January, 2022

• 14 January

  Review Finds FFmpeg Course on Udemy Amazing

  

  Few things please a course creator more than positive reviews and it’s been a good week for them. This one is for my FFmpeg for Adaptive Bitrate Production on the Udemy site. My goal for this course was to focus on the “why” as well as the “how.” So, students just don’t learn how to set a keyframe interval in …

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• 14 January

  “Wonderful Course” for New Media Professionals

  

  This software development manager found Streaming Media 101 “worth taking” for all new media professionals.  I’ve never met Spoorti Hallur from Xperi Corporation in person (we’re connected on LinkedIn), but I’m guessing she’s a glass-half-full kind of person. At least she seems that way in the fabulous review she just gave the course Streaming Media 101: Technical Onboarding for Streaming …

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• 13 January

  Webinar: Comparing EVC, LCEVC, and VVC with H.264, HEVC, and AV1

  

  This video compares VVC, EVC, and LCEVC with H.264, HEVC, and AV1, considering quality, USP, royalty status, key stakeholders, producibility, and playability. You can watch an archived version of the webinar on YouTube by scrolling to the bottom of the page. You can download the handout here. This video is a webinar comparing VVC, EVC, and LCEVC with H.264, HEVC, and …

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• 7 January

  Learn to Use AWS Elemental Auto-ABR

  

  A recent tutorial posted on Streaming Media Magazine details how to use AWS Elemental’s Auto-ABR feature. Here’s the scintillating intro. Per-title encoding has been around since 2016, delivering significant bandwidth savings, QoE improvements, or both to companies that deploy it (click here for a backgrounder on per-title encoding). Those benefits notwithstanding, a recent Bitmovin survey revealed that only 35% of …

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• 4 January

  Testing EVC, VVC, and LCEVC

  

  This article compares VVC, EVC, and LCEVC with H.264, HEVC, and AV1. Its’ useful if you’re attempting to understand the goals and capabilities of these codecs. In 2020, MPEG announced three new codecs, Versatile Video Coding (VVC), Essential Video Coding (EVC), and Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding (LCEVC). As of January 2022, all are released and available for testing which I …

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December, 2021

• 29 December

  Video Codec Quality Benchmark 2022

  

  OK, I’ll say it. As far as I know, this is the first time any study has compared the quality and performance of codecs representing Essential Video Coding (EVC), Versatile Video Coding (VVC), and Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding (LCEVC), as well as AV1, HEVC, and H.264. It’s not as exhaustive as I would like but the results should help …

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• 19 December

  Tutorial: Producing Live-Streamed Events with the Roland V-02HD MK II

  I recently had the opportunity to test Roland’s V-02HD MK II video mixer. Though the unit only has two inputs, you can switch between them with optional foot control, making it ideal for simple self-produced productions. Here’s the Roland explainer video.  After working with the unit, I wrote a tutorial on how to use the mixer for a self-produced …

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• 19 December

  Choosing a Cloud-Based Video Editor

  

  I recently spent a few days studying cloud-based video editors which led to this article published in Streaming Media Magazine. I learned that there are two tiers of cloud editors. The top tier, including Blackbird and Vimond IO, are serious video editors that rival desktop editors in features and performance (particularly Blackbird). These services should appeal to producers who want …

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• 19 December

  Moscow State’s Dr. Dmitriy Vatolin Talks Codecs, Metrics, and Video Quality

  

  Dr. Dmitriy Vatolin is the Head of the Moscow State University Graphics and Media Lab and one of my favorite colleagues in the streaming quality space. His group produces the Video Quality Measurement Tool (VQMT) that I use almost every day and publishes many codec studies that compare the latest and greatest with comprehensive, and real-world testing. Dr. Vatolin was …

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November, 2021

• 30 November

  It’s The Year of AV1. 2023, That Is.

  A recent Netflix post trumpets AV1’s suitability for mass-market distribution, but high encoding costs, the lack of HDR support, and nascent support in the living room make AV1 a non-starter for most producers. Most of these issues should be resolved by mid-2023, when mainstream usage should really start to blossom. Netflix: AV1 on (Some) Smart TVs In their November 2021 …

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