Video Streaming Portals Consumed with Commercials

Many Video Streaming portals are consumed with commercials. For the most part viewers don't mind waiting for videos that they desire to see, as long as it can be seen for free. It's usually alright to watch a commercial prior to a main video but many Broadcasters and other Media outlets have taken it to the extreme. I don't believe most users, me included, desire to wait through a commercial for every streaming video they play. With many video portals viewers have to watch the exact same commercial over and over during their viewing experience. Many viewers are probably only waiting because they have to. With some streaming video portals viewers have to wait for commercials or advertisements to play even if they rewind or advance the video one time or too many times.

This is the wrong approach. Those managing streaming video portals need to find a way to deliver commercials periodically throughout the on-line viewing experience. There should not be a commercial playing before every video but maybe every third video so on-line viewers don't become annoyed with all the waiting. Streaming video portals should allows viewers to rewind and fastforward without the process advancing them into commercial. The best way to develop the best streaming video portal experience is to view your own video portal as a visitor. This will help improve many of the on-line viewings experiences.

NAB Follow-up for Streaming and Compression Tools

Here's a Follow-up for Streaming and Compression Tools at NAB 2009. Most of the buzz this NAB was surrounding Microsoft's Smooth Streaming and its implementation in various tools. This looks to be very exciting and allows automatic adjustment to lower or higher datarate for live and on-demand streams. The quality of the streams is impacted by the bandwidth available.

Inlet Technologies has some tools that have implemented the Smooth Streaming for on-demand and live streaming. They also have a tool that provides great post encoding video analysis and called Semaphore. The tool has been out for a while but now it's included in their Armada encoding product that provides large scale encoding. By large scale encoding I'm talking about hundreds and thousands of files being encoding. The tool can do checks at the end to make sure there were no technical issues like dropped frames, audio loss, etc. There are far to many features to list in this blog post. Make sure you visit the Inlet website.

Wowza Media Systems will have a new release of their server that supports Smooth Streaming and Silverlight. I can't wait. The next release will also allow live streaming to the iPhone. Amazing! Check out there website. We'll that's enough for this post. Time to catch a plane.

Streaming and Compression Companies at NAB 2009

Some Streaming and Compression Companies to check out at NAB are Telestream, Sorenson Media, Wowza Media Systems, Digital Rapids, Inlet Technologies, Kulabyte and HaiVision. Wirecast is the must see tool if you visit the Telestream booth. Sorenson Media is always a must see for NAB. Wowza Media Systems has new server developments and Digital Rapids has automatic publishing after encoding that you definitely should see.

Also, make sure you also stop by the Inlet Technologies' booth to view their Semaphore product. Lastly, visit companies, Kulabyte and HaiVision to check out their Live HD Encoding tools. These are only a few of the items to see at NAB 2009.

Wirecast Training Available at Freeman Compression Inc.

Wirecast Training is Available at Freeman Compression Inc. Live Streaming with Wirecast is important for those streaming to Content Delivery Networks, In-house Streaming Servers and Dedicated Streaming Servers. The training is a 1-Day course and covers the following topics:

How to set up Live streaming to Wowza Media Server Pro

How to set up Live streaming to QuickTime Streaming Server

How to set up Live streaming to Windows Media Streaming Server (PC class only)

How to set up Live streaming to Content Delivery Networks, Ustream and Mogulus

How to Delivery Live Streaming with PowerPoint or Keynote presentations

How to set-up Publishing Points

How to set-up Live streaming using RTSP, MMS and RTMP Protocols

How to perform Live encoding from video files

The training is available on-site or on-line. Call Instructor Derrick Freeman at 407.477.5837 for more information about this training class or email him at derrick217@gmail.com

Wowza Combines Flash, Silverlight, iPhone, RTP and MPEG-TS Compatible Streaming Capabilities in a Single Server

Wowza Media Systems, maker of the #1 rated Wowza Media Server Pro streaming software for Flash, is taking the capabilities of its server beyond Flash with a NAB preview of the industry's first multi-protocol media streaming platform that combines Flash, Silverlight, iPhone, RTSP/RTP, and MPEG-TS compatible streaming in a single server. The preview will take place April 20-23, 2009 at NAB booth C1362 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

This sneak peek at the new platform, dubbed Wowza Media Server Pro Advanced, represents the first step towards realizing Wowza's vision of unified infrastructure server software that enables streaming from any codec, over any protocol to any player or device, served from any operating system.

The NAB demonstration will showcase Wowza Pro’s award-winning Flash streaming capabilities, currently deployed by over 20,000 worldwide licensees, along with a preview of smooth streaming to Silverlight, HTTP streaming to iPhone, RTP/RTSP streaming to the QuickTime player, and MPEG-TS streaming in full HD to IPTV set-top boxes.

