Telestream Episode Transcodes FIFA World Cup Video for Global Media

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

Telestream, a leading provider of digital media tools and workflow solutions, announced that its Episode video encoding software was selected by Banis Software Development, Inc. to provide video and audio transcoding for V&A Waterfront World Media & Legacy Centre which was built for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa. Banis selected Episode for integration with its Server DAM digital asset management and distribution system. Initially developed for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games, Server DAM is the first system of its kind to offer an uncompressed cloud storage and distribution portal with secure web access to video footage for accredited press. Thousands of registered media from around the world gained access this week to the online video portal which allows them to build pre-game video packages in a variety of formats for the 2010 FIFA World Cup which opens in Cape Town on June 10.

“We selected Episode encoder because of the simplicity of fully integrating it with Server DAM and because of the breadth of formats it provides,” said Ford Sinclair, President at Banis Software Development, creators of the video portal. “Telestream’s Episode was a natural fit for our business needs. The strength of our products is that they function as one system, providing on-demand access 24 hours a day to video footage in any format for any number of users.”

Banis integrated Episode server-based software with Server DAM to enable fully automated, on-demand video transcoding. Initial loading of the clips into the video portal included hours of HD video which needed to be encoded into 5 to 60-second clips. According to Sinclair, Episode was the only system that met all the demands required by his client, including input support for RED camera format. Sinclair adds, “Telestream’s technical support has been amazing.”

The Cape Town media center for the 2010 FIFA World Cup at www.waterfrontmediacentre.co.za provides global access to the video portal which offers local footage, location shots, B-roll, HD highlights and photography. Registered media are given secure access to the portal where they can create a custom menu and specify selection criteria. Video/audio format choices include ProRes 4:2:2 HD, NTSC-SD, PAL-SD, uncompressed video, plus QuickTime .mov and .flv for the web. Additional choices include style shots, locations, venues and keyword searches.

Banis developed Server DAM as a robust video portal with a huge data center backend to support large-scale video needs. A single video clip can simultaneously be accessed by 10,000 users without interruption or loss of speed. According to Sinclair, the system proved itself at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games where less than 5 percent of total resources were used at any given time.

Looping Video Playlists Possible With JW Player and Wowza Media Server

Posted by Derrick on June 5, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

Looping video playlists are possible with JW Player and Wowza Media Server.  With the JW Player you can refer to the videos in your playlist that sit on your Wowza Media Server.  You can set the video playlist to autoplay and repeat the playback of your videos.  The videos that playback in your looping video playlist  can be either in the Flash .FLV, F4V flavor or as H.264 .mp4, .M4v video files.  Both JW Player and Wowza have some amazing capabilities and the ‘looping video playlists’ is another one to add to the list.

Working with Sorenson Squeeze 6 and Flash Linked SWF and FLV Files

Posted by Derrick on May 12, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

When working with Sorenson Squeeze 6 and Flash Linked SWF and FLV files there are a couple of tutorials here on the blog that will help you.  There’s one for encoding Flash Linked SWF and FLV with Squeeze 6. Another is a tutorial that covers the web authoring process for delivering your video content on the web with Dreamweaver CS4.

Here are both tutorials:

Encoding Flash Linked Downloadable Streaming Videos with Squeeze 6

Authoring a Web Page for Flash Linked Downloadable Streaming with Dreamweaver CS4

Authoring a Web Page for Flash Linked Downloadable Streaming with Dreamweaver CS4

Posted by Derrick on February 11, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | 3 Comments to Read

Authoring a Web Page for Flash Linked Downloadable Streaming with Dreamweaver CS4 is the topic of this tutorial.  The Flash Linked .SWF and .FLV files we’ll be using in this tutorial were creating during encoding with Sorenson Squeeze 6. It will be helpful to first complete the Tutorial – Encoding Flash Linked Downloadable Streaming Videos with Squeeze 6.

So in this tutorial you’ll learn how to author a .FLV video file that has a .SWF player/skin surrounding it.  What’s nice about Squeeze is you can use it to create your .SWF and .FLV files but it also creates an .HTML page with coding that you can use to  Author your Web Page in Dreamweaver.

OK. Enough for the introductory items. Time to get started with the tutorial.

At the start-up screen in Dreamweaver in the center column click the Create New HTML button.  Before you do anything else click the Split screen button at the top of your web page.  This way you can see the Code view and the Design view.

In your new web page you’re going to first create a new table to help manage where your video is on the screen.   First, position your cursor in the Design view.  Then, click the Insert Pull-down Menu and select Table.  This will open a dialog to adjust your Table.  For this table you’re going to create a Table that has 2 Rows and 1 Column.  Type 2 in the Rows Text Box and Type 1 in the Columns Text Box.

