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Streaming Media West is coming up on November 1-3 in Huntington Beach, CA, and there are tons of great sessions. I have a bunch of interesting sessions that I wanted to share here. I’ve posted full descriptions below, here are titles and a brief description.
Contents
Pre-conference Sessions – Wednesday, November 1
I have two pre-conference sessions.
9:00 – 12:00 – W2: Encoding 2017: Codecs & Packaging for PCs, Mobile, & OTT/STB/Smart TVs
Learn to distribute H.264 to a variety of platforms using DASH and HLS, plus a quick look at VP9 and HEVC.
1:30 – 4:30 – Encoding Live and VOD for HEVC/HLS
This is a new course I’m teaching with David Hassoun and Jun Heider of Realeyes Consultancy, who have provided consulting services to MLBAM, Adobe, Oracle, and many other large publishers. This course is designed for producers who plan to distribute HEVC with HLS for both live and VOD videos.
Thursday – November 2
Three sessions today.
10:30 a.m. – 11:15 a.m. – LS101 – Technologies for Live Streaming to Multiple Platforms
If you want to stream to your own website, plus Facebook Live, YouTube Live, Periscope, and other sites, this session details the various options and lay out their pros, cons, and pricing models.
1:45 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. – D103 – HOW TO: Building a More Robust Cloud Encoder With FFMPEG & More
With David Hassoun and June Heider from RealEyes, this session covers FFmpeg encoding basics, and how to take your encoding arguments to the cloud. Operations include WebVTT and AAC sidecar manifests, DASH assets, metadata, video quality, and stream muxing/demuxing.
4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m – D105 – HOW TO: Comparing AV1, VP9, HEVC, & H.264
Lots going on in the codec space. In this session, I evaluate the quality of the four listed codecs, and also cover implementation perspectives.
Friday – November 3
Two sessions today.
10:30 a.m. – 11:15 a.m – C201 – HOW TO: Comparing Per-Title Encoding Options
This session compares the efficiency, implementation issues, and costs of multiple commercially available and open-source alternatives for per-title encoding, like Capella Systems Cambria Encoder, compression optimization from multiple vendors, and the alternatives available using FFmpeg. Learn what per-title encoding is, how the various options work, and which is the best option for you.
1:45 p.m. – 2:45 p.m. – C203 – How To: Reducing Latency and Startup Times
With David Hassoun and June Heider from RealEyes, in this session, you’ll learn the most effective strategies for minimizing startup time and latency without swamping your network with additional HTTP requests, and what you’ll need to do to implement them in your encoding and delivery workflows.
Full descriptions below, I hope to see you there.
Wednesday – November 1
9:00 – 12:00 – W2: Encoding 2017: Codecs & Packaging for PCs, Mobile, & OTT/STB/Smart TVs
As video resolutions increase and target playback platforms multiply, video producers must leave their H.264/HLS/HDS comfort zone and expand into HEVC, VP9, and MPEG-DASH. This workshop is divided into multiple segments by target platform to teach you the applicable standards and best strategies for delivering live and VOD adaptive video to viewers on that platform, both with and without DRM. Along the way, attendees learn options for producing H.264, HEVC, and VP9; the status of standards such as the Media Source Extensions (MSE) and Encrypted Media Extensions (EME); and how and when to utilize them. Attendees walk away knowing the technical requirements for delivering to all key platforms and the best practices for making it happen.
1:30 – 4:30 – Encoding Live and VOD for HEVC/HLS
Apple’s support for HEVC in HLS is a groundbreaking event that opens up hundreds of millions of HEVC capable players. If supporting this spec is on your short term development schedule, you’ll want to check out this workshop. The workshop starts by reviewing the new spec and sharing playback details, like how well HEVC plays on hardware supported and non-hardware supported devices. Then it focuses on the HEVC codec itself, describing encoding options, royalty costs, and other implementation details. Learn how to create the necessary files and manifest files for mixed H.264/HEVC encoding ladders, and finish with a look at how to produce live content compatible with the new specification.
Thursday – November 2
10:30 a.m. – 11:15 a.m. – LS101 – Technologies for Live Streaming to Multiple Platforms
Streaming to one live streaming service is so 2016. Today, in addition to streaming to your own website or app, you may want to distribute your live stream to multiple other outlets like Facebook Live, YouTube Live, Livestream, Twitter, or Twitch. Fortunately, there are a variety of products and services that enable streaming to multiple output locations, from desktop encoders and appliances to cloud services. This session details the various options and lay out their pros, cons, and pricing models.
1:45 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. – D103 – HOW TO: Building a More Robust Cloud Encoder With FFMPEG & More
With the speed of technology today, one of the most important parts of software is adaptability. By taking control of your own encoding and packaging, you can greatly reduce cost and maintain high adaptability and agility to meet your needs now and in the future. When working with cloud encoding, there are several transcoding and packaging options, and the APIs for these options will change over time. We talk about how to build a more dynamic cloud encoder that can use the best tool for a specific job by decoupling the tools from the core application, as well as how to mix and match multiple operations concurrently on a single encoding task. Operations include WebVTT and AAC sidecar manifests, DASH assets, metadata, video quality, and stream muxing/demuxing. This session covers some of the strategies we’ve used to handle dynamic cloud encoding and packaging for live and VOD delivery.
4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m – D105 – HOW TO: Comparing AV1, VP9, HEVC, & H.264
Many content distributors and aggregators still use H.264 as their primary, if not exclusive codec, but the bandwidth savings incident to newer, more powerful codecs are alluring. Those considering a switch must evaluate at least three options; HEVC, VP9, and the Alliance for Open Media’s AV1 codec, which should be close to release by the close of 2017. In this session, codec specialist Jan Ozer evaluates the quality of these codecs and compares them to H.264. Learn how much bandwidth you can save with each and how the newer codecs compare from quality and implementation perspectives.
Friday – November 3
10:30 a.m. – 11:15 a.m – C201 – HOW TO: Comparing Per-Title Encoding Options
Per-title encoding techniques customize the encoding ladder to match the encoding complexity of the source, saving bandwidth on easy-to-compress videos and ensuring the quality of more complex footage. This session compares the efficiency, implementation issues, and costs of multiple commercially available and open-source alternatives, like Capella Systems Cambria Encoder, compression optimization from multiple vendors, and the alternatives available using Ffmpeg. Learn what per-title encoding is, how the various options work, and which is the best option for you.
1:45 p.m. – 2:45 p.m. – C203 – How To: Reducing Latency and Startup Times
Low latency and fast startup times are KPIs for most streaming video producers, particularly for live events. Though a series of structured tests that measure startup time, latency, and network overhead, this session documents the results achieved by reducing fragment sizes, using hybrid fragment sizes, adjusting player parameters like first variant retrieved and the number of fragments retrieved before playback starts, opening a persistent connection between player and server, and other experiments. Results will be shown for computer playback as well as tvOS and Roku. You’ll learn the most effective strategies for minimizing startup time and latency without swamping your network with additional HTTP requests, and what you’ll need to do to implement them in your encoding and delivery workflows.