"Our sole focus on media servers enables Wowza Media Systems to empower the industry with infrastructure grade server software that doesn’t constrain content delivery to a specific OS, protocol, player or device," commented David Stubenvoll, CEO and Co-Founder, Wowza Media Systems. "Also, being mindful of the economic and environmental climate, it is our goal to facilitate the unification of the media streaming infrastructure in such a way that generates significant operational and cost benefits for our customers."

The company plans to make Wowza Media Server Pro Advanced commercially available in the second half of 2009. Pricing will be announced at a later date. All purchases of Wowza Media Server Pro Unlimited editions after April 8, 2009 are eligible for a free upgrade to Wowza Media Server Pro Advanced. Interested parties can pre-register for the Wowza Media Server Pro Advanced preview release at www.wowzamedia.com/advanced.

To see the live preview of Wowza Media Server Pro Advanced platform, visit Wowza at NAB booth C1362, April 20-23, 2009 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Attend On-line Video Streaming Seminar on April 13

Freeman Compression’s On-line Video Streaming Seminar provides a good introduction and overview of Streaming Media.

Video Streaming and Compression Topics Covered

The seminar length is 2 hours and the cost is $99. Give Freeman Compression Inc. a call today at 407.477.5837 to sign-up for the seminar. You can also email us at info@freemancompression.com for more information.

Sorenson Squeeze 5 Bundled with Avid Editing Software

Sorenson Media announced that Sorenson Squeeze 5 is being shipped with the latest versions of Avid Technology Inc.’s suite of video editing applications, including Avid Media Composer (v 3.5), Symphony (v 3.5) and NewsCutter (v 7.5) software. Sorenson Squeeze 5 enables independent editors, producers and filmmakers who use Avid video editing software to easily deliver video in all of the most popular video formats, with advanced encoding options and superior results.

As the industry-leading encoding tool, Sorenson Squeeze 5 makes it possible for users to output content in a wide variety of formats, including Flash, QuickTime, RealMedia, Windows Media, MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. The software can also encode in HD for MPEG-2, Flash, VC-1, and H.264 formats.

“Sorenson Squeeze has truly become a staple third-party tool within the Avid suite of products,” said Peter Csathy, CEO of Sorenson Media. “This combined solution gives users the ability to edit, compress, encode and deliver their video in all formats quickly and efficiently. Avid is a leader in video production and editing, and Sorenson Media’s encoding and compression capabilities are a natural addition to their exceptional software.”

Through the Avid software interface, video editors are able to send their video files directly to Sorenson Squeeze 5 for encoding and compression without having to export intermediate files. Sorenson Squeeze 5 embraces the long-time Squeeze tradition of producing outstanding video without a complicated workflow. The software allows users to compress and encode multiple files simultaneously, and advanced pre-processing filters produce higher quality video. The Sorenson Squeeze 5 interface is easy to use, and the optimum workflow allows users to encode video using a variety of custom presets, reducing the amount of time spent on a project.

Automatic Web Page Publishing and FTP After Encoding

Automatic web page publishing and FTP after encoding is difficult to find in many of today's compression tools. Many tools have the FTP capability but many can't create web pages automatically after the compression process is complete. Well, enter the Digital Rapids' encoding servers. Digital rapids has the StreamZ Encoding Server and the StreamZHD Encoding Server both of which are turnkey encoding solutions which use the Digital Rapids' StreamEnterprise software. In the StreamEnterprise software you can set up automatic FTP and web page publishing after your compression job is finished. The StreamEnterprise software has many other filters for video and audio encoding. Now if these two features mentioned above weren't enough here's another. Wouldn't it be nice to be notified after your encoding jobs are complete? Well if you're using the StreamZ Encoding Server or the StreamZHD Encoding Server, you can set up E-mail notification after completion of your encoded file. You can even include a lower datarate copy of your video in an attachment. Simply Amazing!

1-Day Wirecast Live Streaming Training

Class Summary:

Our Wirecast Live Streaming training will get you familiar with Live streaming for Flash, Windows Media and QuickTime. This class will have you up and running with Wirecast quickly. This training is great for non-technical professionals as well as video editors, web developers, producers and other media professionals. Whether you're using a a Wowza Streaming Server, QuickTime Streaming Server or Windows Media Streaming Server this class will benefit you. Our class will also get you familiar with Wirecast live streaming to the Top Content Delivery Networks as well as Ustream and Mogulus . This class is amazing and you'll gain all kinds of ideas for delivering your live streaming events.

