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
You will want to have some idea as to how much bandwidth you will use during a live webcast, webinar, or video event. This will help you estimate costs and plan capacity. There is a fairly simple formula to calculate this. Keep in mind that this will be an estimate and depending on your encoder, codecs, and compression methods, this number could vary. You can use the formula to figure out how large a file will be once you encode and save your video as well.
There are 3 things we must know.
1. Video Bit Rate – this is the bit rate that you encode you video at. If you are encoding above 1000Kbps then convert the number to Kbps don’t use Mbps. In other words. 1Mbps=1000Kbps 2.5Mbps=2500Kbps etc.
2. Length of the video – This can be tricky. You don’t want to calculate the actual length, you want to estimate the amount of time each person is likely to watch. If you are calculating for On-Demand viewing, then YES, use the whole length of the video. But for live streams, figure about 10-20% of the actual event per viewer. Don’t kid yourself, no one is going to watch your 4 hour antique auction in it’s entirety. They are going to watch 30 minutes tops.
In my experience, the only types of live broadcasts which get watched in their entirety are big name concerts and church services. Otherwise, plan on 10-20% of the length of the stream per user.
3. Lastly, how many people will watch the event? You may have 2 Million visitors to your site each year, or a mailing list of 500,000 but consider this when planning. What is the event? When is it? Is it a concert on a Saturday night (do you think your audience is home in front of their computer Saturday night or out doing what they do then? Oprah Winfrey got 500,000 people to watch her book club online webinar. She has a viewing audience of 50,000,000 dedicated viewers. This content was ONLY going to be available on the web, not TV as well. She has about as much pull in the media as anyone anywhere. So if you think you’re going to get 1Million people to watch your stream, think again. (unless you’re Oprah or maybe Barack Obama).
Here’s the formula.
Bit Rate X Time (in seconds)
——————————— = Y
………………..8
Take Y and divide that number by 1000. This will give your number for 1 Viewer watching for that amount of time represented in MegaBytes (MB)
Now multiply that number by the number of viewers you’re expecting and that will be how much bandwidth you will use.
Remember:
1000MB=1GB
1000GB=1TB
1000TB=1PB
Approximately 1TB=10Mbps
I know 1MB is really 1024KB. Most CDNs and ISPs will round 1 MB to 1000KB, it makes for better billing
Example: 750Kbps for 1 Hour watched by 1500 people
750 X 3600 =2700000 / 8 = 337500/1000 = 337.50 X 1500= 506250MB or 506GB
You can use this same formula to estimate how large a file will be once you encode it. Just don’t multiply it at the end by the number of viewers. Of course if want to estimate your Content Delivery Network (CDN) usage, then just take the file size and multiply it by the number of monthly views. This will estimate how much you should commit to your provider.
I love Gary Vaynerchuck and when I read this review about his latest webinar, it just re-energizes me to work harder. If you don’t know Gary, he’s a guy from humble beginnings who has learned to use the Internet and all the social media, web 2.0 tools out there to market his businesses and himself. You should get his book.
Great news! This is going to be a bit of a long blog post, but I think it’s worth it.On Friday I attended a webinar hosted by none other than
social marketing guru Gary Vaynerchuk. This guy’s a crazy phenomenon; he started off as a co-owner and Director of Operations at his dad’s wine retail business, Wine Library, and using the Internet (WineLibrary.com) he grew it from a $4 million business to a $60 million business in just 5 years. And this is all before the age of 30.So now what? He had everything, a multi-million dollar business underneath him and great business prospects. So he also started Wine Library TV, a daily Internet series of podcasts on the subject of wine. And because of that, he’s been featured in everything from Time and New York Times to features with Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Fallon and Ellen.
And because of THAT, he’s now a social media champion, traveling around the country giving keynote speeches about using social media to optimize business activity.
But Friday was completely different. I’ve watched some of his gigs online, but Friday’s webinar turned into more of a Q&A with him. We could send in questions via Twitter and he’d do his best to answer them.
