Video Streaming Portals Consumed with Commercials

Posted by Derrick on April 30, 2009 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

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

Posted by Derrick on April 22, 2009 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

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

Posted by Derrick on April 18, 2009 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

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.

Posted by Derrick on April 11, 2009 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

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 derrick@freemancompression.com

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

Posted by Derrick on April 10, 2009 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

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.