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.

The conference took place at the New York Hilton, as it has for the last several years.  Upon arrival to the show floor, one flight up via escalator, one was greeted by Kevin Shively at the entry and his A/V crew set up & ready for live interviews (you can view the replays here).  I couldn’t help but notice that this year Kevin and his trusty A/V crew (Pete) were equipped with the NewTek Tricaster TCXD850, this is the model that supports HD workflow (and will easily plug & play SD so you can ease in as you upgrade equipment and peripherals).  The Tricaster still runs on XP OS and I was a bit concerned about Microsoft’s recent announcement that they would no longer support Windows 2000 and XP O.S.

TriCaster™ TCXD850

In light of this concern I made sure my first stop on my updated workflow mission was to hit the NewTek booth and ask a guru.  I interview Will Waters, a NewTek Systems Integrator who was doing live demos on the show floor, and he assured me (*party line*) that NewTek is working with Microsoft to ensure support, however the unit is released to market on Windows XP.   This does concern me for the long term, but if one needs a workflow solution now I believe the Tricaster is the “best” studio in a box for the buck.  Of course, I would recommend not using it as your live encoder while producing a live webcast nor would I recommend going on the road with just one (I would prefer to have a back-up unit or solution like having a UStream.tv account with their UStream ProducerPro which is switcher ready and is pretty inexpensive for what you get.

On a side note, the Tricaster comes configured with UStream presets, however when I asked Will about this he was quick to redirect and position the product as being more “ubiquitous” so I suspect that relationship may have changed somehow, at least “politically”.   Just an interesting note. (And I did not see anyone from UStream.tv present at the conference, so… do the math!)

NewTek TriCasts™ America: Varsity Tour. From May 11-June 9, 2010

NewTek was plugging away at the capabilities of the mobile unit and their up-coming “Varsity Tour” (vehicle seen in the picture to the right), of which they boast:  NewTek will visit multiple cities to host live events, inviting audiences to check out the benefits of a giant live HD TV truck that fits in a backpack.

The strategy is this, they know that the trick to keeping their products relevant is attracting talent and expert users of their products, so they are hitting the Education trail to get kids hooked on their products early!  Makes sense…

At this point I have myself a nice little plan, Tricaster with a UStream.tv backup/failover plan… now I needed to figure out what to do with my transmission and how to send it out to the world.

My eyes usually glaze over and mind fog sets in at these events, I was lucky enough to run into Lisa Larson-Kelley (follow @lisamarienyc on Twitter) who was on her merry way to the A105: HTML5 and Web Video Standards session, moderated by Tim Napoleon, Co-Founder, President, Alldigital with panelists:

Jennifer Taylor, Director, Flash Content Creation and Distribution, Adobe Systems, Inc.
Monty Montgomery, Director, Xiph.Org Foundation
Greg Harris, Chief Creative Officer, Daily Interactive
Justin Eckhouse, Senior Product Manager, Video and Mobile, CBS Interactive

A105: HTML5 and Web Video Standards

The session was packed, standing room only!  It turned into (or tired to turn into) an Open Source vs. The Man type of debate that didn’t really go anywhere.  Here is how I read the session:

CBS = We wait & see to drive innovation

Adobe =”Hello, my name is Adobe & Flash is a CPU hog” “Welcome Adobe” – The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem [and, scene!]

Daily Interactive = I don’t remember anything this guy said, and I wasn’t even drinking yet.

Xiph = Stop talking & Just do it! [or something like that! You know, something really Open Sourcey and philosophical....]

Bottom line, I am looking at the HTML5 specification and it’s really no harder than HTML/XML but it has a fancy number – did you know the the number 5 is the most graphically desirable number since it contains both curve and straight line and it also represents my favorite Mambo?

The technology that really caught my eye this year is the ever affordable, pseudo non-political, ubiquitous, codec agnostic product engineered by team Wowza.  Their party line:  Wowza Media Server is the world’s first platform that lets you stream from one H.264 encode simultaneously to multiple players and devices. It unifies the multi-protocol, multi-player H.264 streaming into a single workflow, eliminating the need for multiple player-specific encoders and servers. And Wowza Media Server 2 delivers all that at an unbeatable price — 75% less than the single-protocol Adobe Flash Media Interactive Server (FMIS) or Microsoft Windows Server® with IIS.

