One thing we’re learning about is just how bad the experience is on video.
Seems like we have a few choices.
1) Compress the hell out of the video so it downloads and plays well on almost every connection.
2) Leave it nice and sharp, but that keeps people who aren’t right near one of our datacenters or Akamai (they mirror our stuff so you can get it fast) from getting it.
Even on a fast connection it’s a frustrating experience. But, that’s why connecting video with RSS makes sense, so your aggregator will download the video and it’ll sit on your hard drive after it’s finished downloading.
Anyway, fun video with Geek Entertainment TV who went to Linux World last week and got this interview with Cmdr Taco, founder of Slashdot. Hey, is that Craig Newmark, founder of Craig’s List in the background? Why yes it is!
Hmmm, speaking of which, I gotta try RedSwoosh. Here’s a link to the same video, but on RedSwoosh. It’ll be interesting to see how that can help with these issues. RedSwoosh is a peer-to-peer piece of software that you load on your machine. A lot like BitTorrent.
If that works, maybe we can put up some really high res versions of our videos. But dealing with HDTV quality is gonna be tough through IP-based networks. I’m encoding the video with Thomas Hawk and it’s massive, even at a non-HD resolution.
Scobleizer 
I’d check out Octoshape too if I were you :). Requires a small plug-in, but you can embed the video in your web page etc.
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I’d check out Octoshape too if I were you :). Requires a small plug-in, but you can embed the video in your web page etc.
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(it’s torrent-like too)
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(it’s torrent-like too)
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I guess I never realized you guys were doing things with Akamai. Seriously great choice!
Did you know they do EdgeComputing and their main product is the EdgePlatform. How fitting for the so called ‘EdgeCase’ 🙂
I’m sure you saw Mr. Malik’s post on DivX… good stuff there and getting better all the time.
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I guess I never realized you guys were doing things with Akamai. Seriously great choice!
Did you know they do EdgeComputing and their main product is the EdgePlatform. How fitting for the so called ‘EdgeCase’ 🙂
I’m sure you saw Mr. Malik’s post on DivX… good stuff there and getting better all the time.
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Whose choice is it–yours or your viewers? Why not offer two resolutions and let your viewers make their own choice on the tradeoff between fast and good?
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Whose choice is it–yours or your viewers? Why not offer two resolutions and let your viewers make their own choice on the tradeoff between fast and good?
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Michael: you can do that, but it’s very expensive to do. Ever recompress an hour of video? I have, it isn’t easy to do when you’re planning on pushing through a lot of video. Plus, I need to do many formats, one for Media Center, one for iPod, one for Sony Portable Play Station. Probably another for Zune. Probably another for Windows Vista. Probably another for Macintosh. Probably another for Linux. Whew. I’ll spend a week doing one hour of video! 🙂
The new Divx ROCKS here. Thanks for reminding me about that gwhiz. Funny, I was just reading my feeds.
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Michael: you can do that, but it’s very expensive to do. Ever recompress an hour of video? I have, it isn’t easy to do when you’re planning on pushing through a lot of video. Plus, I need to do many formats, one for Media Center, one for iPod, one for Sony Portable Play Station. Probably another for Zune. Probably another for Windows Vista. Probably another for Macintosh. Probably another for Linux. Whew. I’ll spend a week doing one hour of video! 🙂
The new Divx ROCKS here. Thanks for reminding me about that gwhiz. Funny, I was just reading my feeds.
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If there’s that much video, and the “expensive” portion of compression is in terms of CPU, why not buy a few more computers and do it in parallel?
Seems like the right kind of expense to pay for if you’re going to become a video company.
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If there’s that much video, and the “expensive” portion of compression is in terms of CPU, why not buy a few more computers and do it in parallel?
Seems like the right kind of expense to pay for if you’re going to become a video company.
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Hey Srini, great idea. If anyone knows of a good/reliable way to batch encode source video into multiple formats that would be really helpful to know about too.
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Hey Srini, great idea. If anyone knows of a good/reliable way to batch encode source video into multiple formats that would be really helpful to know about too.
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Hi Robert–
One way is to just host the file for download on the site (but not play), and play the low res. That way, people can SEE the video anywhere, and can OWN the video for their own use later. Difference being that you don’t have to host it.
I burn down video in high quality onto my Mac, and then I compress for the web, so it *feels* like nothing especially more.
One last request: POP FILTER for that mic. Irina’s lovely, but that mic’s catching every plosive sound. (boy, did I get beat up for that).
–Chris from New Media School and PodCamp.
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Hi Robert–
One way is to just host the file for download on the site (but not play), and play the low res. That way, people can SEE the video anywhere, and can OWN the video for their own use later. Difference being that you don’t have to host it.
I burn down video in high quality onto my Mac, and then I compress for the web, so it *feels* like nothing especially more.
One last request: POP FILTER for that mic. Irina’s lovely, but that mic’s catching every plosive sound. (boy, did I get beat up for that).
–Chris from New Media School and PodCamp.