Now you need to position the Table in the center of your Web Page.  First select the edge of you Table.  It should appear selected similar to the image above.

Once your Table is selected you can adjust the location.  From the Properties window click the Align Drop-down and choose Center to place your Table in the center of your Web Page.

Let me explain something.  This is example of how the folders are structured for the website for this tutorial.  Let’s look at two important folders, the html folder and the movies folder.  On your desktop create a folder called Tutorial_Website and inside the folder create a folder called html and a folder called movies.  On your website you’ll also create a folder called html and movies.  Essentially the same folder file structure you have on your website should be the same as what you have on your desktop.  Now let’s move on.

Prior to this tutorial we encoded our Flash Linked .SWF and .FLV files using Sorenson Squeeze 6.  To learn how to encode your Flash Linked Downloadable Streaming videos visit the Tutorial -  Encoding Flash Linked Downloadable Streaming Videos with Squeeze 6.

Now, Take your .FLV and .SWF files that were created in Sorenson Squeeze 6 and move them to your movies folder.  Also, once you move them in your movies folder upload the .SWF and .FLV file to your movies folder on your Web Server.  Your files are now where they need to be for the authoring process.

Next, save your .html Web Page by Navigating to the File Pull-down Menu and clicking Save button.

You need to save you .html Web Page in the html folder that you create earlier.  Name your file FlashLinkedTutorial.html and click the Save button.

It’s now time to author your video.  The reason you created the Table that way you did is so that you can place your video in the bottom Cell and add a Title in the Cell above.  Click in the bottom Cell of your Table.  You should see your cursor appear at the the beginning of the bottom Cell.

Next go to the Insert Pull-down Menu, Choose Media then SWF from the Sub-menu.

Navigate to your .SWF file, which should be located in your movies folder.  Notice as I select the .SWF file under the URL Text Box it displays ../movie/Car02_F8_flashlinked.swf.  This displays this way because the html and movies folders are parallel to each other. That is why it is important to first save your .html page before adding you .SWF file and it also why it’s important to put your .SWF and .FLV file in the movies folder first.  With your .SWF selected click the OK button.

The bottom Cell of the Table should display your .SWF file.  In the Top Table Cell type My Video Name.

With the Top Cell still selected, from the Properties window click the Horizontal Drop-down and choose Center.  Now your text will be centered.

Now it’s time to work with your HTML code in the Code View.  Notice that above for the path to the .SWF file it displays ../movies/Cars02_F8_flashlinked.swf.  This is good but we need to add the flashvars info for the path to the .FLV file.  Remember the .FLV is located in the same folder as the .SWF file.  The flashvars information will be added in both references of the Object Tags.

We can use the code in the .html Web Page generated in Squeeze 6 along with the .SWF and .FLV files. Open the .html Web Page in Dreamweaver.  My file is titled Cars02_F8_flashlinked.html.  When the page opens copy the flashvars code similar to above and choose Edit from the Pull-down Menu in Dreamweaver and select Copy.

Now paste the code in both references of the Object Code similar to above.  Once you paste the code make sure you add the proper path to your .FLV file.  Before your file name type ../movies/.    Next, Save your .html Web Page.

Finally upload your FlashLinkedTutorial.html to the html folder on your Web Server.

Now you can pull up the URL to your Flash Linked Downloadable Streaming video in your Web Browser.  The URL should be http://www.yourdomainname/html/FlashLinkedTutorial.html

This is what your Web Page should display when you pull it up.  You now have a Flash .FLV video surrounded by the .SWF Aluminum Player skin from Sorenson Squeeze 6.   The video should automatically play.  Congratulations on authoring your Flash Linked Downloadable Streaming video using Dreamweaver CS4.

Encoding Flash Linked Downloadable Streaming Videos with Squeeze 6

Posted by Derrick on February 5, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | 2 Comments to Read

Encoding Flash Linked Downloadable Streaming videos with Sorenson Media’s Sorenson Squeeze 6 is enhanced.  This tutorial will help you if you’ve upgraded to Sorenson Squeeze 6 or purchased the new version and new Squeeze 6 license.  This workflow in this tutorial is helpful if you need to encode Flash Linked .SWF and .FLV using the Sorenson Media player skins for Download Streaming.    We’ll show you how to create a Flash Linked Downloadable Streaming video that is geared for high broadband users.   The video that we’re encoding is a 720 x 480 DV progressive source with PCM audio and black edges.

Now, let’s get started.

