Blogs

On April 2, 2014, Adobe announced updates to all Creative Cloud video apps that will debut at NAB. This video demonstrates the four key new features in Premiere Pro CC: Master Clips, Live Text, Masking and Tracking, and new 4K format support. Streaming Media Producer transcribed this tutorial and added screens to the text; if you’d prefer to read about …

This tutorial provides a quick overview of how to mix multiple cameras, graphic overlays, and other media in the new version of Livestream Studio, as well as how to record isolated video program feeds, and configure your stream and send it out via Livestream or other RTMP-compatible streaming providers. If you’ve prefer to read about the workflow, Streaming Media Producer …

OK, pretty discrete topic, but if you care, you care. This blog post originated as questions from a visitor to this website, who asked: At this stage of my investigation, I have the following questions: – Should I go for a few 16-core or a lot 4-core machines (like mac mini). – Do I need the Episode Cluster license for …

HEVC comes with two benefits; equivalent quality to H.264 at about half the data rate, and ultra-high definition video. One big question about the new technology, however, is the impact of HEVC playback on device battery life, which is critical given how quickly mobile viewing is growing. Techspot’s Tim Schiesser focused on this issue in his recent article, Media Players …

Producing a live event? Do you need a webcasting system like On24, a live streaming service provider like Livestream, or a conferencing solution like GoToMeeting or Google Hangouts? Not sure? Find out in my article, How to Choose and Implement a Webcasting Solution, from the fabulous 2014 Streaming Media Sourcebook. Here’s the brief intro which details what’s covered in the article.  So …

Interested in HEVC (H.265)? My article regarding same is now available on the Streaming Media website, here. Here’s the intro to give you an idea about what’s covered.  While few companies of any kind are actually making money from HEVC (H.265) today, the successor to H.264 will become increasingly important during the next 2–3 years, perhaps even earlier in some …

I’m pretty good getting the color and brightness right on clips that I upload to YouTube, but sometimes it’s a bit tougher with webinars, especially when they are self produced. I was checking some past webinars produced on YouTube Live for a seminar I’m producing at Streaming Media East 2014 and noticed that my face was way too dark in …

Note: With the June 2014 release of iBooks Author, the procedures discussed here no longer work. Good luck with your iBooks Author encodes. I held the webinar, Encoding for iBooks Author, on March 25. The webinar, which was sponsored by TalkPoint and used their new self-serving Convey webinar system, went off without a hitch. I’ve attended so many webinars lately …

This is one of 42 lessons from my course Video Compression for Web, Disc and PC/TV/Console Playback, on Udemy. It covers how to use HandBrake to encode for streaming. As you may know, HandBrake is a free cross-platform encoder that does a great job encoding using the x264 codec. It’s especially useful when encoding for iBooks.  There’s about 20 seconds …

Many encoding pros spend an inordinate amount of time tweaking obscure H.264 compression parameters, while the fastest way to improve quality might just be optimizing the color and brightness of your source videos.  You can see that in the image on the left. Because I shot this video in a conference room lit by overhead fluorescent lights, the video lacked …