For those who weren’t there, I’ve recorded some of the nuggets of wisdom that I think go beyond a transcript of the webinar (maybe its also because I couldn’t type fast enough to keep up with the pace of the conversation). Here are some of the interpretations of what I got from it all:
#1 -- Social media has become part of our lexicon. It’s changed the face of the media and has become an indispensable addendum to society.
#2 -- This is the single biggest culture change in our society. It’s mainly driven by word of mouth and has the potential to turn e-commerce websites with upto 70-80% conversion rates.
#3 -- Word of mouth and connectivity have been scaled to a level that has never been comprehensible to prior generations. Selling is different, selling is the new in, so it’s not a presentation.
#4 -- This is the age of love. Consumers need to love their brand, that’s the kind of relationship you need to build with them. You
like Hershey’s but you love your Mom right? Do you love Hershey’s more than your mom? No, but that’s what companies need to aim for. You need to get consumers to love your brand, not like it, love it, that’s the kind of personal connection you need to make with them. Use these technologies to make your customers love you.#5 -- Scale your caring. This is important, use customer service as your benchmark and core structure to your business,
that’s taking charge of opportunity.#6 -- Use
search.twitter.com everyday!#7 -- Talk to your customers. Use these technologies to build personal relationships with these people. Offer them help and advice before they even ask you. Give away your advice without looking to sell to them right off the bat. That’s what people don’t seem to be understanding. People, understand this for your own good.
#8 -- Get a real relationship.
#9 -- A picture speaks a thousand words. A video speaks a million.
#10 -- Today, it has nothing to do with what you’re selling, it has to do with the DNA of the person. It’s the mentality, not the product that you want to sell. Create content, don’t try to sell. Give them something to look at, and videos give you a platform to sell. If you have good intentions, use it to create content and the most unsexy thing can be given an edge.
#11 -- Don’t hire outside guys to manage your social media platforms. It you do, chances are they won’t know your product, and will not be as passionate about it as you or your customers will be. Understand what you’re selling and how to make it personable for the customer. Use someone from the inside for this role if you have to, if you can’t, hire a fan, at least they’ll understand what your customers will need.
#12 -- Don’t hire an outside guy, content has to be knowledgeable, not pretty or cute, it has to be witty, it has to be good.
#13 -- Go where the fish are, follow our customers, don’t expect them to come to you anymore, that time has passed. You can build a community anywhere now, but if you want big results, you go where the fish are.
#14 -- You can try opening a mall in a city with 8 malls already existing. But you might be more successful opening a mall in a city with one third of the foot traffic. Go where the fish are, but avoid places that are too congested.
#15 -- Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t lie.
#16 -- If you want to be private in these social spaces, guard what you say. They define public space, so there’s no way of safeguarding the privacy of what you put out there. Don’t believe in any privacy filters or anything, they can be hacked. Once something gets out there, it’s out there, and there’s no way you can do anything about it.
#17 -- Communism tried to guard communication and
that didn’t work out too well. Out there, communication is open and free, and so you can’t guard against it.#18 -- Any fan on Facebook becomes a person you can email, and they can respond to you. When they join your fanpage, their friends will know, it’s an ecosystem and its totally customizable.
#19 -- You simply have to know the landscape of your business.
#20 -- Information as value has collapsed. You can get it at your fingertips; hearing sensitivity (towards your customers) and innovation are the things that will drive things forward.
#21 -- Many people think social media is a tactic to improve their businesses. Like salt and pepper, they think it’s the steak -- customer service is the thing now, everything else is secondary. We are in the business of customer service now, everything else is secondary to that. Remember that.
#22 -- I work on the assumption that if your product is good, word of mouth is activated, but the moment someone says something negative about your product and someone else agrees, you’re screwed.
#23 -- These are examples of people not recognizing how to work it.
#24 -- Marketing and customer service are what you need to be successful now.
#25 -- Whatever you think you need to be successful are actually the barriers, the costs of entry. These are the starting points to being successful.
