CONVO TOPIC OF THE WEEK:: IT'S READY FOR DOWNLOAD, BUT WITH ISSUES :: GEEK MYSTIQUE

This week, we are discussing the application release process and the culture that drives it.

As a client,  I expect delivery dates to be met.

As an Engineer, I expect products to be fully operational out-of-the-box once released, even in Beta!  If you send me a packaged piece of software to install on my server, I expect it to just work.

Is that asking too much?

There is nothing more heart breaking for an Engineer than to have to tell a customer/Business partner why their product is yet another week or month delayed in delivery, because in preliminary testing one finds said product simply doesn’t work correctly.

Is it just a matter of day-to-day business in the competitive media space? We know vendors are in a constant state of flux to meet new requirements and keep their products fresh, but at what cost?

Executing comprehensive QA (Quality Assurance Testing)  is usually sacrificed to keep customers happy, “in theory”… while in practice the cost of the exposure when a new bug is discovered is usually more expensive – at the cost of trust in the vendor and the product.

What do you do when you want to keep a project on time, but during product testing there are flaws and vulnerabilites, do you keep pushing forward? There are exhaustive combinations of client side variables that will effect a web based products performance, how far do we need to go to QA a product before it is released?

Truth be told there are 100′s of “bugs” in every product, so much so that we call them “features” and just devise a ‘work-around’ to prevent the show from stopping.

Microsoft is a prime example, even the simple things have unexpected “features”.  Have you ever had issues trying to download a Trial product from Microsoft’s website?  For fun, go try and download the “Trial” version of MS Project and you may find so many issues with just trying to get to the trial download, that you just go buy it.

Perhaps that is by design? [* hmmm * finger to chin... tap, tap*]

I am asking YOU, what do you think?  Do we keep living with the big BUTT with issues or find a better way?  IMHO it is cultural and can be changed if an industry decides to change dates and put more emphasis on QA, but that’s just me… and I am just one packet in the stream of media life.

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!

You can sign up for FREE to view the Webex session hosted on the FCC website:  More info here

Date and time: Thursday, August 27, 2009 1:30 pm

Date: 8/27/09
Time: 1:30 pm
Location: Room TW-C305 (Commission Meeting Room)
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20554
Directions

Coordinator: James Miller
Phone: (202) 418-7351

Eastern Time (New York, GMT-04:00)
Change time zone
Program: Broadband
Duration: 2 hours
Description: Topics (Preliminary)
The following are some of the preliminary topics that will be covered at this workshop. If you would like to discuss any other topics, please send us your suggestions.

1) Trends
What are innovative ways consumers are using broadband today?
How are the ways consumers use broadband changing?
How are evolutions in devices facilitating what consumers can do with broadband?
How will applications evolve in the next 5, 10, and 15 years?
2) Needs
What advancements in broadband infrastructure could make possible applications currently limited by the available pipe?
What are the challenges to developing broadband applications for fixed and mobile broadband?
What changes in broadband devices and development platforms could realize new growth in applications?
How may changes in applications drive changes to networks?
What regulatory or legal barriers constrain the growth of broadband applications and devices?
In what ways do applications and devices leverage legal, social, and technical features of cybersecurity?

Agenda

let me know what you thought of this session if you attended – I will be monitoring and recording in its entirety!

N

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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