For Immediate Release
March 8th, 2010

Thriller Media Group, LLC announces the general availability of the Thriller ULTIMATE Encoder (TM) – Compatible with most content delivery networks, Flash Media Server, Wowza, Windows Media Server, and more!

Palm Springs, FL:  Thriller Media Group(TMG), LLC announced today the immediate availability of a top-of-the-line streaming Internet Video Encoding box, The Thriller ULTIMATE Encoder (TM).  This encoder supports all major streaming formats, including; Flash Media Server 3.5, Windows Media Server, iPhone live video, QuickTime/Darwin, RealMedia Helix, and Wowza.  It’s also compatible, Influxis, Live Stream, Multicast Media Suite, Justin.tv, uStream, and more!  The encoder will work with Akamai, Limelight, Edgecast, Level3, Bitgravity, Highwinds, Amazon Cloud, and others.

The Thriller ULTIMATE encoder (TM)  is available for rent or purchase for live webcasts, webinars, video conferencing, internet broadcasts, sporting events, corporate functions and more!  The encoder boasts a speedy CPU, plenty of RAM, ample storage, and most importantly professional hardware analog to digital encoding, all packed in a box much less than 1 cubic foot.  Miguel Dunkley, TMG President and Co-Founder says, “we found that although Digital Rapids, Viewcast, and Newtek make some of the best hardware out there, they are just too expensive for the average person to afford.  We set out to build a portable, powerful device which could compete head-to-head with the best at a fraction of the cost.  We believe we’ve achieved our goal.”.

The Thriller ULTIMATE Encoder (TM), supports component, composite, S-Video, balanced and unbalanced audio.  The device also sports USB and Firewire ports to support digital camcorders and even basic web-cams.  No other encoder on the market can support all these devices. TMG will even pre-configure and test the encoder for you before sending it out to ensure it’s ready to go out of the box.

An optional feature is the addition of the Thriller Ultimate Presenter.  This feature will allow easy integration of slide shows, images, and any other media into your broadcast.  Easily add titles, transistions, and multiple cameras to your presentation. 

TMG also offers on-site encoder management.  If you feel more comfortable having an encoding engineer on-site during the event, TMG will hand deliver the encoder, set it up, work with your A/V crew to ensure that all components are functioning.  The company also offers live event archiving, post-production video editing, post event video hosting, Flash and Silverlight player development and streaming media consulting services.

“We’re very excited about this”, says Dunkley, “No on else in the industry is offering this type of service.  We’ve talked to countless organizations who are looking to do 1 or 2 live events per year and can not or will not justify spending ten thousand dollars on encoding equipment.  This way, you can have the best of both worlds;  use a professional hardware encoder and achieve a broadcast quality live stream, but don’t invest the capital and depreciate a piece of equipment which is going to sit in a store room 11 months out of the year.”.

About Thriller Media Group, LLC
TMG is a sister company of SIGISIS, LLC, a company that provides cutting edge web and graphic design services.
Contact information:
Miguel Dunkley – miguel@rentanencoder.com
http://www.rentanencoder.com
(561) 856-3332

When choosing to use a CDN there may be numerous ways to integrate your content to deliver it.

Most CDNs employ one of 2 methods for delivering content.  The first is origin pull or off-site origin.  This evolves the CDN pulling the content from some outside source.  This origin could be your webserver, a cloud computing service, something like Amazon S3 or any other internet connected HTTP server.  The key is, that the CDN needs to access your content via HTTP GET requests.

The second method is CDN storage.  This is storage that the CDN supplies to you on their network.  This is usually a preferred method as the CDN does not have to go far to get your content to cache it on edge servers.  You can expect to pay for this storage on top of your other CDN charges.  Typically, you will FTP the content to the CDN storage or in some cases, there will be an HTTP upload option or even RSYNC may be an option.  If your content is large in size, larger than 5-10MB its recommended  you store the content on the CDN.

Using CNAMEs to access content

Most CDN’s will use CNAMEs to allow you to access your content.  A canonical name or CNAME is simply an alias.  For example   ‘static.domain.com’  could point to the CDN URL. You can use this instead of the URL that CDN supplies to you.  This way you can better brand your site and won’t have the CDN URL floating around on your site somewhere.  Talk to your CDN on how to implement a CNAME, they may have special requirements or might not even allow them.