Students will learn the following in this training:

• How to set up Live streaming to Wowza Media Server 2 (Flash Streaming Server)
• How to set up Live streaming to QuickTime Streaming Server
• How to set up Live streaming to Windows Media Streaming Server (PC class only)
• How to set up Live streaming to Content Delivery Networks, Ustream and Livestream
• How to Archive Webcasts to a Video File
• How to set-up Publishing Points
• How to set-up Live streaming using RTSP, MMS and RTMP Protocols
• How to perform Live encoding from video files
• How to include PowerPoint, Keynote and .PDF presentations in your Webcasts
• How to include Picture-N-Picture in your Webcasts
• How to create and use Lower Thirds during your Webcasts

Software Featured in the class:

• Wirecast
• Wowza Media Server 2
• QuickTime Streaming Server
• Windows Media Streaming Server

Class Overview

1. Live Streaming to Wowza Media Server Pro

This section of the training will cover the procedure for setting up Flash Live streaming to Wowza Media Server Pro. Students will learn all of the necessary Wirecast configurations to stream live to the streaming server. This portion of the class will show students the items that need to be set-up on the Wowza streaming server for live streaming to work properly.

2. Live Streaming to QuickTime Streaming Server

This training module will cover the procedure for setting up Live streaming to QuickTime Streaming Server. Students will learn all of the necessary Wirecast configurations to stream live to the streaming server. This portion of the class will show students the items that need to be set-up on the QuickTime Streaming Server for live streaming to work properly.

3. Live Streaming to Windows Media Streaming Server

This section of the training will cover the procedure for setting up Windows Media Live streaming to Windows Media Streaming Server. Students will learn all of the necessary Wirecast configurations to stream live to the streaming server. This portion of the class will show students the items that need to be set-up on the Windows Media Streaming Server for live streaming to work properly.

4. Live streaming to Content Delivery Networks, Ustream and Mogulus

Learn how to perform live encoding to your Content Delivery Network. You'll see first hand the available options and settings for use with the Top CDNs and what items need to be placed into Wirecast. This portion of the class will also show you how to set-up live streaming using popular services such as Ustream and Mogulus.

5. Live Streaming with PowerPoint, Keynote or PDF files

This part of the training class is one of the coolest as you learn how to set up Live streaming along with PowerPoint, Keynote or PDFs. One of the most beneficial items to include during your live streaming event is presentation slides and this class will teach you how. You'll learn how to include your slides as Picture-N-Picture or as full screens.

6. Push Live, Pull Live Encoding and Publishing Points

If you've every wondered what the difference between Push and Pull encoding was, this training module is for you. Your instructor will show you how to set up Push encoding and Pull encoding. Overall you'll gain a better understanding of how these live streaming processes work and when to use each. In this section you'll also learn how to set-up your publishing points

7. Live Streaming using RTSP, MMS and RTMP Protocols

This training will show you how to set-up live streaming using RTSP, MMS and RTMP Protocols and when you'll use each. Also you'll learn which streaming format uses RTSP, MMS and RTMP protocols.

8. Live Encoding from Video Files

One benefit of using Wirecast is its ability to allow you to perform live streaming from video files. You can stream from a single video file or from multiple video files. This portion of the class will show you how and which video formats to use Live streaming.

9. Recording Files to Disk and Streaming to Multiple Servers

This portion of the class teaches students how to record Webcasts to disk for archiving or On-demand. The instructor will also show students how to stream Live video to Multiple Streaming Servers.

Call Freeman Compression at 407.477.5837 for more information about this training class or E-mail us at info@freemancompression.com

Wirecast 3.5.1 has Flash Live Streaming Support

Telestream's Wirecast encoding tool version 3.5.1 was already an amazing tool for live streaming but things just got better. Now Wirecast has support for Flash streaming in the H.264 flavor. This brings a much needed improvement for those doing live encoding on the Mac platform. One catch is you'll need to have an Intel based Mac to have the new Flash encoding support. PC users also benefit from the latest release but it's not as important because PC users already have live encoding tools such as On2 Flix live and Flash Media Live Encoder to choose from. Both On2 Flix live and Flash Media Live Encoder are not available on the Mac platform. So, certainly the Wirecast 3.5.1 release will make Mac folks happy. Buffering is also much better with this latest version. For those doing live encoding with Wowza Media System's Wowza Media Server Pro you can improve your buffer times for Flash Streaming by going with Wirecast over using QuickTime Broadcaster. Many thanks to Telestream for the much need Flash Live encoding support for Mac users.

On-line Streaming Seminar Available

Freeman Compression Inc. now has an On-line Streaming Seminar that provides a good introduction and overview of Streaming Media.

The seminar explains the following:

Video Streaming
Encoding and Compression
Streaming Servers
Downloadable Streaming
Real-time Streaming
Live Streaming
Encoding Tools
Podcasting
Web Authoring
Encoding Workstation
Bandwidth
Content Delivery Networks
Log file analytics for Web Servers and Streaming Servers (Audience Reporting tools)

Note: This seminar will also include the cost to move forward with streaming media delivery.

The seminar length is 2 hours and the cost is $99. Give Freeman Compression Inc. a call today at 407.477.5837 to sign-up for the seminar. You can also email us at info@freemancompression.com for more information.