#26 -- Great content acts as its own filter. No-one can read everything, only the best things will be read, just as cream rises to the top of milk. The “cream” of the content will be read, and not much else, so all the junk will be pushed down below.
#27 -- If you argue that TV and conventional marketing media can measure conversions, it’s because you’re working with false presumptions. I’d argue that it’s easier to measure conversions in social media than through conventional media.
#28 -- I spent $7500 in marketing Wine Library through conventional means, and sent out one tweet on Twitter. I made 4 times more conversion through Twitter than through the other means.
#29 -- I’m not defending social media. In my opinion, social media has already won out, it’s upto people who resist to justify why radio and TV and print are still relevant.
#30 -- There are people who still think TV is evil. Such people will continue to exist. I\m not saying that TV and radio are failures, I’m just saying that if you’re creative and don’t tell people to come online and keep the conversation going, “you’re an assclown”. It’s like not offering dessert at a restaurant.
#31 -- Social media is like marathon while TV is like a sprint. It takes patience! Ad managers like to throw money at TV because it’s more quick. Well, in the race between the tortoise and the hare, “you can take the hare and shove it up your ass”.
#32 -- Always use Twitter as a customer service platform as well as a platform to deliver press releases.
#33 -- Record videos on Facebook, and then use these videos as responses on blogs and forums in order to generate attention.
#34 -- Explore new ideas…what if I did this or that? Metrics are easy, you can hire companies that offer social media metrics these days.
#35 -- Here’s good advice -- if you have a physical location, you don’t care whether you made a customer anywhere. You don’t have to make a customer in your home. You can make a customer anywhere, and they’re still customers.
#36 -- Make a real committment -- 90% of what people are trying to tackle social media are only half pregnant. You have to do both onsite and offsite events, and inject them into the DNA of the company. Price and product selection are not key, customer engagement is key. As top management, you have to make this your credo: “engage and care”.
#37 -- Unify branding, link it back to your home presence, be transparent, be active, listen and don’t start selling from the opening bell.
#38 -- Empower your employees to carry your message and make it your own. Look at Zappos!
Zappos is basically a customer service company that happens to sell shoes! Twitter and Facebook are not secondary, they are the meat of your business, everything else is secondary. #39 -- Social media is an extension of our existence. We’re all walking around connected to the Internet; offline and online are converging slowly, almost becoming indistinguishable.#40 -- Every time a bad thing is said about you, it’s great! It’s an opportunity to say you’re sorry, and make things better!
#41 -- Show who you are in this. Don’t let it go, engage and be caring. Social media is nothing but the internet being iterated. Social media is giving us the tools that we do as human beings. We are social beings, we need to interact, we want to interact, and so these tools are allowing us to do so.
#42 -- People who follow you are customers in some way. They can give you money, and help you via word of mouth, making your idea work!
#43 -- Social media “is all about the big picture, stuff, legacy, customer service, patience, that’s why it’s so comfortable to me, that’s why analytical people are struggling.”
Hope I managed to convey a sense of the information we were streaming in the webinar. If you really want more information, you should check out Gary’ book -- Crush It! Why Now is the time to Cash in on Your Passion.
I’ll be getting myself a copy of it next week, so keep eye out for a review of it on this blog sometime in the near future.
Till then, cheers!
P.S. Here’s a video of Gary delivering a keynote at the 2008 Web 2.0 Expo in New York.
It’s not rocket science, but it’s not pre-school either. Here are a few things to be aware of when preparing to deliver mobile video. Everything from formats, resolutions, bitrates and delivery methods.
Devices
Blackberry, Palm, Windows Mobile, iPhone, Android… Your audience may be coming to you on any one of these devices. So how do you decide which device to produce content for? It’s not easy. Fortunately with every new generation of mobile device, more and more standards are set. There is almost 1 certainty now, all of these devices will play a 3GP or MP4 formatted video.
