Google’s(On2) VP8 and the video future
May/100
Google has made “public” and “open-source”, “patent-free” and “royalty-free” their recently acquired with the purchase of On2 video codec VP8. It’s an amazing step for the world of digital video. This step obviously was coordinated with other companies like Adobe, which ensured support for the new codec in further versions of Flash and Sorenson that presented an encoder ready to work with the new codec. They have also provided patches for the hugely popular transcoding programs ffmpeg and mencoder that
This is big news and consequences for web video may be really profound. It’s an amazing amount of events for a single month and they did in in a single day. Well done Google!
SVP with pro video uploads
Apr/100
Working with video online is becoming a popular task and an important part of getting the content online is the upload part. There are a great number of approaches to uploading video all with their pros and cons. While I have great respect for video services like youtube.com, that have pioneered the way of web video and deliver huge amounts of content daily, there are solutions that are built for professional video content owners and webmasters that solve many issues a free mass public service can’t afford to look after. There are problems with large video files, automated and semi automated upload processing and multiple video uploads.
HD compromises – “near HD” – “HD Lite”
Aug/091
High definition video imposes huge requirements on bandwidth for the video data stream. The requirements are so high that many enthusiasts consider the bandwidth in the BluRay(40mbps) and HD-DVD(28mbps) to be inadequate to get a “decent fidelity” HD video playback. Well this is formally true … in some cases. In practice we’ve lived with the low standard definition(SD) content for more than two generations now. If the technology still struggles with single consumer solutions, what do we do with HD video on the web then? Besides the raw bandwidth there are other solutions improving the odds in our favor a bit.
HD web video
Jul/094
High definition video or HD video as it is known, is digital video with higher resolution than the previous standards (i.e. SD video and DVD). This high resolution is achieved through new video file formats, which allow new codecs, certain performance optimizations (like deblocking) and a lot higher bandwidth(bitrate).
HD resolutions are noted with the number of lines and if it is progressive or interlaced stream. Thus 540p for instance means – resolution 960 x 540 pixels (assuming 16:9 aspect ratio) and progressive stream. Note that interlaced streams are primarily available for compliance with older standards like DVD.
Progressive download – streaming?
Jul/090
Http streaming or as it is better known – progressive download, which has been developed as a marketing term by Macromedia as the “poor man’s streaming solution” for their Flash platform. Progressive download is available from Flash 7 onwards and in essence means a “play-as-you-download” method, that works with standard http web servers. The concept is not invented by Macromedia though, as it has existed for some time with the development of streamable file formats.
Progressive download streaming is achieved by downloading a file “progressively” i.e. from the start onwards up to the end and playing it. FlashVideo(FLV) is a streamable file format as the packets of video data are defined in a “row”(or queue) and can be interpreted one by one, without a need to read all the packets to the end first. As a result progressive streaming provides a similar experience to true media server streaming, but without the need of a media server.
True Streaming with a media server
Jul/090
Streaming means the ability to read parts of the content without loading it in whole. In the sense of web, video streaming means the ability to play video without having to download a file first.
Protocol based streaming or as it is called true streaming, uses a specifically designed network protocol to send packets with video data over a network connection. This approach requires a network server which implements this protocol and provides stream data to a client(player). This type of servers are called “Media Servers” since they generally serve media in the form of video and audio streams (and it was good marketing started by Macromedia).
Live video broadcasting
Jul/090
A video stream that is being broadcasted in near realtime on the net is called live video broadcast or live video feed. Live video can be broadcasted on the internet through a real time protocol by a streaming media server. Live video broadcasting allows an experience similar to TV or satellite broadcast. Another term for live video broadcasting is online TV. The main emphasis of this technology is time synchronization. As with satellite TV there is always a slight delay with live internet video due to network delays and stream processing(replication).
Flash Video
Jul/091
FlashVideo(FLV) is the video format that Macromedia created for their FlashPlayer rich media browser plugin. Due to the fact that FlashPlayer plugin (now owned by Adobe) has a web presence in excess of 97%. It is safe to say that about every computer that connects to the internet can play video in FlashVideo format.
The file format of .FLV files is by design based on the h.263 standard. The newer FlashPlayer(9.0.0.29 or above) supports h.264/mp4 files which may have extension .flv(.f4v).
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Jul/093
A content delivery network or CDN is a computer network specialized for delivery of specific type of content. This type of networks specialize in content replication on targeted or global basis.
A content delivery network consists of points of access which allow certain content to be served to end users. The main benefit from such a network is the ability to serve a large number of users simultaneously and possibly on a global scale. A CDN can provide the means to deliver content to a huge number of users while maintaining reasonable cost of scaling. A CDN s total bandwidth capacity can go way beyond a single backbone connection that a DC would have.
If you need to deliver a large “amount” of content to a large number of users a using a CDN is the only way to do it. Microsoft for instance uses about a dozen of CDN’s for hire to deliver content to end users.
Streaming Cost Calculator
Jul/094
Streaming costs is a complex calculation and differ for each service provider, depending on their business model. However there are common factors that are taken into account in all cases and you should be aware of these in case you intend to publish video online.
Video Self-hosting
Jul/090
Web video can be hosted on a regular web server by using progressive download. This is the do-it-yourself version of web video publishing and is called by some free video hosting. This basic type of video publishing is easy to learn for web designers and is often used by designers that do not have access to better technology or technical knowledge to use it.
Video Hosting
Jul/094
A web video hosting service allows content owners to upload their video to a specialized network and then use this content into their own website. Another term for video hosting is streaming hosting(or stream hosting) and it is also referred to as business video hosting as opposed to free video hosting.