Streaming Learning Center

Click over to the main page to download the handout. Here's the presentation description.

Learn the technological fundamentals behind encoding both H.264 and WebM formats for playback with the HTML5 tag. Learn the basics of H.264 and WebM encoding, and how to produce it for HTML5 distribution. In addition, see how the various H.264 and WebM encoding tools compare in regards to performance, quality, and features.

Here's the description. Click over to the article page to download the handout.

This session will discuss factors to consider when choosing an enterprise video encoding systems from the likes of Digital Rapids, Elemental, Harmonic, Sorenson, and Telestream. Factors incorporated into the analysis will include performance, output quality, quality control options, format support, expansion options, programmability, and other variables. If you're considering buying an enterprise encoder or upgrading your current systems, you'll find this session particularly useful.

Here's the description. Click over to the article page to download the handout.

This session will discuss factors to consider when choosing an enterprise video encoding systems from the likes of Digital Rapids, Elemental, Harmonic, Sorenson, and Telestream. Factors incorporated into the analysis will include performance, output quality, quality control options, format support, expansion options, programmability, and other variables. If you're considering buying an enterprise encoder or upgrading your current systems, you'll find this session particularly useful.

Now that mobile devices are a critical target for most streaming producers, does it make sense to start encoding all H.264 footage using the Baseline profile? From the tests that I performed this week, encoding all footage using this profile might save encoding and storage resources with minimal loss in quality. Click over to the main article to view the test results, or click here to view the actual video files.

Here's the description. Click over to the article page to download the handout.

This session will discuss factors to consider when choosing an enterprise video encoding systems from the likes of Digital Rapids, Elemental, Harmonic, Sorenson, and Telestream. Factors incorporated into the analysis will include performance, output quality, quality control options, format support, expansion options, programmability, and other variables. If you're considering buying an enterprise encoder or upgrading your current systems, you'll find this session particularly useful.

Here's a video I produced for OnlineVideo.net on using Premiere Pro's Ultra Key and Garbage Matte. It's an intro- to mid-level video that applies the effect on three videos of varying complexity. The good news? One video is of a (fully clothed) lovely dancing lady. The bad news? The lady's face is not showing (those pesky permission issues) and the other videos are of me.

All joking aside, if you've never used Premiere Pro's Ultra key and you plan to do so in the near term, the tutorial is worth a look.

...is NOT how they encode their video. But, they do a lot of other things right with their streaming video as you can read below. 

GoDaddy.com aggressively advertises videos on television to convince you to visit their web site. With celebrities Danica Patrick and Jillian Michaels on board, it’s a pretty good strategy. Of course, when most viewers see these TV commercials, they probably wonder how it ends, and how close the two beauties come to baring all. Me? I wonder how Go Daddy is encoding their video and how social media-savvy they are when it comes to their player.

I track the data rate and video configuration used by broadcast sites since they indicate the types of streams that their mass market audiences can retrieve and play, and also the quality of streams that web video consumers are used to viewing. In my latest survey, the average video configuration was very close to 640x360, with a combined audio/video data rate of 837 kbps (758 kbps video, 79 kbps audio). This computes to an average bits per pixel value of .115. If videos posted on your site are lower than these figures, you're probably being unnecessarily conservative.

To view the groupings and individual sites used in my analysis, click over to the main story.