When you do off-site storage, the CDN usually needs to know where you store that content.  So be prepared to supply the CDN the CNAME and the Source/Origin URL.  Origin, being the URL where the CDN can go to, to pickup your content.

When you write your HTML instead of using a relative path to a file like “./images/logo.jpg” you will use an absolute URL instead, such as “http://static.domain.com/images/logo.jpg”.  This way you are essentially embedding content from the CDN on your website.

If you are using a content management system, check to see if there is a way to address all your static elements like images, CSS, java script, PDF, MP3, FLV, MP4, etc at once.  You may be able to specify a “pre-pend” URL for specific file types.  This would make switching to a CDN easy and quick.  You could “CDN enable” your whole site in one click.

WordPress users, see the CDN Rewrites Plugin –

How do you know if your content is cacheable?

If you are uploading the content to the CDN then it will be cacheable.  If the CDN is going to pull the content from you then you need to consider a few things.  Most CDNs will honor any cache control headers you put on your content.  For example, if you put a Max-Age=86400 on your content, then the CDN will consider that piece of content fresh for 24 hours.  Don’t think for a second you can tell the CDN how long to hold a piece of content in cache for.  They will decide when that piece of content needs to be purged from an edge server.  However, setting this TTL will tell the CDN that after 24 hours they need to look to see if there is a new version of the file.

Also consider this, if your content has a Private, or No-Cache header on it, then the CDN will probably not cache it, you’re wasting bandwidth.   You are trying to deliver non-cacheable content through the CDN, they will go back to your origin for every request.

Some CDNs can address this issue by implementing some custom work around, so talk to your CDN of choice for advice.  Also, check with your CDN to see if they require specific cache control headers to be present, you may need to alter your headers in order to make your content cacheable even if you don’t have a No-Cache type header.

Conclusion

This was a basic overview on how CDNs handle basic caching of content from different origins as well as how to deliver your content through the CDN.  Consider the issues of cache control headers, these can be very powerful and allow for flexibility on how your content is cached and for how long.  You should always work with your CDN of choice directly as they will have specifics for implementing their solution.  No 2 CDNs are exactly alike.

Jeff Kopang, Vice President of Marketing for ViewCast, provides a quick overview of the Niagara 2120 streaming media appliance.

If you are considering renting the Viewcast Niagara 2120 for your next webcast, web conference, live event, or pod cast, please watch this video for more information

This article will explore some of the issues about doing a live web cast.  Why you want to go live, bit rates, encoders, audiences, etc.  You will have a better understanding of a live webcast and get some alternatives to hiring an expensive CDN for a 1 time event.

Why go Live?

Why are you choosing to have a live event?  Is it because you want interactivity?  Is it a happening event that people need to see live?  Or is it because your CEO said that he wants his quarterly address to be available to the 40 employees live when he gives it?

There are good reasons to offer a live event and there are bad reasons.  Interactivity doesn’t really require a live broadcast.  You can achieve most things like chat, and poll taking without it being live.

Know your audience
If this is corporate event, then it’s likely your attendees will be required to attend.  However if this is a concert or a sporting event, be sure to know who your audience is and if they will be able to attend.  It sounds great to have a live concert for a band on a Friday night, but consider this; is the audience 15-25 year olds?  If so, they are probably going out on Friday night and won’t be at home in front of their computers to watch a concert.

It would be better to offer the concert as a pay-per-view or VOD event that people can watch at the leisure.

Know your encoding options
First choose whether this is to be a Windows Media or Flash event.  What about Real Media (really, does anyone use RealMedia anymore?).  What about QuickTime?  It’s gaining popularity because of the iPhone, the issue is, not too many providers support Darwin live streaming (yet, check with them over the next 6 months).

Once you have a format chosen, choose an encoder.   For Flash Live Encoding you can use the Flash Live Encoder from Adobe and a high end computer. This product is ok for most consumer applications. You are really limited to the horsepower of your computer. There is no Mac version available so you must be on a Windows machine.

A better option for Flash Live Encoding is the On2Flix Live encoding software or the Sorenson Squeeze Live product. Both of these will offer higher quality video and more flexibility.

You are still at the mercy of your computer. So I suggest you get the biggest, baddest computer you can when using a software live encoder. Throw as much CPU, RAM, and Video Memory at it as possible. Use a SATA or Firewire hard drive which runs at least at 7200RMP.