Navigate to the Formats tab located in the Presets section.  Twirl down the Adobe Flash Movie (.swf) templates and navigate to the F8 SWF 360p (4×3) compression preset.  Now copy the preset to create a version you can customize.  Select the preset and Right-click your mouse and select Copy Audience Preset from the Contextual Menu.  You can also select the Creates a Copy button below the presets.  Locate your new preset which should have copy at the end of the Preset name.  Double-click the preset to open it for editing.

Once your preset opens you can adjust your settings but first you need to name your new preset.  For this tutorial name your preset F8_flashlinked_DL_360.  Remember it’s best to make sure you don’t have any spaces in your preset names as they are included in the name of your output file.  Removing spaces mainly helps in the web authoring process.

OK.  Now move to the Codec settings within the Video Tab. You’ll adjust our preset for Downloadable Streaming video for high broadband users.  Keep in mind this is general preset.  You might have to do some additional tweaking to get your desired quality for output.  In your preset the On2 VP6 Pro Codec should be selected along with 2-Pass VBR.  Since the video frame rate is 29.97 frames per second adjust your output frame rate to 15 fps.  By doing this you’re cutting the frame rate in half which will give you smooth motion.  For your target Data Rate adjust it to 600Kbps.  You can keep VP6-E for the Profile with Auto Key Frames Enabled with an Auto Key Frame Threshold of 70.

For Frame Size select 480 x 360.  You can select Maintain Aspect Ratio with Key Frames set to Key Frame Every 90 frames.  So in this case the codec will ad a new key frame at least every 6 seconds since 15 fps is our output frame rate.

Moving onto the Audio settings within the Audio tab.  The Fraunhofer MP3 Codec should be selected.  Adjust your datarate to 40Kbps, Sample Rate set to 22050,  Channels to Stereo and 16 bit for your Sample Size.

Next move to the Player Options Tab.  At this point you’re going to determine the Player/Skin that you want to surround your video for playback on the web.  For this tutorial select the Aluminum Player.

For the Video location you can leave the default value of http:// for the URL/Path and make sure Play Automatically is selected.

A new feature in Squeeze 6 is you can actually attach Filter presets within your compression presets.  However, in this tutorial you want to create a filter that we can apply to other videos as well.  Moving on, navigate to the Filters section on the left hand side within Squeeze 6.

Move down to the Web Generic Filter and select it then click the Creates a Copy button.  Now double-click the Web Generic copy Filter you just created.  When the Filter preset opens change your filter name to SD_Cropping_NoDeinterlace.  You’re giving your Filter this name because you’re making a Filter preset for encoding Progressive SD sources that have blacking edges.

In the Filter preset settings you can check on uncheck items you don’t want to include.  For this Filter uncheck Deinterlace since the source is progressive.  Now check Crop, Brightness, Contrast and Audio Volume.  For Brightness adjust to your setting to 10.  For contrast adjust your setting to 15,  and for Audio Choose Normalize and adjust to 90.  Keep in mind if your source file is really bright you might need to deselect the Contrast and Brightness values.

For cropping off our black edges you’ll multiply the aspect ratio of 4:3 times 8 in which you’ll crop 32 pixels off the left and right and 24 pixels off the top and bottom.  So for the Top input 12 pixels, for Bottom input 12 pixels, for the Left 16 pixels and for the Right input 16 pixels.  Click OK once you’ve made all of your adjustments.

Now onto compressing your video.  Drag your source file into the Batch Tree.  You can also choose Import File from the Input Options and navigate to your desired video and click Open.

Next Select your F8_flashlinked_DL_360 Compression preset and drag it onto your video.  In my case, I’ll drag the F8_flashlinked_DL_360 preset on top of my video called Car02 in the Batch Tree.   Then drag your Filter preset over top of your Compression Preset in the Batch Tree.  Looking at the image above you would drag your Filter preset over top of F8_flashlinked_DL_360 located under Source Settings.  You’ll know your filter is applied when you see Filter : SD_Cropping_NoDeinterlace display within your applied Compression preset.

To select a custom output for you file you can adjust this within the Squeeze Preferences.  Click the Edit Pull-down menu and choose Preferences.

When the dialog opens click the Output Tab and the Browse button to create an output location for all of your encodes.  If you don’t select a custom output for your video Squeeze will put your output videos in the same location as your source.  Click OK on the Preferences tab once you’re done.

Now you’re all set to encode your video.  Click the Squeeze It! button.

Once your video is finished encoding you will have 3 files in your output location.  All files will have the same name except for the file extension.  One file is the .SWF file, another if the Flash .FLV file and the final file is an .HTML file.  You will need these files when you author your video for your Web Page. For details on the authoring process for Flash Linked .SWF and .FLV files view the tutorial Authoring a Web Page for Flash Linked Downloadable Streaming with Dreamweaver CS4. Other tutorials are available on our blog as well.