logical file naming schemes, site structure, use sitemaps and relevant keyword usage throughout the landing page will result in good VSEO.”
If you upload a video to YouTube, you will see how often it is viewed in different geographic regions as well as how popular it is relative to all videos in its market over a given period of time. You can also delve deeper into the lifecycle of a video, determining how long it takes for it to become popular and what happens to video views as popularity peaks. (figure 2) YouTube is also rolling out paid search, a new feature that enables video distributors to buy keywords in YouTube on a pay-per-click basis. Currently, this is only available to agencies.
It’s faster to get a video indexed when uploaded to YouTube or an existing site that is already in Google and the other major search engines. When a site is submitted manually, it takes at least 90 days to begin showing up in search results, but YouTube, MySpace, and other established sites can list the same site in less than 24 hours. Just make sure you don’t rely soley on an up-load of your video, but create a full “channel page” for your videos, those weigh more in Google and others. Make sure you clearly indicate the link back to the site you want end users to go to, include links in the channel pages, and include a lower-third graphic in the video itself with a text advertising your site.
************* End of Excerpt *** To read more, you will have to subscribe to Streaming Media Magazine or check out StreamingMedia.com for possible a digital version
How to Use VLC Media Player to Stream Multimedia to Another Computer
Jan 13th
from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit
VLC is arguably the best media player out there.
It’s free, runs on almost any operating system, plays almost all video and audio files natively, can stream audio and video over networks using a myriad of different protocols, can be controlled remotely through a web browser and much, much more!
These are instructions on how to get your VLC to stream a multimedia playlist to another single computer on your network.
Steps
- Download VLC media Player (Videolan)
- Install
- Run VLC
- Click File, then choose Open File or Disc, depending on what you plan on streaming. For this example, it’s an avi file. The Directory option does not allow Stream/Save.
- Click the Browse button at the top right of the Open dialog box that opens. Choose the file you would like to stream and either double click it or click Open.
- Now check “Stream/ Save” in the bottom left corner, and click the Settings… button.
- You will be greeted by the Stream output dialog box. Check the Play Locally box if you want the file to play on the computer you’re setting up. Click the UDP box, fill in the IP address of the computer you are going to be streaming to, and leave the Port as 1234.
- Click OK to go back to the file open dialog.
- Click OK again to begin the streaming. Depending on if you chose to play the file locally, the video may or may not begin playing on the local machine.
- Go to the computer you are streaming to. Install VLC (if you haven’t already) and run the program.
- Click File, then choose Open Network Stream. Don’t change any settings and click OK.
- If everything has gone right, the file should start playing on the remote computer after 10 seconds or so!
Tips
- You need to get your IP address from the computer you are using to receive the files. On Win XP, go to Start, Run, type cmd in the text box, and then Enter. When the new window opens, type ipconfig after the > . The first number should be the IP address of the machine you typed ipconfig on.
- If you’d like to stream more than one item, get the first one streaming and then open VLC’s playlist editor (Ctrl+P for XP) on the streaming computer. You can easily add files to the list from there. Alternatively, you can choose more than one file (using the control and shift keys) when initially opening one to stream.
- VLC can be controlled via web browser, so no having to run between computers. On the streaming computer, click Settings, Add Interface, Web Interface. Now, just type the address of the streaming computer plus the port numbers :8080 into your browser’s address bar. Mine looked like this: 192.168.1.103:8080 . Now you can add files or almost anything else from right inside your browser!
Warnings
- You probably won’t be able to stream anything of very good quality over the Internet. Because of the bandwidth video files demand, the average home internet connection probably won’t work well enough, although you can probably stream music nicely. You need a good upload speed to send the files out at the speed they need to play smoothly.
- Don’t use IPChicken or Whatismyip or a STUN server to get your IP address for this. This method depends on your Local Network IP address, which is somewhat different from the public IP address used for the Internet.
- If you are streaming over the internet you should use IPChicken or Whatismyip or a STUN server to get your IP address for this. This method does not depend on your Local(private) Network IP address, which is somewhat different from the public IP address used for the Internet.
- Make sure you use UDP and keep the port numbers the same. This makes it very easy to just click, click, click in VLC on the computer receiving the files.
- If you are behind a firewall you need to create a rule to allow this type of traffic on the port you select to go through it.
- If you are behind a router, you will need to create a port forwarding rule for the port you choose for it to work correctly. Logging into your router is normally achieved by placing your gateway’s IP on your browser (i.e. http://192.168.1.1).
Related wikiHows
- How to Capture a Macromedia Flash Object from a Web Site
- How to Copy or Burn a CD Using Windows Media Player
- How to Access Your Music from Any Computer
- How to Change the Music in Computer Games
Sources and Citations
Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Use VLC Media Player to Stream Multimedia to Another Computer. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.
RESEARCH PROJECT:: VIDEO SEO :: SHOW ME THE SAUCE
Dec 1st
There is a lot of noise lately regarding how video content and SEO work together – there are many companies evangelizing their ‘wares to the hungry marketers of such video property; however, I don’t believe any of it for a second – it’s not working as advertised.
Recently I sat through a demo of a product that promised enhanced search-ability for video content that was essentially “tagged” by their product. At the end of the demo, I asked if we could examine how the tagging impacted the SEO of the client sites we looked at, using organic keywords that pertained to the video content we had just reviewed.
They proceeded to “plant” ordered keywords into Google to show how their tagged video appeared magically – with a rigid set of keywords that no human would “organically” input for a search. Having said that, the tagged video did not come up first nor did it come up as a prioritized web asset with more or less relevance than any other web page that pertained to the keyword set they used.
The tagged video appeared third and had no special indicator that this was a link to video enhanced web content.
On Google the special video category is relegated to video content originating from YouTube, so many of the products and “specialists” out there on VIDEO SEO are just going to post clips on YouTube and point back to the client website – so save your money and do it yourself.
Google search for interviews with Madonna
Here is an example, if I do a search for keywords “interviews with madonna” on Google, I get the quick drop down from the homepage that tell me there are over 4 million results that have relevance. More >
Accordent Technologies :: Multicast Slides In-Stream :: REALLY!!
Nov 12th
The newly released Accordent Multicast In-stream Technology is a “breakthrough that enables large organizations to leverage multicast-enabled networks to deliver high-quality streaming video with synchronized slides and graphics as a single, compressed stream. “ I was contacted by the team at Accordent and led through an early demo with my old pal Mike Lorenz, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer (& fellow streaming media All-Star)! More >