MediaMelon SmartPlay is a streaming optimization solution that reduces bandwidth costs by 35% or more and improves QoE while working with your existing ABR content without re-encoding. SmartPlay works with any existing encoder, including those with content-adaptive encoding (also called per-title), and most existing players and CDNs. Briefly, SmartPlay works by analyzing the quality of your live or VOD ABR …

Many 2021 model Smart TVs support AV1 decoding, making it a good time to start thinking about how to encode AV1 videos. A great way to start is our course Encoding with the AV1 Codec, which details how to encode AV1 encoded video with FFmpeg (libaom-av1), the Alliance for Open Media’s standalone aomenc encoder, Intel’s SVT-AV1, and Visionular’s Aurora1.  Would …

Just a quick announcement that the Alliance for Open Media has launched version 2.0 of the AOMedia AV1 encoder that you can download here. According to the Phoronix website, from which I grabbed this news: “Libaom 2.0 is the first release since the original 1.0 release back in mid-2018 after the AOMedia codec working group approved the 1.0 release. The …

Here are descriptions of the two courses I’ll be teaching in a few days on streaming media production.  Streaming Media East will be held online, with five 3-hour pre-conference training sessions that cost $199 each and a robust assortment of free 1-hour sessions. Here are the titles, dates, and times of the pre-conference sessions I’ll be teaching plus a short …

I created Streaming Media 101: Technical Onboarding for Streaming Media Professionals because there were few formal training resources for those producing streaming video or the tools and services that enable streaming media production and distribution. My goal was a course that would efficiently provide streaming media training to professionals on both sides of that fence who were new to the …

Streaming media production and delivery has become even more critical over the last few months; here’s an opportunity to boost your skills and knowledge via live online training by recognized industry experts.  I’m sad that Streaming Media East won’t be held in Boston as planned; I really enjoy those shows. However, Streaming Media East will be held online, with five …

One thing that never gets old is a five-star review on Amazon. I just received another one for my book, Learn to Produce Video with FFmpeg: In Thirty Minutes or Less (2018 Edition), which is available on Amazon ($34.95) and for PDF download ($29.95). In this review from a verified purchaser, the customer said: “I would consider this book a …

I discuss the bandwidth savings delivered by VP9 and HEVC over H264 in my course Streaming Media 101: Technical Onboarding for Streaming Media Professionals. I wanted to illustrate this with my own tests, so I used FFmpeg to encode H.264, HEVC, and VP9 output using about 25 short test files. This felt like a good time to discuss the difference …