Streaming Media White Paper 2008 - (Page 35) www.streamingmedia.com 35 feed, encode it, and stream it live at 500Kbps with outstanding quality, making the content available to a wider audience,” said Horne. “Having Kulabyte’s technology available is enabling us to reach a much broader audience than we could ever do before.” The Timeslice Solution There are three main technical issues that prevent content providers from offering live video streams on their websites: The video quality of live encoding is typically not as good as on-demand encoding; historically, live video could only be encoded using 1-pass encoding. When producing video for on-demand delivery,the encoding process is usually completed in two passes, providing better quality but taking twice as much time. Video encoding is very processor-intensive, and many of the popular codecs in use today cannot encode high-resolution video in real time using their highest quality setting, even with 1-pass encoding and when using multiple processors in the encoding system. Streaming video (both live and on demand) is typically encoded using a constant bit rate (CBR) encoding method that keeps the flow of data at a steady rate across the network. VBR encoding produces the same quality using 20% less total bandwidth, but the peak bitrate is very high when there is a lot of action in the video. This means that VBR is better for achieving high-quality video. However, it requires significant peak bandwidth, which isn’t network friendly; on the other hand, CBR is network friendly but often results in lower video quality. Kulabyte solves all three of these live encoding issues with a unique process called Timeslice, which is the key to streamable live 2pass VBR.“The Timeslice technology is a very elegant solution,” says Chris Gottschalk, cofounder of Kulabyte.“It really solves some of the fundamental problems with accelerating and enhancing the video encoding process.” The process chops the video into short segments, typically five seconds per Timeslice. Each Timeslice is then sent to a processing core, utilizing as many cores as needed to encode the video in real time. (Standarddefinition video can be encoded with four processors, while high-definition video requires eight.) Each processing core can then treat a Timeslice as a separate video file, meaning that it can encode that segment of video using the codec’s 2-pass VBR encoding for the highest quality video (see Figure 1). In this configuration, each processor has 20 seconds to encode a five-second Timeslice using 2-pass VBR. Two-pass VBR encoding normalizes each segment to match the specified target bit rate, and as each segment is the same length, the size of each Timeslice is the same size (in bytes) no matter how much motion there is in the scene. The end result is a network-friendly CBR-compliant stream without the bit rate peaks of traditional VBR encoding. few moments when the satellite feed to the encoding truck in California went down, the event went off without a hitch. “We are thrilled with the response we got from this event,” said Gottschalk.“The feedback has been incredibly positive.All of the pieces of the distribution chain worked really well together, and the quality was outstanding. This was the highest bit rate ever streamed through Akamai for a live event.” Reaping the Rewards Content producers of all sizes can now take advantage of live 2-pass VBR encoding. This network-friendly method of encoding produces higher quality and allows the producer to use processor-intensive codecs that normally don’t perform well in live encoders. In conclusion, it’s fair to say that broadcasting and media presentation have undergone tremendous changes, and there is still logarithmic growth and change in these fields. There are also challenges and opportunities. Companies such as Kali Net, ITV, and MySpace have faced these obstacles, leapt over them to reach a larger audience, and achieved incredible success. Although challenges remain, a few innovative companies, such as Kulabyte, have made great strides in overcoming the technical barriers to provide encoders for high-quality live streaming, allowing content producers to push their businesses forward,reach new audiences, and gain the support of advertisers. Kulabyte in Action For broadcasting F1 races, the ability to encode fast-motion video makes all the difference in the world.“It really is the best of both worlds,” said Horne.“We can provide our viewers with the highest quality video stream available, and we can now do it live.” More importantly, this can be done with the Adobe Flash Player as the only client-side plugin, making it much easier to reach a broader range of end users.With higher quality encoding, advertisers are much more likely to allocate budget for new and emerging niche markets. Kali Net, for example, has been able to expand from its European base and has recently streamed live music events over the internet from such diverse locations as the recent New York Philharmonic Orchestra performance in Pyongyang, North Korea and the Aspen, Colorado Music Festival in conjunction with partner www.medici.tv. MySpace, one of the largest repositories of on-demand video on the web, has also been expanding its production of live events. The recent Operation MySpace—in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Defense’s Armed Forces Entertainment Program—was a webcast of a concert for U.S. troops in Kuwait that marked the debut of live HD Flash streaming. The concert was viewable in three bit rates, the highest at 1.3Mbps. HD content originated in 1080i and was transmitted via satellite to the eastern U.S.,the closest place for line of sight for the satellite uplink and downlink. The video was then downsampled to 480p for streaming. After the unicast stream was encoded with Kulabyte’s live 2-pass VBR VP6 encoder, it was sent to Akamai for distribution to computers across the internet. Aside from a ABOUT KULABYTE With the world's only Live 2 Pass Variable Bit Rate encoding process, Kulabyte is a leading developer of advanced video solutions for live streaming of high quality video, multi-format capturing, encoding and transcoding. All Kulabyte products incorporate our multi-core TimeSlice™ technology that significantly accelerates the encoding and compression process, increases picture quality, and reduces the required bandwidth for video transmission. Video can now be encoded and transmitted at full SD and HD quality for web distribution at consumer-level broadband speeds. Our solutions consist of software and hardware products that are scalable and high performing. Kulabyte products are designed for professionals to full enterprise large scale networks that are distributing content Live and On-demand. For more information visit www.kulabyte.com. http://www.streamingmedia.com http://www.medici.tv http://www.kulabyte.com
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