You also need to consider how you connect your camera source to the computer. Don’t use a simple off the shelf Web Camera or an analog to USB device. These are ok for home movies, but for professional videos you should look at a Prosumer HD Video Camera or a high end encoding capture card like the Ospry card.

For a hardware live encoding solution, look at the Digital Rapids, Vbrick, orNewtek products. Digital Rapids has a cool new product called the TouchStream Appliance. It’s a portable standalone hardware encoder perfect for field productions.

Windows Media/Silverlight encoding

Try the Windows Media Encoder or for Silverlight Encoding, try Microsoft Expression

For WM/Silverlight hardware encoding, choose a Vbrick, Digital Rapids (in some cases), or Tricaster device.

Watch your bitrate
Everyone wants everything in HD these days.  There is a compelling reason to broadcast at 1.5Mbps or higher.  But is it really necessary?  Consider this about bitrate:  Many people can’t sustain much more than about 1000Kbps for any length of time.  3G wireless networks at best do about 700Kbps.  You can get full-screen good quality video at about 750Kbps.

If you want to go high bit rate, utilize some new technologies.  Microsoft and Adobe both have bandwidth detection (variable bit rates).  However, Silverlight now offers Microsoft Smooth Stream which will dynamically change the bit rate of the video to adjust for conditions at the player level.  Adobe FMS 3.5 also uses dynamic live streaming which does about the same thing.  The important thing to know about broadcasting in high bit rate is make sure you have enough upload bandwidth at your venue.

Test before you go live
You need to be at your venue a day or 2 in advance.  If you are using a CDN, see if they offer some sort of live event monitoring service.  Connect to your publishing servers and make sure you can sustain the bandwidth required for the event.   If you have the option of multiple ingest points, run ‘trace routes’ to the different servers and see which one is really closest to you.  The one in the city your in doesn’t necessarily mean it’s closest

Talk to the venue IT coordinator, see if you can get dedicated bandwidth.  My experience in conference centers is that the shared wireless Internet offered is usually sub-par.  If you can’t get dedicated bandwidth, ask them what their usage is like during the time of your event.  If it’s normally heavy, then you may need to lower your bit rate to accommodate for the poor connection.

Fire up your encoder and get people on different networks in different geographies to watch your test stream.  You only get 1 shot at this, and there are about a million moving parts in this that can break.

How do I get my signal out there so people can see it?
You have a lot of choices.  The first to consider is how big is my audience?  This will ultimately dictate how much bandwidth and resources you will need.  Use this equation:

(Bit rate)  X  (seconds) *
————————
8

Take that number and divide by 1000,  this will give you your number in MB.  Then multiple that by the number of viewers and you will know how much bandwidth you use

*average number of seconds a person will watch, not the length of the event

example:
500Kbps  X  1800 (30 min)
———————————-
8
= 112,500  then divide by 1000 = 112.5MB.  That’s how much bandwidth 1 user will consume watching for 30 minutes.

If you will have over 50 or so viewers, it makes sense to look at dedicated servers or using a CDN.  If you plan to have more than 1000 viewers, then a CDN is almost a must.

But for those events with just a handful of viewers look into free services like Mogulus and Ustream.  Or look at low cost options like Amazon cloud computingwith Wowza servers.  Also check out Influxis who can host your FMS server for you.

A one time live event from a Tier 1 CDN like Limelight or Akamai will probably cost you about $5000 and up, or they will ask you sign an annual contract somewhere in the neighborhood of $12,000 or more.

That’s a wrap!
There are lots of options out there for doing live webcasts.  Ask us how you can produce your own webcast today!

If you have any questions about this topic, please feel free to post them here and I will respond.

Thanks,

Mike Colburn (DigitalMediaGuy)

Do I need a CDN if I have Cloud Computing?

Over last year or so, the term Cloud Computing has been making headlines.  There are several new entrants into the Cloud Computing industry.  The idea is simple, you have all these computers or servers directly connected to the cloud (The Internet) and you have massive computing power at your fingertips.  Companies like Rackspace, GoGrid, Amazon, and AT&T are all offering one form of Cloud Computing or another.

The services available from these companies range from simple “Cloud Storage”, to fully scalable virtual servers in the cloud.

