Review: Digital Rapids TouchStream

by Tim Siglin
January 2, 2010

This article first appeared in the December 2009/January 2010 issue of Streaming Media magazine. Click here for your free subscription.

When I first saw the Digital Rapids TouchStream prototype at the National Association of Broadcasters’ show in Las Vegas in April, I was attracted by the Apple-like minimalist look; even in its powered-off state, a blue ring glowed in the bottom right corner of a solid black screen.

When Mike Nann, director of marketing and communications at Digital Rapids, touched the blue ring, the machine responded by ringing the entire bezeled screen in a blue glow as it began the boot-up process (Figure 1). Right then, I knew I wanted to test-drive one of these units.

Figure 1. A 7″ diagonal screen and a single blue button are the only elements of the TouchStream’s touch-sensitive front face.

Shiny, bright object interest aside, the Digital Rapids TouchStream takes into account many of the production issues that a portable encoding solution has to contend with. It’s also one of only two truly self-contained machines I’ve used over the years. Even the other, Sonic Foundry, Inc.’s Mediasite Recorder, needed a keyboard and mouse. This one, though, needs nothing to start encoding except a few finger motions on its resistive-capacitance touchscreen (Figure 2). This is not your father’s portable encoding system.

Figure 2. While an external keyboard is helpful for accessing archive files, the onscreen keyboard handles the majority of tasks, such as naming files or folders.

Let’s start this review with a bit of background for those of you thinking about portable encoders. For as long as there have been encoding systems, there has been a desire to take encoding into the field in as compact a format as possible. This, perhaps, explains the rise of software-based encoding systems, which required nothing more than a laptop to encode and serve streams. These were followed by synchronized presentation systems such as Accordent and Mediasite, which required hardware to capture the video and audio stream in addition to the synchronized VGA capture of webpages or PowerPoint slide decks.

Lately, though, the focus has shifted to higher quality portable streaming audio and video capture stations that are all-inclusive. Examples of these include ViewCast Corp.’s GoStream SURF—which does require a separate keyboard, video monitor, and mouse (KVM)—and the TouchStream.

When I asked Digital Rapids why it chose to create a fully KVM-free touchscreen solution that relies on Windows XP Embedded, I was told it’s part of the Digital Rapids approach to filling market voids.

“Our systems span the critical points in today’s complex media workflows,” Nann says. “Our existing interface was praised by our traditional market customers as being comprehensive and thorough, but we thought it might be a bit daunting to the nominal user.”

“A portion of the TouchStream challenge was to make this an easy to use interface, so we showed it to potential customers in markets that we couldn’t address with our initial products,” Nann says, citing corporate and education as two examples. “Yet we also didn’t want to lose the comprehensive tweaking power that set our products apart. So the goal was flexibility and ease of use, simultaneously. The touch interface and refined user interface gives us ease of use, while [it was] the ability to drive down through the interface to the under-the-hood settings that allowed fine-tuning parameters.”

Even beyond the new markets, though, Digital Rapids had clients who were taking the Digital Rapids installed units (rack-mounted units that were typically about 6″ or 3RU high) out of the studio or editing suite and in to field productions.

“One of the things we kept hearing from was that customers wanted to go into the field,” Nann says. “We could have built a very robust integrated computer and screen, but the noise factor would make it hard to also use in an interior production environment. We thought this might be a good time to look at the challenge to create a field system that was small enough for the field, but also quieter than most previous systems.”

Back to the physical box itself: The front panel sports only the 7″ diagonal 840×480 widescreen touchscreen and the blue-ring touch button. This is used to start up or shut down the machine similar to the way that the iPhone’s single button offers multiple functions; however, the blue-ring button also allows the user to force the machine to restart should a problem occur.

Figure 3. The TouchStream is powered by Windows XP Embedded, but it reveals only brief glimpses of the actual operating system.

