The future of CDN-delivered video is cacheable, HTTP streaming, with MPEG DASH ultimately taking over, says Highwinds' Chris Bray
Read More »Creating a Perfect Green Screen Overlay in Premiere Pro.
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 …
Read More »Why 30 seconds of video takes 3 hours to shoot
I produce lots screencams, and some customers like having a live greenscreen video intro in front of the screencam. “What’s the harm,” they ask? It’s only 30 seconds of video, how long will that take to shoot?” Well, if you’re like me and you don’t have a dedicated studio and staff for such productions, they can take awhile. If fact, …
Read More »Creating presentation videos with slides and video? Check out Presto!
I recently reviewed Singular Software’s Presto for OnlineVideo.net; you can read the review here. As the lead states: Capturing and producing presentation videos typically involves multiple options, all of them bad. For example, you can frame wide and capture both the speaker and the projected slides, but then your speaker is tiny and the slides degraded. You can shoot closeup …
Read More »FFmpeg Encoding Resources at Sonnati Blog
One of the brightest stars in the encoding universe is Fabio Sonnati, who blogs at Flash Video Technology and Optimizations. I was researching H.264 encoding parameters and revisited his site, noting that his presentation from Adobe MAX2011 entitled Encoding for Performance on Multiple Devices had just come online. You can click here to watch his 60-minute presentation, or click here …
Read More »Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About IDR Frames but Were Afraid to Ask
This article is derived from a lesson in Streaming Media 101: Technical Onboarding for Streaming Media Professionals. If you’re looking for an efficient way to get up to speed on key streaming terms, technologies, workflows, and best practices, check out the course here. Depending upon your encoding tool, you may have access to a checkbox or number box that controls …
Read More »HLS Presets in Compressor Defective: Download New Presets Here
I was noodling around in Compressor 4’s presets, and noticed the presets for HTTP Live Streaming. “HMMM,” I thought, “I wonder if Apple chunks the files and creates the required manifest files?” (Didn’t in my tests). Then I pondered, “I wonder if Apple’s presets match their recommendations in Technical Note TN2224?” So, I opened all the presets, recorded their encoding …
Read More »HP EliteBook 8760w: A Notebook for Demanding Video Producers
Few things in life are more fun than playing with the latest, greatest notebook computer. For the last few months, I’ve had the pleasure of working with HP’s EliteBook 8760w, which is the most powerful notebook I’ve ever tested. It’s a highly potent combination of Intel i7 CPU, NVIDIA 5010M GPU and an appropriately named DreamColor display. You can read …
Read More »Cool Flash Widget at the Economist (How far behind is Mitt Romney?)
Sometimes I get so caught up in Flash video that I forget that Flash does many other things, from serving as the environment for the WeVideo editor to enabling sites like the Economist to present interactive data relating to the upcoming presidential election. If you visit the Economist, you can click each state to see the latest poll figures for …
Read More »The Secret to Go Daddy’s Video Success…
…is NOT how they encode their video. But, they do a lot of other things right with their streaming video. 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 …
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