Wowza Media Server demo - live streaming video to an iPad

I spent quite a bit of time with the fellas from Wowza trying to figure out what their party line is, we even broke bread… So, maybe I came close to drinking the cool-aid but the fact of the matter is simple:  I said it had to work.

FACT:  I was able to view their demo on the floor and they went in depth into how they used the VLC player as an encoder to get the video off of the server (running on an HP laptop) and over their “lab” network were able to just play back the url in the browser on the iPad.  I could “see” it working and accept the fact that this was just a demo.  They were honest about that.  Good.

FACT:  I really think the benefit of their product is in the price-point and ease of deployment, as Alex Dobrushin, Chief Marketing Officer, walked me through the set-up on say… An Amazon ECS account… the CMO described how all I have to do is take the Wowza pre-configured server image and load it up to my ECS instance.  Wowza offers a free demo that I plan to download from their site in order to build out my first Amazon Wowza media server.  This right here is the foundation of what a CDN is.  Of course I don’t want to be a CDN, I just like to stream the media to the people!

I did a round of interviews with A.M. Arno of Bandwidth Bastard fame and will be editing some clips of my exploits for your viewing pleasure shortly.

Last Word:  I got what I needed out of this conference and I hope that you got something out of this post, now go brush up on your motor skills and get some exercise!

Photo by Kelly Samardak: An Online Minute... Burgeoning Women's Networking Event Flings It For Spring At Armani/Ristorante

The most recent Digital Diva shin-dig inspired me, a little vino and a lot of chit-chat about social experiments and live streaming… all good stuff.

The ladies in the fabulous picture to the left, and I, were discussing live webcasting and what makes a live experience more compelling than just watching an on-demand web video?  Perhaps, we get a sense of intimacy that we share with the other viewers – when you know you are not alone in the “room” so to speak…  it is an intimate feeling, with the audience and the speaker, augmented by a sense of being there.  It makes the “viewer” more of a participant than a passive set of eyeballs.  Take that and top it off with some real-time interactivity and you have a fabulous recipe for attracting a real audience.

The best live webcast experience I ever had was at the launch of “Progressive Networks” first live

streaming media experiments (a.k.a. Real Networks).

I guess it was 1996 and I can remember the haunting feeling as I listened to the audio streaming live, it would slow down and warp as I watched the “counter” go up on the webpage as people tuned in and down as people were dropped, folks from all over the world tuned in and shared in this sense of wonder.  They could be anywhere….  I was somewhere.  Who was listening in with me?

That was the very moment when I felt it in my gut, that somehow I was going to be a part of this thing… this magical thing we call streaming media.

Of course now a days we expect and need a lot more to go with the live experience, warped audio ain’t enough to let us know we are not alone in the “room”.  Now, we need to share thoughts and reactions, have the speakers respond to our concerns in real time and to top it off, we want our snarky comments to twitter and retweet to the global cesspool.

That is all well and good, but the real challenge is finding all that is live broadcasting in one place.  I am considering creating a “what’s live now” Media Portal that only announces live webcasts (live online video broadcasts) from all over the world – I could suck in feeds from Ustream, Livestream and the FCC.. and even The YouTube and Hulu.

It’s the vision I have for 2011 and I’d like your feedback on this effort and of course any developers interested in this project are welcome to join in the conversation.

I will be in and out of the Streaming Media East 2010 conference, I will have my Zoom recorder and may take some interviews to post to my new blog, by the way…

Do you like it?  Getting better, isn’t it?

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.

Whoa!  Just now,  I went to “view more video at Adobe TV” I find that the entire “tv.adobe.com” website is down… Which tells me there is a lot of interest in the new features, more so than the site can handle, and also this tells me that it is possible that Adobe Video is not ready for prime time, the site went down after all.  All speculation & circumstance as this announcement bridges on the Adobe Anti-Apple news we have been reading about all over the web, on the heels of the big #Nabshow in Vegas.

As they say avid reader, “May you live in interesting times”… Indeed.

I smell a big political storm a’brewing… and I can’t wait to see if the site going down was from a lack of planning/load balance/fail over OR, better yet… If the site was attacked by a large corporate “black opps” unit that was hell bent on bringing down the whipper-snappers at Adobe?