Upon startup, after passing the Windows XP Embedded screen (Figure 3) and the traditional Windows desktop (in micro size since the touchscreen sports an embedded high-resolution computer display), the primary TouchStream interface appears.

In the software versions I tested, the prerelease and the initial release, the screen displays a series of six function buttons as well as the input video image and volume unit (VU) meters for audio monitoring (Figure 4).

Figure 4. TouchStream’s on-screen buttons include Start/Stop and Setup as well as Fade In and Fade Out for graphic overlays (”bugs”).

In the newer 1.1 release, which I was able to view via a WebEx session, the number of available buttons can be decreased down to just a single start/stop button if desired, and the audio monitoring now has four separate VU meters, one for each stereo pair.

All of the TouchStream’s inputs are on the back of the unit (Figure 5). The version I tested used an analog capture card that contained two video inputs (composite and s-video) and four audio inputs (a built-in unbalanced 2-channel RCA and a dongle-based balanced 2-channel XLR input). An SD-SDI version has a multipin connector with an adapter that has two SD-SDI inputs, and an HD-SDI-equipped version with a single input as well as a loop and two outputs also exists. This BNC-heavy second option is capable of a single HD-SDI or SD-SDI input (SMPTE-292M and SMPTE-259M, respectively).

Figure 5. TouchStream has no connectors on the front, housing all audio, video, USB, and Ethernet ports on the rear of the device.

Input resolution, as well as video and audio settings, are chosen after choosing the base project selection. This is the reverse of the way that the traditional ViewCast Osprey card would do it.

Digital Rapids has rethought the selections in terms of inclusive project shortcuts. This allows two projects to be set up exactly the same, with the same format and bitrate but with different audio and video inputs. This way, only a single choice on the touchscreen could yield a change to a number of settings, including the inputs, allowing for rapid reconfiguration in the field.

The other benefit to this model is the ability to launch multiple formats at one time: Starting with projects (say, for instance, a Windows Media 9 project) and then accessing the codecs subsection allows one to add a Flash codec.

For those concerned about the CPU utilization when stacking multiple codecs together, a MIPS graph would be an ideal scenario calculator prior to attempting to stream multiple codecs and bitrates. The TouchStream doesn’t yet have a MIPS graph, but it does have a robust number of real-time statistics including buffer usage, dropped frames, and overall CPU utilization.

Once a project is chosen, the user is then presented with another set of buttons, one of which is the Output button. Output displays the unit’s output choices of an archive recording as well as one or two broadcasting options (Figure 6).

Figure 6. During setup, a project can be simultaneously archived and streamed. Archives can be stored internally or on an external hard drive.

For Flash streaming, for instance, the user is presented with three choices: Archive, Broadcast FMS, and Broadcast Push. These can be enabled (default) or disabled at will, so the TouchStream can be used strictly as a recorder or as a stand-alone Flash streaming “server,” or it can be integrated into a Flash Media Server environment.

For the Archive setting, the touch interface allows for browsing a drive (the C: drive on the prototype and the D: or media drive on the v1.0 machine) and selecting a folder. A new folder, a file name, or a predefined sequence for the name (e.g., combinations of project name and encoding start time) can also be chosen or manually entered via the on-screen keyboard. However, Digital Rapids recommends that an external hard drive be attached for storing archive files; it provides two USB 2.0 and two FireWire ports on the back of the device to connect external hard drives, some of which can also be bus-powered (powered by the TouchStream itself rather than requiring an external power supply).

Enabling the correct choices on the Output screen is critical, as the default enabling of a streaming option without the appropriate server—or even a network connection, for which there is no warning during setup if the Ethernet is disconnected—may render a cryptic “critical error” at the time of encoding. The TouchStream would do well to provide some sort of early warning system for network or configuration errors similar to what is available on a few other encoding boxes.

