Encoding with Older Versions of Sorenson Squeeze

Posted by Derrick on September 7, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

Encoding with older versions of Sorenson Squeeze 4.5.6 and 5.1 should be a great experience in terms of reliability.  What I like about Sorenson Squeeze is that it has really been stable over the years.  I have one particular client that still has Sorenson Squeeze 4.5.6 installed on their encoding workstations and it still works flawlessly.  Every once in a while I get to tweak their compression settings for new streaming projects and that’s always fun to see the older versions.  It’s amazing how many great features are still in the older version.

I like Sorenson Squeeze 6 and many of the new features available.  However, the ability to preview compression jobs during batch encoding is a feature that is only available in Squeeze 4.5.6 and 5.1.  With this feature you can easily see which source video is being encoding.  You can also view if your encode is on the first pass or second pass of encoding.  I would LOVE to see the compression preview feature back in future versions of Squeeze.

On-line Classes Perfect for International Students

Posted by Derrick on August 30, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

Our On-line classes are perfect for International students. Even though Freeman Compression Inc. is located in the United States, our On-line training classes are available Internationally. We’re available to adjust to the appropriate time zones of our Domestic and International class attendees. For our trainings we use GoToMeeting and Skype which allows Freeman Compression Inc. to hold hands-on interactive trainings in the U.S. and globally.

View our Video Streaming and Compression Training Schedule for upcoming class dates. You can call Freeman Compression Inc. at 407.477.5837 for more information or E-mail us at info@freemancompression about attending one of our On-line Trainings.

Converting hundreds of .MOD video files to .MOV

Posted by Derrick on July 26, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

Converting hundreds of .MOD video files to .MOV is more than likely something that will become very popular.  This is because of the many video cameras that capture videos to SD Memory Cards instead of having the Firewire feature.  I had a chance recently to create a video compression workflow for converting 240 .MOD MPEG-PS files to QuickTime DV-NTSC .MOV for a Summer Art Camp video editing project.  75 4th – 8th grade campers learned videography techniques and Non-linear Editing with iMovie.  The final video editing project consisted of 240 15 second .MOV video clips from the week long art camp.  To get the .MOD video files to .MOV MPEG Streamclip was used. The batch encoding features within this FREE tool made it a natural fit for the project.  Also the video preview in MPEG Streamclip to watch the current video that was processing was invaluable.

After converting the 240 .MOD files  to .MOV they were imported into Apple’s iMovie where students editing the video clips to music.

Keys to remember:

• .MOD files can’t be imported into Apple’s iMovie
• .MOD files can be copied off the SD Memory card to your Hard Disk without conversion
• .You can view .MOD files in MPEG Streamclip if you have an MPE2 codec.
• Use the Batch List feature when converting numerous .MOD files to .MOV

2 Day Training covers H.264 vs MPEG-4

Posted by Derrick on July 10, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

Our 2 Day Training covers H.264 vs MPEG-4.  This is one of the benefits of our 2-Day Video Streaming and Compression Training.   Besides learning how to encode to Windows Media, Real Media, QuickTime, H.264 and Flash students learn about MPEG-4’s and H.264’s role in the MPEG-4 standard.  Our 2-Day Video Streaming and Compression class also provides students with fully functional web authoring templates for streaming video. Check our Video Streaming Training Schedule to participate in the next 2-Day Video Streaming and Compression Training. You can also call us at 407.477.5837 or E-mail us at info@freemancompression.com to get more details.

Working with Encoding.com, Amazon S3 and Cloudfront

Posted by Derrick on July 2, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

Working with Encoding.com, Amazon S3 and Cloudfront is what I had a chance to do recently. It was nice to work with the Encoding.com encoding service again. This service can make things extremely easy for novices especially if you have someone to set up encoding presets and other items for you. It terms of compression, I generally like to be up close and personal on the desktop with my compression tools but there are some things that I like about the Encoding.com service.

Project Goal: To provide a great viewing experience for 80 minute video lessons with Real-Time Streaming. The videos needed to play without interruption. Also we needed to provide 1-2 minute videos for Progressive Download.

Here are the tools used for the project:

Amazon S3
Amazon Cloudfront
Rackspace Cloud
Encoding.com
JW Player

Because of the project we decided to go with delivering Real-time Streaming of the 80 minute lessons with Amazon Cloudfront and Amazon S3. We also used the Cloudfront and S3 for the Progessive Downloads. What nice is the Amazon Cloudfront uses Adobe Flash Media Servers for Real Time Streaming. For delivery we implemented On-demand Dynamic Streaming for Real-time Streaming and went with a single datarate video for Progressive Download. We used 5 different dates for different types of viewers and the video dynamically switches based on users bandwidth. Rackspace was used for the source file location and JW Player was used for both Real-time and Progressive Download playback of the Flash video content.

Here’s what I liked about Encoding.com:

• Watch Folder Encoding
• FTP or Amazon S3 locations can be specified for Watch Folders
• Videos can be sent to FTP or Amazon S3 locations after encoding
• The ability to view encoding jobs in the Encoding Queue
• Watch Encoding Log

Here’s what I’d like to see improved with Encoding.com:

• The ability to specify naming conventions for Watch Folders
• The ability to apply multiple presets to Watch Folders
• More compression filters available