By the way, everyone speaking in the Adobe CS5 launch video was very well groomed and rehearsed.  Good on ya’

“….the software was used to monitor the two patients’ brains as they watched a new film and to reproduce what they were seeing based on their neural activity alone.
“Remarkably, the computer program was able to display continuous footage of the films they were watching — albeit with blurred images.”

“A computer program was used to search for links between the configuration of shapes, colors and movements in the videos, and patterns of activity in the patients’ visual cortex.
“It was later fed more than 200 days’ worth of YouTube internet clips and asked to predict which areas of the brain the clips would stimulate if people were watching them.

Full post here

In a Press Release issued today, (Dallas, Texas, September 10, 2009) AT&T Inc. announced they will webcast a presentation by Randall Stephenson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, AT&T Inc., at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia XVIII Conference in New York on Thursday, September 17 at 9:30 a.m. ET.

The webcast will be available live and for replay at www.att.com/investor.relations

They used TalkPoint:

http://cc.talkpoint.com/gold006/091509a_mg/?entity=9_C13CNXF

Check it out, UStream.TV rented a Tricaster Studio from me yesterday for the live edit from Times Square, LIVE in the heart of  NYC! You can bet that this is going to be a celeb-fest, No doubt! I see Katie Couric on the scene already and it just started.
The Fans are restless!
Here is the link to the Channel page: http://www.ustream.tv/Ashton

In case you missed it, it was fine… Bloomberg was there, Demi and moore… (get it?? LOL!)  Sorry guys, I should have grabbed the footage for you and posted to YouTube

Promise next time!  Here is more info on what was going on, an effort to raise awareness for Volunteerism -a good cause indeed!

http://www.eifoundation.org/press/release.asp?press_release_id=244

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS92321+10-Sep-2009+PRN20090910

Enjoix!

SAVE THE DATE: The next meeting of the Committee will take place on Thursday, September 10, 2009, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., at the Commission’s Headquarters Building, Room TW-305, 445 12th Street, S.W., Washington, DC  20554. Meetings are open to the public and are broadcast on the Internet in Real Audio/Real Video format with captioning at www.fcc.gov/cgb/cac

Meeting Agenda
At its September 10, 2009 meeting, the Committee will focus upon broadband and the development of the National Broadband Plan. The Committee is expected to consider an outline of its recommendations to be submitted in connection with the National Broadband Plan Notice of Inquiry, Docket 09-51. The Committee may also consider other consumer issues within the jurisdiction of the Commission. A limited amount of time on the agenda will be available for oral comments from the public.  Meetings are open to the public and are broadcast on the Internet in Real Audio/Real Video format with captioning at www.fcc.gov/cgb/cac.  Members of the public may address the Committee or may send written comments to: Scott Marshall, Designated Federal Officer of the Committee, at the address noted below.
The meeting site is fully accessible to people using wheelchairs or other mobility aids.  Sign language interpreters, open captioning, assistive listening devices, and Braille copies of the agenda and handouts will be provided on site.  Other reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities are available upon
request.  Include a description of the accommodation you will need, and a way we can contact you if we need more information.  Last minute requests will be accepted, but may be impossible to fill.  Send an e-mail to: fcc504@fcc.gov or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530 (voice),
202-418-0432 (TTY).

For further information contact:  Scott Marshall, Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau, Federal
Communications Commission, Room 3A633, 445 12th Street, S.W. Washington, DC 20554. Phone: 202
418-2809 (voice) or 202-418-0179 (TTY). Email: scott.marshall@fcc.gov.

Netflix

I discovered a NetFlix job posting for the role of Director of Encoding Operations on the StreamingMedia.com job board – I decided to red-line the job post with the dialogue as I heard it play out in my head -  There is a true irony about the timing and wording of their post, especially in light of the recent announcement Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings made, “Netflix Inc. may allow customers to pay solely for online-video streaming by late this year or 2010 as more viewers watch content directly from the Internet“.  I suppose they have to get it working first though…

The special “skill set” as described is foreboding, to say the least – but jobs are tight and it seems like they are hiring,  so go for it if you qualify.