Once the appropriate archive and stream choices have been made and the details have been entered for particular servers, the user can choose input settings: Here the choices are between 4:3 and 16:9, composite or s-video, and unbalanced or balanced audio. The test unit presented these in a series of choices, and a small video window in the upper right portion of the screen corresponded to the aspect ratio, showing what the content would look like on the larger encoding screen. Currently, the TouchStream does not have the ability to shift between the input view (video signals being received on the composite or s-video connectors) and a postencode view (“confidence monitoring” of the actual stream), but Digital Rapids says this is high on the list of changes to make.

Two other settings are available to the user—video settings and audio settings.

Video settings allow for basic picture control, a bit of noise reduction, and cropping of the video image. An additional video setting is the graphic overlay, which can be loaded into the machine and placed on the screen. While most studio locations already have a “bug” inserter to overlay a logo in the lower right corner of the video window, most field portable encoding units do not. This graphic overlay, which eliminates the need for another piece of field hardware, is a welcome addition on the TouchStream.

Audio settings are fairly rudimentary, with overall levels and bass/treble tweaking. A nine- or 12-band software equalizer would be a welcome addition for field projects where 60hz hum or HVAC rumble can often be an issue and would eliminate the need for another piece of field hardware.

Once these settings are selected, the trigger should also be set. A trigger is the “arming” of the start/stop button that will be presented on the main screen, the scheduling of a start time, or the scheduling of a duration of time to encode once the encoding begins. Settings on the trigger page will correspond to the availability of certain options on the main encoding page.

Choosing Done switches the interface back to the main screen, which presents the Start button along with buttons for the graphic overlay (Fade In, Fade Out) and the video and audio settings buttons for rapid tweaks during an encoding session. A final button, labeled Info, allows the user to see the encoder state and details on the IP address and streaming ports, as well as the hardware utilization monitoring noted above.

For those streaming technicians concerned about user mishaps such as accidentally choosing the wrong input or overriding an input setting, TouchStream provides a series of lock-out options. In v1.1 of the software, a technician can enter the security dialog area under Settings and choose to restrict or allow everything from triggers to input types, black levels, and even the start/stop button.

If start/stop is restricted, the unit will start encoding automatically on a reboot. This allows for a “persistent streaming” that Digital Rapids calls its “no click streaming” feature. In essence, after the power switch is pressed and the unit boots up, it immediately begins streaming at the predefined project settings. This is helpful for scheduled events or other instances where the unit might also need to be set to autolaunch when powered up. With the settings of Windows XP Embedded, the unit can also be set to restart immediately upon shutting down, providing a consistent “always on” streaming loop.

Should there be a need to disable autostreaming, the unit first needs to be unlocked through a security code via the on-screen keyboard, and then manual streaming should be re-enabled in the security settings.

As the unit is based on Windows XP, reboot times will range from 10 to 30 seconds. The unit also responded well to pulling the electrical connection midstream and then plugging it back in, one of the typical tests I perform; the Windows operating system often doesn’t handle this as well as a Linux or RTOS-based encoder, but the TouchStream worked after repeated power failure tests.

Digital Rapids recommends leaving the start/stop button visible, even if it is not active, for two reasons: The first is so that scheduled encoding can be verified, although the company has also added a small green Wi-Fi bar symbol in the bottom right corner that pulses to show a stream or local encode is occurring in v1.1. Second, and perhaps more importantly, if a graphic overlay has been chosen prior to restricting video settings, the Fade In and Fade Out buttons can still be operated, allowing for the insertion of a bug at select user-defined times during the stream, although the graphic can’t be changed.

Given this ability to lock out certain buttons and functions, it would be helpful to tie particular interface scenarios to projects. As of v1.1, though, there is only one level of security restriction, meaning that the lock-out settings will need to be changed each time.

After all of the setup and preparation, streaming is very straightforward. We tested manual and scheduled streams without incident. Using the duration setting on our test machine, we occasionally ran into an issue where the screen would freeze part way through an encode; letting the encoding time pass the duration we’d set, though, and forcing the machine to reboot showed us that it had actually been recording when we checked the archive files.

