There are a number of different solutions available on the market
now a days which allows people to use the
Flash video streaming format, but without having to have the technical ability to build their own
flash player. That requires a copy of Flash 8, MX or the new more expensive
CS3
or 4. I imagine Adobe built the format in that way specifically to sell more copies of their authoring tools.
Of course the other formats like Windows Media, Quicktime or Real always had a stand alone player
which anyone could easily play back
a stream with a simple "open url" option. You can also buy players from providers and reskin them or edit them in Flash, some component still remain branded and others like the JW player keep their name somewhere on the player and do not allow commercial websites to use them under their license.
It is possible to get OEM licenses which for a substantial fee e.g £900 you can rebrand the player completely. Most clients prefer not to be promoting someone else's brand or company via their video players on their own website.
VSAT - Streaming from Muddy Fields, and other Fibreless Locations
Contributed by Jon Gilbert
When
an event location is selected, the main criteria for selection often
doesn't consider how many Mbps of terrestrial connectivity exist for
a production's Live Webast. This is probably a good thing, or
Glastonbury would be held at the NEC and called Birmingham.
Sometimes,
there simply isn't the time to pull in fibre where it didn't previously lie,
and other times, there simply isn't the budget to pay "Non-Descript
British Telecommunications Company Notorious for Missing Lead Times by
Massively Unfunny Margins" or whoever, what they might require to run
fibre from the nearest exchange. In
these instances, VSAT represents a valuable tool.
As broadband penetration grows significantly in Europe with 25Mbps Broadband now available from http://bethere.co.uk and Virgin now conducting a 50Mbps cable modem trial in the south west of England, it is clear that TV quality video is going to become wedspread on the Internet.
Even high definition video is now possible using bitrates of as little as 1Mbps and for full HD upto 4Mbps.
Here is an example a recent streaming video campaign at high bitrates:
When considering methods for encoding it is very important to get
the right system set up from day one. Video On Demand encoding can be done with the various free tools available on the market.
We have used Windows Media encoder for many years and recently have consulted directly with Microsoft regarding new features to be included into the new version. This is called Expression encoder and is similar to the original WM encoder software but enabled for Silverlight which is Microsoft's answer to Adobe's Flash plugin.
The ideas I came up with for the next version include:
1) Auto Restart of the encoder
For when the internet connection is disrupted in a live broadcast. Usually an engineer would need to remote access the box to restart the
encoding manually. We have used a different piece of software for years that would automatically click the mouse on the start button at a pre determined duration.
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