Streaming Stat of the Week

The Secret to Go Daddy's Video Success...

Danica.jpg...is NOT how they encode their video. But, they do a lot of other things right with their streaming video as you can read below. 

GoDaddy.com aggressively advertises videos on television to convince you to visit their web site. With celebrities Danica Patrick and Jillian Michaels on board, it’s a pretty good strategy. Of course, when most viewers see these TV commercials, they probably wonder how it ends, and how close the two beauties come to baring all. Me? I wonder how Go Daddy is encoding their video and how social media-savvy they are when it comes to their player.

Average US Broadcasters Streaming at 837 kbps Total Data Rate

I track the data rate and video configuration used by broadcast sites since they indicate the types of streams that their mass market audiences can retrieve and play, and also the quality of streams that web video consumers are used to viewing. In my latest survey, the average video configuration was very close to 640x360, with a combined audio/video data rate of 837 kbps (758 kbps video, 79 kbps audio). This computes to an average bits per pixel value of .115. If videos posted on your site are lower than these figures, you're probably being unnecessarily conservative.

To view the groupings and individual sites used in my analysis, click over to the main story.

Encoding your video

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About IDR Frames but Were Afraid to Ask

Depending upon your encoding tool, you may have access to a checkbox or number box that controls something called IDR frames. What are these creatures and what is their significance? More imporantantly, what's the optimal setting? Well, let's just say that if you're seeing anything like the random blockiness in the picture below when you drag the playhead back and forth within your video, (click the figure to see it at full resolution in a separate window), you're probably using the wrong value.

IDR-ugly.jpg

Read on and I'll tell you why and identify the correct value.

HLS Presets in Compressor Defective: Download New Presets Here

I was noodling around in Compressor 4's presets, and noticed the presets for HTTP Live Streaming. "Hmmm," I thought, "I wonder if Apple chunks the files and creates the required manifest files?" (Didn't in my tests). Then I pondered, "I wonder if Apple's presets match their recommendations in Technical Note TN2224?" So, I opened all the presets, recorded their encoding parameters and compared them to the Tech Note. That's when things got interesting and I found (what I think are) errors in two of the presets.

Choosing production tools

Creating a Perfect Green Screen Overlay in Premiere Pro.

Here's a video I produced for OnlineVideo.net on using Premiere Pro's Ultra Key and Garbage Matte. It's an intro- to mid-level video that applies the effect on three videos of varying complexity. The good news? One video is of a (fully clothed) lovely dancing lady. The bad news? The lady's face is not showing (those pesky permission issues) and the other videos are of me.

All joking aside, if you've never used Premiere Pro's Ultra key and you plan to do so in the near term, the tutorial is worth a look.

HP EliteBook 8760W - the Ideal Mobile CS 5.5 Workstation

Depending upon the project type, rendering with GPU-acceleration in Creative Suite 5.5 can reduce rendering time by up to 92% over CPU-only rendering. Since NVIDIA's CUDA technology is the only GPU that currently accelerates rendering in the Adobe Media Encoder and Premiere Pro, buying a notebook without NVIDIA hardware for CS5.5 production is a huge mistake.

If you're in the market for such a notebook, the HP 8760w is a dream machine that performs as well or better than a single CPU desktop workstation. If you need an external eSATA drive for production work, the Akitio Taurus Mini Super-S LCM should be on your short list.

Streaming production

Average US Broadcasters Streaming at 837 kbps Total Data Rate

I track the data rate and video configuration used by broadcast sites since they indicate the types of streams that their mass market audiences can retrieve and play, and also the quality of streams that web video consumers are used to viewing. In my latest survey, the average video configuration was very close to 640x360, with a combined audio/video data rate of 837 kbps (758 kbps video, 79 kbps audio). This computes to an average bits per pixel value of .115. If videos posted on your site are lower than these figures, you're probably being unnecessarily conservative.

To view the groupings and individual sites used in my analysis, click over to the main story.

