Streaming Learning Center

Live event streaming while on the road requires an encoder that's as powerful as it is portable. In this Buyer's Guide, I'll detail the categories to consider when buying a portable encoder, along with factors to consider to help identify the best product for your needs. Specially, I'll discuss software encoders, portable hardware encoders, and on-camera encoders, though exclusively for Ethernet or Wi-Fi transmission, as cellular models are covered in another Buyer's Guide.

Is 2013 the year of encoding in the cloud? Actually, it might be, at least for live transcoding in the cloud, and even on-demand transcoding should see significant migration to cloud facilities.

Choosing a live streaming encoding tool used to be simple: You typically would encode a single stream for delivery to your desktop viewers, and budget was the most important buying criteria. When buying today, of course, you've almost certainly expanded your target viewers to include both mobile and desktop clients, with adaptive streaming preferred over single file delivery.

Livestream Broadcaster is an exceptionally easy to configure and use live encoder that produced very good quality over a range of relevant bandwidths. The only significant negatives are that the unit doesn't work with the older Livestream system, and doesn't currently offer adaptive streaming, though Livestream promises to address the latter concern in the near future.

Here's the seminar description:

This session will discuss factors to consider when choosing an enterprise video encoding system from the likes of Ateme, MainConcept, Thomson Video Networks, and others. Factors incorporated into the analysis will include performance, output quality, quality control options, format support, expansion options, programmability, and other variables. If you're considering buying an enterprise encoder or 1 upgrading your current systems, you'll find this session particularly useful.

Click over to the article to download the handout.

Just finished a seminar on Encoding for iDevices. Here's the description:

This seminar starts by detailing the playback specs for all iDevices, old and new. Then, learn the strategies used by prominent iTunes publishers to serve the complete range of installed iDevices. Next, the seminar switches to cellular wireless delivery, with a technical description of Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), including recommendations for the number of streams and Apple’s encoding parameters. The seminar concludes with a review of encoding options for HLS and techniques for serving multiple target platforms such as Flash and iDevices with a single set of encoded H.264 files.

Click to the main article page for the handout.

In London, teaching this seminar:

Learn the technological basics behind encoding for both H.264 and WebM formats. You'll learn how to encode H.264 for HTML5 distribution and streaming to iOS and other mobile devices, as well as how to encode it for Flash, including live, on-demand, and RTMP, plus HTTP-based adaptive streaming. For WebM, you'll learn the basics of on-demand streaming, plus get a look at live WebM encoders. Finally, you’ll learn how the various H.264 and WebM encoding tools compare in terms of performance, quality, and features.

Download the handout below.

The histogram and the waveform in Apple Final Cut Pro X are effective, easy-to-master tools that provide the clear input you need to diagnose and fix the contrast issues in your video simply and intelligently. In this video tutorial, video editing and encoding expert Jan Ozer explains how they work.

Gave a presentation today to the Adobe Media Server Users group on choosning an enterprise encoder. You can download the 50+ page handout and view the presentation by clicking over to the main article. Here's a description of the presentation.

This session will discuss factors to consider when choosing enterprise video encoding systems from the likes of: Digital Rapids, Elemental, Harmonic, Sorenson, and Telestream. Factors incorporated into the analysis will include performance, output quality, quality control options, format support, expansion options, programmability, and other variables. If you're considering buying an enterprise encoder or upgrading your current systems, you'll find this session particularly useful.