Streaming Media White Paper 2008 - (Page 34) 34 Best Practices: HOW TO PROFIT FROM INTERNET TV Powering Live HD Internet TV Enhancing Your Business With HD Video Content and Live 2-Pass VBR JASON CRONKHITE AND DAVID WORKMAN As you read this, millions of new blogs are being created, millions of videos are being streamed , and millions of pieces of archival content are being transcoded into digital formats for video-on-demand distribution. But people like Jean-Pierre Loisil from Paris are doing something new:creating HD content and broadcasting it live online using 2-pass variable bit rate (VBR) streamable encoding. Loisil and Marc Pasteau operate a small company called Kali Net that focuses on broadcasting live classical concerts throughout Europe and around the world.Loisil is building a media business online, delivering content that has many people tuning in to see live performances with guest conductors such as Zubin Mehta and star performers such as violinist Joshua Bell and opera singer AnneSophie von Otter. Recent advances, such as streamable live 2pass VBR, have made it possible to encode live content with the same quality as on-demand encoding using the standard Flash player and VP6 codec. This has opened up new opportunities for companies such as Kali Net. sizes. Now, producers large and small are on a somewhat level playing field; they are producing and distributing their content directly to their audience without the considerable capital and infrastructure that were required before the technological advancements of today. Solving the Live Problem Most online content is delivered on demand, meaning it is pre-encoded and available whenever a viewer wants to watch it.The quality of the content continues to get better, and encoding tools are more readily available to producers of all sizes. Some content, however, such as sporting events and concerts, is best viewed live. The audience wants to see the action as it happens,not when it’s day-old news. Until recently, streaming of live content on the web hasn’t lived up to expectations.Quality of live encoding has been subpar,and the tools for live encoding typically aren’t as easy to use. Recently, ITV (the UK’s leading commercial television channel) launched a project to deliver live streaming of Formula One (F1) races. The desire was to provide a higher picture quality than what ITV’s standard realtime encoding tools would provide. The problem the company faced was one of picture clarity and blocking with the fast pace and breakneck motion of screamingly fast F1 cars. Adding to the problem was constrained bandwidth on the client side combined with the requirement that the event be streamed live with redundancy.As such, ITV was not left with many encoder options. Both Loisil at Kali Net and Andrew Horne, video solutions architect at ITV,found a solution with Kulabyte, a manufacturer of videoencoding tools based in San Marcos,Texas. “Thanks to Kulabyte’s XStream Live Nomad encoder, we are now able to take our satellite Extending Your Reach Traditional broadcasters used to develop and control the majority of content, which was mainly driven by whatever the largest audience was. Advertisers aligned with this philosophy, since they are also interested in reaching the largest possible audience. It used to be that we all tuned in to see the latest of pop culture on the tube,but times have changed,the media industry is growing rapidly, and the game has been turned upside down. Today, it’s not just pop culture. People in every country across the globe have the power to find exactly what interests them—anything from Super Motocross races to hot-dog-eating contests—not just what’s available on Channel X.This equates to more slices in the advertisingdollar pie available for media producers of all Figure 1. A four-processor configuration using Timeslice for streamable live 2-pass VBR encoding
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