Learning

Derrick Freeman is a luminary in the Streaming Video world, an expert on Wowza Streaming Engine and Telestream Wirecast (among other products) who has consulted with and instructed dozens of companies, universities, and other organizations. When Derrick needed to learn how to use FFmpeg, he purchased a copy of my book, Learn to Produce Video with FFmpeg in 30 Minutes …

This article discusses the evolution of the encoding ladder from the fixed ladder presented by Apple in Tech Note TN2224 to context-aware-encoding, which creates a ladder that not only considers the encoding complexity of the content, but also the producer’s QoE and QoS metrics. The encoding ladder embodies the most significant encoding decisions made by encoding professionals, and understanding this …

After three years or so in gestation, per-title encoding is becoming a required feature on most encoding platforms, whether in-house software or SaaS cloud providers. In this buyers’ guide, we’ll review a list of features to look for in per-title encoding offerings and present a testing structure to evaluate the contenders that make it to your short list. If you’re …

Here’s the description; link to the PDF is below: W1. Introduction To ABR Production & Delivery Monday, May 6: 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. This course helps those new to streaming media get familiar with the relevant terms, concepts, and technologies. The session begins with a definition of terms like codecs, container formats, and adaptive bitrate streaming, as well as encoding …

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the VMAF Phone Model which measures VMAF score for viewers watching on a mobile phone. Since then, I gave a presentation at NAB on VMAF and ran some calculations comparing the phone and default models. I share those below. First, have a quick look at the three VMAF models shown on the slide …

Just a quick note to let you know that I’ll be speaking at the NAB Streaming Summit on Using VMAF, Netflix’s Video Encoding Metric to Measure QoE. Description: Netflix uses video quality metric VMAF that combines human vision modeling with machine learning, to make automated encoding decisions in their per-title/per-scene encoding workflow. This presentation will cover what VMAF is, how …

Embedded below is a free lesson from my course, Produce Videos with FFmpeg: The Beginner’s Course (http://bit.ly/learn_ffmpeg). The previous lesson in the course describes when you can use the -s command to set resolution; this lesson details your options when you can’t. This typically occurs when the display aspect ratio of your output is different from your input, which happens often …

I’m launching a new course entitled Encoding and Packaging for Multiple Screen Delivery. It’s an advanced course detailing how to create and configure encoding ladders using objective quality metrics like VMAF, packaging for DASH/HLS (both static and dynamic), CMAF, per-title encoding, and more. The course is designed for professionals who need to get up to speed on these topics and …

My article How to Launch a Cloud Encoding Computer just posted on the Streaming Media Global site. Good thing, too, because I had just started a consulting project that required setting up and encoding on multiple AWS instances. Always handy to have a step-by-step guide, so I printed the article draft and went through it point by point to get …

The video below shows two tools that I’ve installed on every computer that will run them; MediaInfo on all Windows, Linux, and Mac workstations, and Bitrate Viewer, which is Windows only. If you don’t know about these tools, you’ll find the seven-minute video very, very useful. As a preview, MediaInfo provides information about my H.264, HEVC, VP9, and AV1-encoded files …