Not all devices are equal however. Each one of these phones has a different resolution screen and runs on different provider networks. Although, all the major cell providers now support 3G in most parts of the country, 3G is not readily available. Also, 3G speeds vary from provider to provider and from location to location. You can not count on your audience being able to support a 768Kbps stream. Also some mobile users will be watching on a WiFi connected device which means they could support higher bit rates.
So what do you do then? There are some packages out there which will supply device detection and then you can redirect the request to an appropriately formatted version of the video. There are some hardware devices out there which will encode the video on the fly (Ripcode) this could allow you to have one high quality version and then re-encode it as needed. You could also just build for the lowest common denominator and hope for the best.
What ever method you choose, you need to remember that to get a high quality video you don’t need a very high bit rate since you are watching this on a small screen.
Delivery Apps
Some companies are designing specifically for the iPhone since statistics show that 80% of all mobile Internet usage comes from the iPhone. Obviously YouTube was right out of the gates with a special iPhone app. There are some other iPhone apps lilke mDialog which caters to Indi and foreign films. If wouldn’t take much to write an iPhone app which basically browses a database of avilable videos and then plays them through the iPhone video player/QuickTime player. This is a simple and elegant solution. It can brand your content and keep visitors coming back for more.
You could also write an app specific for the BlackBerry and Android (G1) and feel confident that you’ve got you bases covered. Also since your visitors will be using an app specific to a device you can direct them to a specially formatted version of the video for that device.
Normal Website Video Delivery
So you don’t have the resources to develop a device specific app? That’s ok. You can build a webpage specifically for mobile devices, you can even get a .mobi domain if you want. The trick here will be to format your video to support the largest range of devices or ask your visitors to choose a link for their device. As I mentioned before you can also use device detection software to figure out what kind of device is visiting you page.
How to encode and format my videos
As we discussed 3GP and MP4 are the widest supported formats amongst mobile devices. So choose a format you’re comfortable with and start encoding! Use this table to help you gauge screen resolutions
iPhone 480×320
Blackberry Storm 480×320
Blackberry Bold 480×320
Blackberry Curve 480×360
Blackberry Perl Flip 240×320
TMobile G1 – 480×320
Samsung Jack 320×240
Palm Trio pro 320×320
HTC Touch Pro 480×640
Palm Pre 320×480
The worst thing that will happen if you produce a video in the wrong resolution is the image may become distorted when displayed on the phone. It won’t be the end of the world, but if it’s paid content you will probably have to insure that the right video is being delivered for the right phone, so choose wisely.
Streaming vs Progressive Download
Chances are you don’t have a Darwin Streaming Server or a Flash Media Server at your disposal. A CDN or specialized service will have access to this type of server. You could certainly install your own, but make sure you have the bandwidth to deliver to a mass audience. Be careful considering Flash as delivery method today. There is limited Flash support on phones, most don’t support it, including the iPhone! If you stream via Flash Media Server then you must have a Flash player, you can not point a browser to a .FLV and .F4V file and expect it to play. Your best option for streaming today is to use a Darwin (QuickTime) streaming server, it can stream 3GP and MP4 files as well as MOV files. You need to be careful about streaming higher bit rate videos to a mobile device. If you get a device on an Edge, 2G network, or older PCS network then it may not be able to support more than 256Kbps or so. Only a true 3G connection and good one at that would be able to support a 768kbps or higher bit rate.
So you should consider a progressive download delivery instead. This way no matter what connection the end user has, the video can be delivered. But consider this, a 50MB video delivered at 256Kbps will take approximately 27 minutes to download, will your audience stay that long? I would recommend using a well connected CDN to deliver your mobile content to ensure that the file gets to the device as quickly as possible.
For more information on the differences between HTTP Progressive download and Streaming click here
Conclusion
I hope this short briefing is enough to encourage you to start pushing out mobile content. Since mobile devices are simply a wireless computer and since mobile browsers are getting better and better you don’t need to worry too much about how to deliver a video. You just need to ensure your content is in the right format and bit rate to allow maximum exposure.
If you have any questions about this topic, please feel free to post them here and I will respond.
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