Configuring Your Streaming Video (for Newbies)

Configuring your video streams properly requires an understanding of three concepts; data rate, resolution and frame rate. In this article, I'll define these terms and discuss the influences that impact your choices for each parameter. Then, at the end, I'll walk you through a decision matrix designed to help you choose the optimal parameters for your streaming video.

While this is designed for newbies, the concepts discussed will be valuable to all streaming producers, particularly the information regarding the average bitrates used by broadcast, business-to-consumer and business-to-business sites. Sound interesting? Well then, click over the main article to get started.

Recent Blogs

Creating presentation videos with slides and video? Check out Presto!

I recently reviewed Singular Software's Presto for OnlineVideo.net; you can read the review here. As the lead states: Capturing and producing presentation videos typically involves multiple options, all of them bad. For example, you can frame wide an...

FFmpeg Encoding Resources at Sonnati Blog

One of the brightest stars in the encoding universe is Fabio Sonnati, who blogs at Flash Video Technology and Optimizations. I was researching H.264 encoding parameters and revisited his site, noting that his presentation from Adobe MAX2011 entitled ...

Cool Flash Widget at the Economist (How far behind is Mitt Romney?)

Sometimes I get so caught up in Flash video that I forget that Flash does many other things, from serving as the environment for the WeVideo editor to enabling sites like the Economist to present interactive data relating to the upcoming presidential...

HP EliteBook 8760w: A Notebook for Demanding Video Producers

Few things in life are more fun than playing with the latest, greatest notebook computer. For the last few months, I've had the pleasure of working with HP's EliteBook 8760w, which is the most powerful notebook I've ever tested. It's a highly potent ...

Interested in online video editing? Check out my review of WeVideo

Here's the introduction. The referenced video on YouTube details the 28 hours I spent in Manhattan with my girlies last September, including our visit to the Empire State Building, Times Square and the Today Show, plus a clip of my daughter subway su...

Video tutorials

Why 30 seconds of video takes 3 hours to shoot

big picture 2.jpgI produce lots screencams, and some customers ask for a live greenscreen video intro in front of the screencam. "What's the harm," they ask? "It's only 30 seconds of video, how long will that take to shoot?" Well, if you're like me and you don't have a dedicated studio and staff for such productions, they can take awhile.

If fact, this week I had to shoot two video intros, and it took 3 hours to produce them. So, just to have ammunition for higher fees next time, I figured I would detail the gear I had to setup and configure to get the job done. As an incentive (har, har), those who stick around to read the story will also get a look at the final video.

Normalization and Compression in Adobe CS5.5

Streaming viewers will tolerate some video degradation but expect audio to be near perfect. There are two techniques you can use to make sure that your audio loud, clear and robust. Normalization increases volume as much as possible without introducing distortion into the file, while compression makes the signal as robust as possible. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to apply normalization in Adobe Audition and Adobe Premiere Pro, and how to apply compression in Adobe Audition.

Distributing your video

Be Your Own Compression Consultant

So. You’ve decided to add video to your website. Now it’s time to configure the streams.You’re either working with your own streaming server, or using an online video platform (OVP) that lets you configure your streams, so now you’re trying to figure out the best resolution, data rate and H.264 encoding parameters for your file or files.

You could call me, spend a few hundred dollars to get the best answer, or you can tackle the job yourself. Even if you end up calling me in the long run, following the procedures here will knock a bunch off my fee since you’ll be doing most of the grunt work.

Click over to the main article to get started.

Book Excerpt: Streaming Vs. Progressive Download Vs. Adaptive Streaming

cover_small.jpgHere's an except from my (Jan Ozer) new book, Video Compression for Flash, Apple Devices and HTML5.

It’s important to recognize that when you deliver video over the Internet, you have multiple options, including streaming, progressive download and adaptive streaming. Note that the mode you choose may have a significant impact on how you produce your files.

Click over to the main article to read more.