When to use Cloud Computing
The great thing about these services is the instant setup and “unlimited scalability”.  When you want a new website, with a few clicks of a mouse you bring up a new Linux or Windows box.  They even make it easy for you by pre-installing services like SQL, Mail, and in some cases applications like Wowza or Windows Media streaming server.

The setup process is usually wizard driven and they take the guesswork out of setting up server software and services.

A couple of cloud-computing providers even partner with Content Delivery Networks (CDN) to offer Cloud Storage.  Essentially you put your files in the cloud storage and they are on a CDN.

Sounds good, why do I even consider a CDN?
All of these services are on virtualized boxes and shared resources.  They are not dedicated.  The services are not fully managed either.  You would be responsible for software updates, patches, licenses, etc; although you really shouldn’t ever be concerned about hardware or bandwidth.  The idea behind cloud-computing is that you just pay more and they dedicate more resources to your servers.

If you have an existing data center or web servers, you may hesitate moving your web sites or web servers to a cloud-computing Provider.  This may mean abandoning hardware and software you’ve already invested in.  You may consider bringing up new servers in a cloud environment to reduce costs or gain flexibility.

If you have a lot of web sites it may make sense to consider a cloud provider versus a normal web host provider.  You will have more control over your domains and depending on your provider you may be able to scale easier.  Plus you would have full root access to the web servers to configure them however you want.  It would be like a dedicated server package from a web host provider.

If you plan to use a cloud computing company in lieu of a CDN, thinking you can just build your own CDN within their cloud, think again!  Start asking your cloud-computing vendor these questions:  how many data centers are they in?  What kind of peering arrangements do they have?  What are their peek bandwidth capabilities/egress capabilities?  Where in the world are they hosted?  Will your servers be replicated everywhere around the world or just in the US, just in one data center?  Are there more costs involved for Europe, Asia, or Australia delivery?   What if you need streaming servers for videos, can they do that?  What about mobile delivery?  Do they offer token-based authentication? Pseudo Flash Streaming? What about encoding and transcoding?  Does your cloud-computing vendor have any content management software or video?  Do they support live video delivery?  These are all questions to consider if you think you want to use a cloud-computing company instead of a CDN.

A tier 1 CDN like Limelight or Akamai will have thousands of servers to cache your content around the world.  They will offer all those ancillary services related to content delivery.  A CDN will support streaming and HTTP progressive downloads.  They will probably have Adobe, Microsoft and Apple servers.  A CDN will be able to support live events.  On top of that you will be able to accelerate your whole site, with Akamai’s DSA or Limelight’s Limelight Site services.  You are not limited to just videos with a CDN, any piece of content can be delivered via a CDN.

You will probably find that integrating a CDN is easier and less time consuming than bringing up new servers and maintaining them.  In some cases with a CDN it may be as simple as pointing a CNAME to the CDN or just uploading your content to them.

Pricing
Certainly, the pricing of cloud-computing is more attractive than a CDN.  But you will need to figure out what your needs are and find the right combinations of services.

Mosso by Rackspace:

• $100/month
• 50 GB of storage space
• 500 GB of monthly bandwidth
• 10,000 compute cycles.  Compute cycles measure how much processing time your applications require on the Mosso cloud. 10,000 compute cycles are roughly equivalent to the monthly capacity of a server with a 2.8 GHz modern processor. per month
• Prices go up from there.

GoGrid:

• $.19/hour of RAM (add more RAM, pay more) $136/month per 1GB of RAM plus
• $.50/GB of transfer outbound
• 10GB of storage included $.15/GB thereafter
• Free Load Balancing with F5 load balancers

Amazon EC2:

• $.10/hour up to $.80/hour for “On Demand”
• $325 setup up to $2600 setup + $.03/hour up to $.24/hour for a “Reserved” server
• $.10/GB on inbound traffic
• $.10 to $.17/GB for outbound traffic
• Storage is extra through the S3 service
• Other services are extra

AT&T Synaptic Storage as a Service:

• Pricing not disclosed

CDN Pricing
Pricing for CDN service will vary greatly depending on what you want and where you get if from.  With the Tier 1 CDNs expect a minimum commitment per month and to sign a 1-year contract.  With a Tier 2 CDN like Level3, CDNetwork, Edgecast, etc, you may get a month-to-month contract and lower prices, but you may not get the same service either.