But, be forewarned – considering that NetFlix is already streaming video content, doesn’t it seem like someone has to have already made a lot of big decisions…   In fact, it reads to me like someone got “stuck” with a lot of tasks they hate doing doing and/or taking responsibility for and they want out of that role -  but do not want to be made to look bad by the new director (i.e. If you go in to your new role and find that everything is a hot mess and that a ton of money was already spent on shiny, well-packaged technology that doesn’t actually work…. you have to go in and make it all better, don’t say anything was mismanaged… be nice!! In the words of Fashion Icon Tim Gunn, “Make it work!” )

As posted on StreamingMedia.com – with comments by Nico in RED below:

As the Director of Encoding Operations, you will be responsible for the management and overall work flow of digital assets streamed to customers via PCs, Macs, and other consumer devices.[You wouldn't be streaming to customers "via" PCs, Macs, and other consumer devices. - you would simply stream to.... devices - people aren't streaming to Netflix,  Netflix is streaming out... ] Reporting to the VP of IT Operations, you will expand upon a proven track record in which your processes, insight, and leadership enabled your business to support and remain ahead of evolving consumer trends and technologies.[What????]

Key will be the ability to act dynamically and accurately to nimble business decisions when the needs arise to deliver new digital assets in one to many encoded formats. [Ok, why is that so key now when there are products out on the market that  are proven to work that you should already own at this juncture?   Right?  They've been doing this for a while, what are they using that down't scale... Uh oh!]
You will establish and leverage key internal relationships, notably with engineers who manage title work flow and staff in our L.A. office who acquire the assets and set priority/timing for title availability. [Someone has been arguing with their Engineers me fears...]
You will also manage vendor relationships, specifically with post houses with whom we partner for various aspects of the work flow and our CDN partners whose networks are used to stream content to our customers. [Has someone been having trouble FTP'ing those big files over without corrupting them?? Hmm??   Oh, and I was taught in Corporate Speak 101 not to call them "vendors" - it's kind of derogatory, we call them "suppliers" these days.]
You will guide/facilitate peer teams through a supply chain evolution, where long-standing processes used to support the DVD business are augmented or replaced in favor of an new digital asset work flow. [We knew that was going to happen, out with the old and in with the new ]
Tools will require augmenting and replacing, where you will be key to decisions which will affect multiple teams and their respective processes.  [You mean convince SMPTE's and Tech heads to accept changes in workflow?  Sure no problem!  They love change and learning how to use new products is their favorite.... Doesn't this job sound great???]

Key success factors include all of the following:

* Establishment and evolution of key metrics, ranging from operational to broad business insight [Don't they already know how to measure success - aren't their key metrics established...  maybe they should call SkyTide?]
* Track record, with examples of setting multi-quarter, multi-year objectives and meeting them [Ok, that's one normal bullet point ]
* Excellent communication skills, providing operational insight to core stakeholders while effectively educating/updating a broader team of interested parties on a recurring basis [Sounds like someone's got a lot of expalining to do and they want YOU to do it for them ))) ]
* Experience with build vs buy vs service decisions (making and influencing) [No one wants to take the blame for those decisions anymore ... I mean, take the credit....]
* Proven track record of process re-engineering, demonstrating how to creatively meet key deadlines when unexpected obstacles arise [Expect the unexpected.... you have to rebuild it but you can't take it down...got it?  Good!]