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Eddie – As soon as Michelle’s off the Mac in the “Home Lab” I’ll check to see if Final Cut Pro HD has distributed/batch encode. I know it has distributed rendering… distributed encode to multiple formats…? That might be a stretch UNLESS it’s way more friendly with Automator than I think it is. Doesn’t mean it can’t be MADE to do it with some creative muscle/scripting applied though.
Since my Grocio startup fell apart maybe I could take this as my next challenge. Still looking for that suitable next gig 🙂
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Chris: we’re getting her new microphones.
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Chris: we’re getting her new microphones.
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Eddie – As soon as Michelle’s off the Mac in the “Home Lab” I’ll check to see if Final Cut Pro HD has distributed/batch encode. I know it has distributed rendering… distributed encode to multiple formats…? That might be a stretch UNLESS it’s way more friendly with Automator than I think it is. Doesn’t mean it can’t be MADE to do it with some creative muscle/scripting applied though.
Since my Grocio startup fell apart maybe I could take this as my next challenge. Still looking for that suitable next gig 🙂
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HD is really pointless now, not even a fraction can view, just MiniDV, Firestore or P2 it, in 24P on DL media…
And you can get great quality, per various codecs, divx, xvid, h.264, rmvb and etc…just all so much ‘install this plugin’ which is a killer…
Parallel Dual Cores, yah yah, or rather Linux encode farms… 😉 TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress on Dual Core is kicking…
PS – You outta look into Sorenson Squeeze Compression Suite or Cinema Craft Encoder SP2 for compressional needs.
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HD is really pointless now, not even a fraction can view, just MiniDV, Firestore or P2 it, in 24P on DL media…
And you can get great quality, per various codecs, divx, xvid, h.264, rmvb and etc…just all so much ‘install this plugin’ which is a killer…
Parallel Dual Cores, yah yah, or rather Linux encode farms… 😉 TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress on Dual Core is kicking…
PS – You outta look into Sorenson Squeeze Compression Suite or Cinema Craft Encoder SP2 for compressional needs.
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gwhiz – There are a number of video transcoding batch programs, using an NLE to transcode, via scripting tricks, isn’t really all that productive, in fact it’s convoluted…just kick up something like Canopus Procoder 2…
NLEs to edit, Batcher’s to batch…Authors to author.
Geesh, yah guys are all Video n00bs… 🙂
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gwhiz – There are a number of video transcoding batch programs, using an NLE to transcode, via scripting tricks, isn’t really all that productive, in fact it’s convoluted…just kick up something like Canopus Procoder 2…
NLEs to edit, Batcher’s to batch…Authors to author.
Geesh, yah guys are all Video n00bs… 🙂
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ON the mac side, Compression master is a great batch compressor.
Also, if you have the apple FCP 5 suite, compressor w/qmaster will node up all your macs.
Very easy to batch different versions of codecs at the same time.
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ON the mac side, Compression master is a great batch compressor.
Also, if you have the apple FCP 5 suite, compressor w/qmaster will node up all your macs.
Very easy to batch different versions of codecs at the same time.
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Yah, Popwire’s Compression Master (NAB 2006 winning at that) works great, esp. in node mode…like the 3GPP support too. But that’s not the same as having your NLE perform somersaults. 😉 Also Avid Xpress Pro and Media Composer going Intel by Xmas. Yay!
If Scoble is staying in Macland, Popwire is best bet…wish they’d go both platforms tho…
FCP to final encode, then CM and DVD Studio Pro it…simple really. Dunno why much need to have a cow, well just the what, $2500+ it costs for all that. Apple is not cost-effective…but then it pays off in other ways…
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Yah, Popwire’s Compression Master (NAB 2006 winning at that) works great, esp. in node mode…like the 3GPP support too. But that’s not the same as having your NLE perform somersaults. 😉 Also Avid Xpress Pro and Media Composer going Intel by Xmas. Yay!
If Scoble is staying in Macland, Popwire is best bet…wish they’d go both platforms tho…
FCP to final encode, then CM and DVD Studio Pro it…simple really. Dunno why much need to have a cow, well just the what, $2500+ it costs for all that. Apple is not cost-effective…but then it pays off in other ways…
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It’s going to have to be Compression Master for us. We already have the FCP pro suite and the $2,995 that CM weighs in at is a bit of a hard pill to take when so many other project will put the capital to better work, ie. BOOTSTRAPPED! 🙂
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It’s going to have to be Compression Master for us. We already have the FCP pro suite and the $2,995 that CM weighs in at is a bit of a hard pill to take when so many other project will put the capital to better work, ie. BOOTSTRAPPED! 🙂
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Could get 2 or 3 Windows boxes, with Vegas Suite and Procoder for about the price of one full FCP setup…
Geesus, Apple…
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Could get 2 or 3 Windows boxes, with Vegas Suite and Procoder for about the price of one full FCP setup…
Geesus, Apple…
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Cinema Craft Encoder SP2 is a nice package indeed. Check it out.
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Cinema Craft Encoder SP2 is a nice package indeed. Check it out.
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