Pricing for CDNs will be anywhere from $.05/GB to $1.00 or more per GB depending on what you commit to.  Keep in mind only the largest contracts in the hundreds of TBs to Petabytes will get down to the $.05/GB range.  When you add on ancillary services, you will add to your monthly bill as well.

It appears that Rackspace wins on pricing, although as you add on more CPU Cycles and storage they may increase significantly.  Rackspace is also known for their customer service, which will count for a lot.  Amazon’s pricing seems convoluted and confusing, it looks cheap on the outside, but if you add up all your inbound/outbound, storage and class of service, their pricing isn’t too aggressive.  Also, Amazon is not known for customer service at all.  Getting a hold of tech support may be a chore.  GoGrid’s pricing is very close to Rackspaces’ and their product seems top notch, also the free load balancing counts for a lot, so don’t count out GoGrid.  Finally, AT&T has only just announced their cloud storage product.  Their web site doesn’t disclose pricing.  Good luck getting someone at AT&T on the phone that can help you understand their product.

Conclusion
If you’re looking at Cloud Computing to increase website performance, you may consider a CDN first.  Examine why your site is under performing.  Do you need more databases, do you need more mail servers? Do you need more domains?  These are all reasons to get cloud computing.  But if you have a lot of videos, music or software downloads or your pages are sluggish, then a CDN is the way to go!

Ideally, your best solution will be to use both a cloud-computing company and a CDN.  This will give you optimal performance, flexibility, and reliability.

If you have any questions about this topic, please feel free to post them here and I will respond.

Thanks,

Mike Colburn (DigitalMediaGuy)

The online video delivery experience

When delivering online videos there are generally two distinct ways to do it. HTTP Progressive Download or Streaming. You may assume that all videos are streaming, but you’ll be surprised to know that most aren’t.

So what are these two methods? How do they differ? What are the advantages and disadvantages of both? Why would I want to use one method over another?

Progressive Download
All web servers are capable of progressive download. This is merely the method of a video file being delivered via HTTP to a browser. This is similar to someone downloading a file from your website. In fact the video is delivered in the same manner that an image, a CSS, a JS, PDF, or any other file on your web site is.

The real difference is that media players can begin to show the video while it’s downloading. For example, a FLV file being delivered via HTTP Progressive download will begin to play in your Flash Player as soon as a little bit of data is received by the browser. The same is true for Windows Media files. Quick Time will wait until the entire file is downloaded before it plays, unless the QuickTime player on the PC/Mac is set for progressive play. So be careful when posting QuickTime videos.

It’s quite obvious when a video is being delivered via HTTP Progressive Download. You will typically see the little status bar grow as the video downloads. You won’t be able to move the scrubber button past the amount that has downloaded already. This makes it impossible to jump to the end of the video before that portion has downloaded. If you have a slow web server or limited bandwidth or the end user is on a slow Internet connection, then it’s possible for the enduser to notice buffering.

Buffering occurs when the download can’t stay ahead of video. The video will stop while it downloads more. If you pause the video and it allow to download a large portion, then you can watch the video uninterrupted. In either case, this is a poor enduser experience, this is when you would consider using a CDN.

There is a technology called Psuedo or Seek streaming. This method utilized TCP/IP Range Requests to allow the user to jump to any portion of the video and the player will make a range request of the file to download that portion. This method is usually only for FLV videos and requires special services, or servers and custom Flash players to function.

When a video is delivered via HTTP, it is actually downloaded to the end users computer. This is good and bad. It’s good because if the person watches the video again, it’s already cached on their computer. It’s bad because it makes it extremely easy for someone to steal your content.

Finally, if someone only watches the first minute of your video but doesn’t stop the download, the browser will download the whole file and you will pay for the delivery of the file even though the person didn’t watch the whole thing.

Streaming Video
Streaming video requires access to a streaming media server. Some servers are Flash Media Server, Wowza Media Server, Windows Media Server, Darwin Media Server (QuickTime), Real Media Server. These servers usually require licensing and may cost several thousands of dollars.

Some well known streaming protocols are RTMP, RTSP, and MMS.

When a video streams, it is being sent via UDP protocol to a player on the end users compter. The user will have the ability to fast forward or rewind the video. The video isn’t being downloaded to the end users computer so it is less likely that the content will be stolen. Also if the user only watches 5 minutes of a 30 minute video, then you only pay for the delivery of 5 mintues, not the whole video.