The individual will also:
* Be able to precisely speak to prior budget investments and articulate how investment decisions were made and why [This is my favorite bullet point...  You need to make them feel better about their past choices... It's like getting into a new relationship and finding out that your new love likes to dress up like a teddy bear and do it in the woods... just put on the bunny suit and do it )  --  it's LIKE that because it's going to be very, very awkward in the room when you do the retrospective on the spend and have to explain it to them... without making anyone look bad... ]
* Speak to SLA’s, what drove them, and how he/she developed architectures to support them [Again, what???  I think you may need a lawyer for this one...dude.....do you need someone to tell you what you just signed and why?  Eeek!]
* Be well connected in the digital asset/streaming industry, having spent ample time with colleagues and vendors to understand common and uncommon processes and diverse technologies [Why?  Don't they have enough "vendors" knocking on their virtual gates?  Gonna take my connects...I don't think so!!  Get yourself on LinkedIn and make friends... Creating new job positions in your company to make friends is not Kosher...]
* Be expected to establish credibility with engineers via a deeply technical skill set [In other words:  Make the mean Engineers stop hurting our feelings...  - Oh, so you are going to be Super Nanny, come in and make everyone get along and stop the yelling and hitting... NO FIGHTING OR NO TV AFTER SUPPER!]
* Be expected to establish credibility with non-technical leaders via excellent business acumen [make the suits understand that just because something didn't work doesn't mean anyone is to blame... quick, put up another job posting!  We need to hire someone to take the fall... Call it a... Director of ... Director of Encoding Operations!!!  That sounds legit!  Yeah, that's the ticket....]
* Be highly creative – not focused at all on the way it’s been done before [uh, ok.  But you just said to speak to prior....and SLA's and why ...how he/she...  oh, never mind...Don't focus on the past...Got it. ]
* Obsess on delivering needed results following deep, actionable analysis [yeah, sure... that sounds great.  Obsession in the work place is always good... that's how bunnies get boiled... I'm not judging, I am just saying.]
* Wow his/her peers via smart, efficient communication backed deeply by clearly presented data [WOW!!!   You speak good!!  Pretty pictures, deep pictures....Just so you know, and I am DEEPLY CLEAR, people say WOW when things suck too... like, WOW that sucked.]
* Remain impressively calm during support difficulties and/or competing priorities – quickly organizing needed teams and facilitating the outcome [Prepare to enter the hellfire... but they will call you Director! ]
* Plan for failure, thoughtfully providing documented plans for mitigation or rapid recovery in all situations affecting the business [Plan in your Pee breaks, ahead of time...if we ask you to hold it in, you better hold it!  Sucker!]

If only every job posting came with a warning label, what a wonderful world this would be.

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

1. Download Open Video Converter. Launch Open Video Converter.

2. 

   Open Video Converter.

3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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

• How to Convert Mod to Avi Mpg Wmv Mpeg With Aiseesoft Mod Converter

Sources and Citations

• http://www.008soft.com/converter-flv-to-avi.htm

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.

In 1993 we didn’t have streaming media as we know it today, but we did have User Generated Video Content – Public Access television was a big part of my growing up here in New York City – In High School I was friends with a very charismatic gent who hosted a Live Cable show on Manhattan Cable Television … It was a great way to bring our big city together as High School kids from all over the boroughs would call in and some, eventually, would come to the studio to be part of our broadcasting click.

It isn’t surprising that growing up in NYC as an only child I would be drawn to this cool, A/V geekish crowd… Later, after spending 5 years at SUNY Stony Brook and being a big part of their Radio Station WUSB Stony Brook 90.1 FM (“The first station of the 90′s” “Have an Eargasm”) -  in 1993 I went to the New York Film Academy and did their accelerated course in Film.   Alas, shooting film took too long,  I wanted immediate gratification, like radio or the old cable show that happened LIVE – can’t get more immediate satisfaction than that!  In an effort to create cool visual entertainment and create a community, drawing in like minded New Yorkers, I signed up with MNN and began taping my own show.

The program was called “SHUT!UP!” and aired for 3 years on NYC’s  MNN – the program became very popular and along with that, Nico was a minor F list celebrity in NYC for a short while – I speculate that the character we created (there were many people who contributed to the program) related to how people were feeling at the time and connected with the audience some how  – I exerted a great deal of effort in creating a program that was like a kids television program for adults, so it was fun and it show cased my Friends and their shoes (who doesn’t love cool shoes?).  It was strange and campy, it was a brand in and of itself….

The success of the brand had many “confirmations” in my mind – One notable example I came across is a feature article in an old issue of SASSY Magazine – Sassy magazine was THE cool, hip mag’ at the time… and Tori Spelling on the cover -  Can’t get more hip than that!

COVER: Nico in Sassy Magazine October 1993

The article is called “HOW TO BE A TV STAR IN 10 EASY STEPS” – it’s funny looking back at how calculated the approach to this cable tv project was and how that approach correlates to how we go about producing UGC content for the web today.  it was really neat to take this “look back” and if anyone ever doubted that I had any expertise/experience in the area of UGC production – I hope this cute Sassy article brings it home for you!  It was, after all, written over 15 years ago!

Nico in Sassy Magazine October 1993