April, 2018

• 30 April

  Details Regarding Per-Title Bakeoff at Streaming Media East

  

  I know time is short, but I’ve gotten in touch with most vendors that offer this feature and am posting this (and using social media) so the word is out. Anyone who wants to participate, there’s still time. Here’s the description of the session: T203. HOW-TO: Comparing Per-Title Encoding Options Wednesday, May 9: 1:45 p.m. – 2:45 p.m. Per-title encoding …

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• 26 April

  Tutorial on HEVC in HLS and the New Beamr Transcoder

  

  While at NAB, I produced a short video with Beamr CTO Dror Gil and Dirk Griffioen from Unified Streaming, which sells a variety of streaming-related software, including modules for ABR packaging. The primary topic was encoding and packaging with HEVC in HLS. Dror also gave a brief demo of Beamr’s new Transcoder product. During the talk, we covered sub-topics like the suggested encoding …

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• 26 April

  All Videos from NAB

  

  While at NAB, I freelanced with my iPhone X, a video light, and a handheld microphone and interviewed 14 encoding professionals. These videos are posted on Streaming Media website along with text transcripts. Here are links to and brief descriptions of the interviews: Netflix’s Anne Aaron, on Netflix’s plans for the AV1 codec. AOMedia executive (and Microsoft employee) Gabe Frost, on …

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• 23 April

  NAB Roundup: What I Learned About the Launch of AV1

  

  From a Streaming Media perspective, NAB 2018 was all about the launch of the AV1 codec from the Alliance for Open Media. While at the show, I spoke with many different people from many different companies about the launch, and about other codec-related announcements at the show. You can read all about that in my article entitled, NAB Roundup: The …

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• 11 April

  Applying Quality Encoding Metrics For 2D And VR Video

  

  Description: Choosing the number of streams in an adaptive group and configuring them is usually a subjective, touchy-feely exercise, with no way to really gauge the effectiveness and efficiency of the streams. However, by measuring stream quality with metrics such as CRF, PSNR, Spherical PSNR, Weighted Spherical PSNR, and VMAF, you can assess the quality delivered by each stream and its …

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• 5 April

  Facebook Introduces New 360°/VR Video Quality Metric

  

  VR and 360° video has all of the compression-related issues of flat video, and then some. Facebook’s new metrics, called SSIM360 and 360QVM, might simplify quality analysis for developers in the future, particularly if Facebook open sources the metrics. In a blog post called “Quality Assessment of 360° Video View Sessions,” Facebook will announce two objective quality metrics—SSIM360 and 360QVM—that the company …

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• 5 April

  Stream Live to Multiple Destinations via Switchboard Cloud

  

  Reaching multiple viewing platforms with a single live video stream used to be impossible, but not anymore. Here’s how to do it with Switchboard Cloud. Live content can be extremely engaging, and oftentimes, the more you spread it around, the better. This means streaming to accounts you have access to, and also to accounts controlled by partners, stakeholders, and others …

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• 3 April

  Join Me in Las Vegas at NAB

  

  Just a quick note to let you know that I’ll be speaking twice at NAB in Las Vegas next week; once as host of a panel discussion on HEVC and AV1, the other a session on how to use objective quality metrics to assist encoding configurations. Details are below. If you’re at NAB and free, and the topics are relevant …

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• 3 April

  ZPEG Engine for x264 Cuts Video Data Rate by 21% Without Artifacts

  

  With streaming video data rates, less is always more, unless of course, lower data rates mean visible artifacts. I just finished a review of the ZPEG Engine for x264, which produced bitrate savings of 21% without blocks, banding, mosquitoes, or other problems that would be noticeable by typical viewers. This was an average saving; the data rate reduction in some …

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March, 2018

• 28 March

  AV1 Arrives, but IP Questions Linger

  

  After three years and multiple delays, the Alliance for Open Media froze its AV1 codec bitstream, thus setting up a cacophony of HEVC/AV1 face-offs in booths and meeting rooms at the upcoming NAB Show. These comparisons will largely dictate which codec will replace H.264 as the “it” codec for streaming to desktops, mobile devices, Smart TVs, and OTT devices, though the …

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