The biggest disadvantage of streaming over progressive download is if the user watches the same video over and over you will pay for the delivery of it each time.  Videos are also streamed at what ever bit rate they are encoded at.  Keep this in mind when creating HD quality video.  8Mbps video may sound and look great, but most homes can’t sustain an 8Mbps connection.  If you have really high bit rate video, consider delivering via HTTP.

Most web hosting providers or Content Delivery Networks (CDN) will have streaming media servers available to use. Historically, Flash video was more expensive to deliver than other forms. Recently prices have compressed and you will find that it costs about the same to deliver Flash or Windows Media files. In the past I would have said if your video is more than 10 minutes in length deliver it via Stream and less do progressive. Since prices have come down, I would consider streaming for any length video since streaming typically begins to play faster than progressive.

If you are looking at using a service such as a CDN or Cloud Computing and they say you can stream your videos, confirm with their tech support that they are utilizing a streaming server and not just offering bandwidth.

If you are delivering Flash videos, then you should be delivering via RTMP or RTMPE protocol for streaming and http for progressive. Windows Media uses either MMS or RTSP. Quicktime and Real Media use RTSP.

I hope you find this article of interest? This is a good guide to help you through deciding to use streaming delivery of videos or HTTP Progressive Download.

If you have any questions about this topic, please feel free to post them here and I will respond.  As always I ask that you support our sponsors.

Thanks,

Mike Colburn (DigitalMediaGuy)
Top Content Delivery Networks which support Streaming
* Limelight Networks
* EdgeCast Networks
* CDNetworks
* Level3
* Akamai

If you wish to stream your own video technical experience is not a prerequisite; you just need to follow some simple instructions and you will quickly be up and running. Continue on with this report and I’ll teach you how simple it is to get started right away.

You see, in order to ‘paste’ a video file onto one of your webpages, the initial job is to “translate” your raw video file into flv format (known as flash video) – this is the net’s preferred display format for videos. This unique format enables you to ’squeeze’ your videos onto a reasonable file size (so you won’t end up with ‘heavyweight’ files…) while maintaining a top quality display level.

No matter when you want to stream your own video, this distinctive format keeps your digital movies in a special mode known as ’streaming’; this means that anytime your viewers click on play they can begin viewing any of your video(s), without delays of any kind, and even better, without having to download or install anything on their pc.

Okay, so now you’re familiar with the system, and you’re probably asking yourself how to get up and running, the answer is quite simple – you’ve got to find a simple (yet professional) software solution to do that for you. This utility will have to be able to convert your initial file(s) to flv combined with an embedded movie player, so all you need to do is send the new video to your webserver, and insert a small code line onto your webpage, wherever you would like the video to be displayed, and it’s ready to go!

Now you understand that in order to stream your own video no special training is required, you need to look for a proper solution that will have you up and running with a few clicks of your mouse, it needs the capability to compress your movies to at least 10% of the original file(s), and provide you with a professional embedded flv player.

1. It is cheap. The prices on web conferencing services have come way down in recent years. What used to cost literally hundreds of dollars has since deflated down to extremely affordable prices. Snoop around the web and you will find that decent web conferencing services can be had for as little as $20 per month. Buyer beware should be the rule as usual but this stuff isn’t only for $100 million dollar businesses anymore.
2. The productivity boom. Web conferencing can drive your business to be more productive. No doubt. More than half of my day used to be wasted going to and from meetings. Cutting out just 15% of travel time can make a huge difference. Wouldn’t you rather be doing something else besides waiting to go to meetings? Web conferencing can significantly cut down on your wasted time and can help your business become more profitable also.
3. The technology is there. The technology has piggybacked the broadband revolution. What used to be choppy video in a 3 inch by 4 inch square has turned fully interactive, multi-user, and full screen. Web conferencing is big, stable, and enjoyable. This part of the internet has come a long way since 1999.
4. Web conferencing is good for environment. Another bonus is that web conferencing allows you to save commuting time and therefore we use less fossil fuels. Everyone could deal with less global warming. The computer time used to web conference must be amortized in here somewhere as making and running a computer isn’t exactly fantastic for the environment. However, the few hours it takes to web conference surely outweigh the environmental damage that 5 people running their cars does to our planet.

Check out web conferencing. You’ll be amazed how far it’s come and how far you could go with it!

