October, 2021

• 16 October

  Choosing the Resolution for Lower Rungs on Your Encoding Ladder

  

  Your encoding ladder should include lower resolution rungs even if higher resolution rungs deliver better quality. This blog explains why.  Several lessons in the online course Streaming Media 101: Technical Onboarding for Streaming Media Professionals focus on creating and configuring encoding ladders, including the Convex Hull technique discussed below. With advanced codecs like AV1 and HEVC, however, this analysis leads …

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• 13 October

  Seeking Input: Which Low-Res Rungs are Essential to an Encoding Ladder

  

  Note: I received some very useful responses to this blog that are summarized in a post entitled, Choosing the Resolution for Lower Rungs on Your Encoding Ladder.  I could use some input from practitioners out there about which lower resolution rungs are essential to an encoding ladder. By way of background, I’m preparing a per-title encoding comparison. To derive the …

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• 13 October

  Crunch Video Optimization Now Available on Oracle Cloud Marketplace

  

  I’ve been a fan of video optimization technologies for a while now, and consider optimization simpler, cheaper, and potentially just as effective as adding a new codec like HEVC or VP9. I’m pleased to see that the Crunch Mediaworks Video Enhancement Solutions App is now available on the Oracle Cloud Marketplace. I reviewed Crunch‘s technology back in 2019 for video …

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• 11 October

  Announcing Updates to Video Quality Metrics Course

  

  Just a brief announcement that I’ve updated the course, Computing and Using Video Quality Metrics: A Course for Encoding Professionals, that teaches encoding professionals how to measure and apply metrics like VMAF, SSIMPLUS, MS SSIM, SSIM, and Apple’s AVQT. The updates include: Lessons on computing and applying Apple’s AVQT metric. A lesson on computing the weighted average bandwidth and quality …

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• 4 October

  Basic YouTube-DL Commands to Download Files from YouTube

  

  This article describes what youtube-dl is, and outlines several basic youtube-dl commands for audio/video/subtitle downloads. I’ve always been fascinated with how YouTube encodes the endless hours of videos uploaded to the site. YouTube employs the best and the brightest and their task is positively Sisyphean. For years, I’ve gotten a glimpse of YouTube’s encoding practices via download tools like the …

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• 1 October

  New Course for Sales and Marketing Professionals New to Streaming Media

  

  The course teaches the technology and market knowledge necessary to effectively market and sell streaming-related products and services Just a brief note to announce the Streaming Learning Center’s newest course, Streaming Media 101: for Sales and Marketing Professionals. The course provides the technology and market knowledge necessary for new marketing and sales hires to effectively market and sell streaming-related products …

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• 1 October

  Streaming Learning Center Releases Streaming Media 101: For Sales and Marketing Professionals

  

  The course teaches the technology and market knowledge necessary to effectively market and sell streaming-related products and services Christiansburg, VA, October 1, 2021. The Streaming Learning Center today announced a new online course entitled Streaming Media 101: for Sales and Marketing Professionals. The new course teaches sales and marketing professionals new to streaming media the technology and market knowledge necessary …

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• 1 October

  Cloud Encoding Pricing Comparison Reveals Dramatic Cost Differences – Are You Overpaying?

  

  This whitepaper, sponsored by Dolby/Hybrik, tracks cloud encoding pricing for H.264 and HEVC output and reveals dramatic price differences among popular services. I’ve just completed a whitepaper sponsored by Dolby/Hybrik to compare pricing for multiples of one hour of H.264 and HEVC encoding using the recommended encoding ladders in the Apple HLS Authoring Specifications. You can download the whitepaper here. …

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September, 2021

• 26 September

  Which Codec Does YouTube Use, Part III

  

  This article analyzes the codecs used by YouTube for 4K videos with millions of views, and the savings that AV1 and VP9 deliver over YouTube’s full encoding ladder.  This is the third in a series of articles written about which codecs YouTube uses. The first covers which codecs YouTube uses for high-volume 1080p videos. The second covers the codecs used …

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• 21 September

  Formulate the Optimal Encoding Ladder with VMAF

  This post describes how to formulate the optimal encoding ladder with VMAF. This analysis is excerpted from a lesson in the online course Streaming Media 101: Technical Onboarding for Streaming Media Professionals.  I received the following question from a reader; it’s got such general applicability that I thought I would share my response.  Question:  We’re currently reviewing our ABR ladder …

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