Once streaming is completed—or even before—the configuration settings can be emailed by clicking a single button (once email settings have been entered). TouchStream accommodates those who find that they need to start over via the Reset Configuration option, which resets all audio, video, input, and trigger options to their default settings.

A final aspect of the TouchStream that we looked at was the issue of airflow around a portable unit; many units compensate by having a large fan (which the TouchStream also has) and running it full bore anytime the unit is turned on. The TouchStream seems to solve the airflow issue through the joint use of intelligent fan management coupled with an interesting piece of workflow enhancement, the front bezel.

The screen on the TouchStream can tilt up approximately 30 degrees, which is helpful for varying lighting conditions or angles of view. Beyond just allowing ease of viewing, though, the TouchStream employs the extra space around the tilted screen to enhance the unit’s front-to-back airflow. The unit has a solid top shell and solid sides, so airflow over the exterior portions of the unit is only critical at the bottom of the TouchStream, which has ribbed plastic to enhance airflow.

“The motivation for the tilting screen is more than just for user convenience,” Nann says. “It actually helps increase airflow when the unit is in the field.”

In other words, it pays to tilt the screen up if you’re standing above the field encoder. As an added benefit, in better-ventilated locations, two of these units can be used side-by-side in a 3RU space if the feet are removed, so the TouchStream can also act as an in-house encoder. TouchStream also includes an RS-422/RS-232 DB-9 connector and the appropriate GPI trigger protocols for even deeper integration into a studio environment.

“While we aimed to be competitive with other devices, maintaining encoding quality against a full-featured rack-mounted product was a high priority,” says Nann, adding that he expected this portable device to be used in some installed locations where space constraints were critical.

If touching a screen repeatedly is not your idea of field production, Digital Rapids did include the KVM triumvirate with USB and PS-2 connections for the keyboard and mouse as well as a VGA connector for an external monitor. The unit’s backplane also includes a series of audio outputs for surround sound as well as headphone monitoring, although the 1/8″ (3.5mm) microphone jack is not configured to use for streaming.

The other reason to use the KVM option is access to the archive files if you choose to use the internal drive to store archives. With a keyboard and mouse hooked up, using Alt-F4 to exit the application—or the Win-D combination to toggle to the desktop—allows the user to access files on the machine and copy them to an external drive.

“For file access, most users are either using remote desktop to pull the files onto external storage or over a network,” Nann says.

From a broadcast format standpoint, using the HD-SDI card, Digital Rapids says the TouchStream will support video resolutions of 1080i, 1080p, and 720p in HD formats, as well as the 480i (NTSC) and 576i (PAL) formats for standard-definition “HD” signals. Frame rates for the various settings range from 60 and 59.94 fps at the upper end, down through 24 and 23.976 (pull-down) fps, as well as the 24, 25, and 30 drop frame and nondrop frame specifications. Since our test unit had analog-only inputs, we could not test these claims, nor could we test the format conversion features that are found on most Digital Rapids encoders, in which conversion from any input format to any output format (HD to SD, SD to HD, HD to HD) makes field input configurations a much easier proposition.

I can say, though, that this is the most intriguing portable encoding unit I’ve used. It worked equally well in an integrated environment as in its intended field use, and the touches (pardon the pun) that it had for field production show the level of detail in which Digital Rapids understands the production workflow.

I look forward to seeing how Digital Rapids further enhances the TouchStream’s hardware and user interface. One way that the company has already discussed is a remote interface tool. Digital Rapids already has a history of creating remote interfaces: Its StreamRemote tool for the StreamZ and StreamZHD systems is a Java-based web interface that mimics the physical box’s front panel.

“Our philosophy [is] that a remote interface should be identical (to the maximum extent possible) to the local interface,” Nann says. “StreamRemote is from our StreamZ and StreamZHD systems—a remote interface that looked and felt exactly like the application did on the local system. We’ve had for quite a few years, but the TouchStream interface isn’t patterned after anything—it was a ground-up original design—so its remote interface is being developed to be virtually identical to the local UI on the TouchStream appliance.”