• Consider using LiveStream – ProCaster, WebEx, Go to my PC, Oovoo, Yahoo Messenger, Live Messenger and others for free and low cost video conferencing.

You may be asking yourself, what is a Flash Player?  or Why do I need one?  I have my Flash videos, won’t Internet Explorer or Firefox play them?  Have you ever tried to play a .FLV file on your computer?  You probably weren’t too successful in doing so.  .FLV is not a format that Windows Media Player or QuickTime player supports.  You can’t just link to a FLV file on your web page and expect the video to play like you would if it were a WMV or MOV file.  So how is it, that all these web sites have a Flash videos on them?

Whats unique about Flash is that you can create a customized player that embeds in a web site and plays the .FLV (and some other formats) on the web site.  There are stand along FLV players you can get for your desktop, but most people don’t have those installed because FLV isn’t the type of video file that gets downloaded to a computer.  It’s main purpose in life is play through a web browser.

In the old days (about 5 years ago), the idea of Flash and Video together was silly.  There was no FLV format and you had to embed the video file into a SWF, making the SWF a huge file.  The video wouldn’t play until the whole SWF loaded.  A lot of that changed as the FLV format became widely used.  The FLV would play through a Flash Player and supported progressive downloads (meaning you can watch the video as it downloaded).  Then along came Flash Media server and streaming and now the fun really started!  To read more about the differences between streaming and downloading, click here.

What exactly is a Flash Player?

Using an application like Adobe Flash, you create a small application and compile it into a Shockwave File (SWF),  when the SWF is embedded on the web page, it can accept commands to play media files and FLV is one of those media files.  SWF players are usually very small and download quickly while the web page is loading.  What’s so great about creating SWF players is that they can look and feel how you want.  You can add buttons and functionality.  You can add features like chat, or interactivity, advertising, social media aspects, and easily track video usage.  Think about a little bowling game built into the player, as you are watching a bowling video you can play the game.  All those nifty little animated advertisements you see on web sites, those are mostly Flash SWF files.

How easy is it to make a Flash Player?

Not too easy if you don’t know what you’re doing.  But there are some simple, and cost effective ways to add Flash Video to your site.  One of my favorites is the JW Player by LongTail Video.  This player is OpenSource and free to download (for non-commercial uses).  It’s one of the most popular players out there now and rightfully so.  Besides being a fairly easy to use player, it supports all kinds of plug-ins and since it’s OpenSource you can create your plug-ins or skins.

Here are some of my favorite add-on’s to the JW Player:

• Easy Advertising (they bring quality ads right into your video and you get paid)
• Viral Marketing (add embed, link and comments to your videos)
• Related videos (add a list of related videos for the viewer to see)
• Built in Google Analytics (track the behaviour of each video file)
• HD Button (click a button to swtich between HD and SD versions of the the video)
• Accessibility (Add closed captions to your videos)
• Play Lists (Create play lists displaying multiple videos)
• Player Analytics (Track player movements like, start, stop, pause, etc)
• YouSearch (Search for YouTube videos and plays them inside the JW Player)
• Dozens of pre-made skins to change the look and feel of the player

You can see that the JW Player is very flexible.  They have a great support community and will even provide tech support via email for free!

If you’re looking to add Flash Videos to your web site, there is no real reason to make a custom Flash Player.  A good developer would charge you several hundred to thousands of dollars to develop a player.  Instead use a pre-made one.  Of course there will be times when creating your own custom and branded player is essential.  When that time comes, expect to spend some money and time developing it.

Do I need a CDN if I have Cloud Computing?

Over last year or so, the term Cloud Computing has been making headlines.  There are several new entrants into the Cloud Computing industry.  The idea is simple, you have all these computers or servers directly connected to the cloud (The Internet) and you have massive computing power at your fingertips.  Companies like Rackspace, GoGrid, Amazon, and AT&T are all offering one form of Cloud Computing or another.

The services available from these companies range from simple “Cloud Storage”, to fully scalable virtual servers in the cloud.

When to use Cloud Computing
The great thing about these services is the instant setup and “unlimited scalability”.  When you want a new website, with a few clicks of a mouse you bring up a new Linux or Windows box.  They even make it easy for you by pre-installing services like SQL, Mail, and in some cases applications like Wowza or Windows Media streaming server.
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