By creating a video mixer that’s accessible from any location, EasyLive promises no-fuss live streaming to multiple platforms. Here’s how it performed in our testing. The simplest way to understand the EasyLive service is to think of it as a video mixer in the cloud. You can input videos from multiple sources; add titles, logos, Twitter feeds, and scorecards; and …

According to the Charles Proxy website, “Charles is an HTTP proxy / HTTP monitor / Reverse Proxy that enables a developer to view all of the HTTP and SSL / HTTPS traffic between their machine and the Internet. This includes requests, responses and the HTTP headers (which contain the cookies and caching information).” From my perspective, Charles is an affordable …

Summary (The MPD) When distributing video under constrained conditions, the bitrate control technique used to encode the files can have a profound impact on the quality of experience (QoE). Specifically, under some conditions, CBR-encoded files deliver a superior QoE to files encoded using 200% constrained VBR, while also reducing the overall bandwidth delivered. For producers concerned with the potential for …

Microsoft’s new enterprise YouTube isn’t ready for prime time yet, but it offers several impressive features making it one to watch over the next 12 to 18 months. Reviewing the preview version of Microsoft Stream is like watching video clips on ESPN to assess whether Lebron James Jr. is ready for pro ball. At age 11, “Bronny” has obvious game …

Summary This research-based article details the factors to consider when choosing the segment duration for DASH or HLS. By way of background, when choosing an HLS or DASH segment duration for VOD video, the nature of the server/player connection is critical. For persistent connections, a segment size of two-three seconds produces good quality and optimal system throughput. For non-persistent connections, …

One of the reasons I favor HP workstations is because HP practices the Japanese art of kaizen, or continuous small improvements. A great example is the recent update to HP’s entry level desktop tower, the Z240 (on the left, click to see full rez picture), which has been upgraded to accept CPUs running at up to 4.2 GHz and several …

Netflix started the per-title encode optimization revolution in December 2015, and now per-title encoding is showing up in more and more places. Why? Because it improves the quality of hard-to-encode videos, and saves bandwidth costs on easier-to-encode videos. If per-title optimization is not available in your encoder or encoding service, it’s time to start demanding it.  OK, perhaps the title …

If you haven’t been watching the live titling space, you’ve missed the NDI revolution, and your productions may be falling behind in terms of graphics quality. In this article I’ll explain what NDI is and how it works, and I’ll explore how it enhances the titling capabilities of the NewTek TriCaster, Telestream Wirecast, and vMix GO. I’ll also look at …

The move away from plugins like Flash and Silverlight has made video delivery easier, but it’s also made DRM more complicated. Here’s what DRM looks like today, along with a discussion of the leading DRM technologies and DRM service providers. If you plan to distribute premium content from the major U.S. studios, you’ll need to encrypt that content, which typically …

The promise of a unifying standard to simplify our lives is attractive, but putting it into practice is another thing. Here’s how one HTML5 video project got messy in a hurry. As much as we expect standards like HTML5 to simplify our jobs, oftentimes they don’t. In fact, a recent HTML5-related project convinced me that the term “multivendor standard” is …