Stopping content thieves from taking your Flash video content requires a little extra work and some resources.  If you follow these guidelines, then your content won’t show up on PirateBay or YouTube.

There are lots of applications and plug-ins out there to allow you to capture video streams off the Internet.  It’s so easy that you may think there is no way to protect your content at all.  The following with give you some advice on how to protect your videos and sleep better at night.  You’re going to employ some extra services or buy some software, but if your content is valuable then it’s worth the investment.

Protecting Windows Media content has been fairly easy for quite some time.  You can use the Windows Media DRM suite which will attach a digital certificate to the WMV file and require an active and valid cert to be downloaded in order to watch the video.  Although this system isn’t fool proof, it’s pretty strong and will stop most people dead in their tracks.  Microsoft is gearing up to roll out PlayReady which will plug the holes up in WM DRM.  It fully supports Silverlight in both Windows and Mac OS, and will be easy to use (so they say).  Look for a full deployment of PlayReady this summer.

But how do you protect Flash videos, specifically FLV, F4V, and MP4?  If you deliver your content via progressive download, then there will be little chance you can stop someone from taking that video from you with little effort.  Progressive download is literally downloading the file to the end user PC.  Where’s the protection?

There is no technology today to add DRM to the file itself.  Although there are some services out there that will offer something like that, they typically require you to use their proprietary Flash player in order to protect the content, who wants to do that?

So that leaves us with one option, protect the delivery of the video.  You may immediately think you can just stream the video using a Flash Media Server or Wowza server.  Think again.  Products like Replay Media Capture can snatch that stream right up.  What you need to do is stream the video using a Flash Media Server using RTMPE instead of RTMP.  You also need to disable RTMP from the server all together.  Adobe had a security warning about this awhile back.  Leaving RTMP on, allows for a back door.  RTMPE will encrypt the stream during delivery makeing it very difficult to de-compile and capture.

Are we done yet?  Nope, I’m just getting started…  What’s to prevent someone from discovering your stream name and then embedding that in their own Flash player?  You need to use SWF verification.  SWF verification will will ensure that the SWF playing the video is your SWF and not someone elses.  Again, you will need Flash Media Server to do this with.

Are we done now?  Not quite.  You’ll be delivering your SWF via HTTP to the browser, so it wouldn’t be too hard to locate that file and WGET it.  Now I have your player I can play it all I want.  What do you do now?  Use a Token based authentication with a time expiring URL.  These schemes usually use a MD5 128-Encrypted hash.  What will happen is, a unique URL will be used to play the video each and every time someone visits your site.  The URL will pass a token back to a secure server proving that the hash is authentic.  Then an time expire value is appended to the URL that will expire that link in a matter of seconds or a minute.  Nothing too long.  Access to the link is the only thing expiring, not the content.  So as long as the person has started watching the video with in that time frame, there is no problem even if the video is 2 hours long.  If they need to re-watch it, then they visit the site again and get a new URL.

All of this sounds like a lot of hassle and expense, is there an easier way?  If you deliver your videos through a CDN who uses FMS, then they probably offer all these services, you won’t have to incur any of these expenses.  Try a company called Influxis, they host FMS servers and you can setup a FMS how ever you want with minimal cost.

For a higher end solution, check out WideVine.  Widevine uses some proprietary technology which goes beyond what I’ve mentioned here.  Widevine’s intuitive DRM management tools offer total control over the encryption, key management, distribution and consumption of digital media. Using Widevine Cypher, pre-configured policies, digital rights and encryption are applied to inbound assets, automatically registered with Widevine and the CMS, then uploaded to a destination partner network or CDN.  Just know, that WideVine doesn’t come cheap!

I hope this information is useful for you.  Like all security on a computer, as soon as you plug a hole, another one is dug.  The goal is to stay one step ahead of the bad guys.

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

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.