Real World Video Compression

I'm not dead, just bad at updating!

2011-07-21T09:09:15Z

Hi folks. Based on e number of emails I've gotten lately, I know one of my old Macbreak appearances must have run again recently. Let me welcome you all and apologize in advance. yes, I know one of the x264 posts is missing some images - I promise, I'll dig them up this week. As you may have noticed, I don't add much here anymore. It's not that I don't still find compression fascinating, it's just that my daytime at Seawell Networks plus the recent addition of a daughter to our household takes up the majority of my time see days. And since you are reading this site and not my personal one, you probably don't want to see photos of the kid, which is fair enough.
There is more to it than just that though. You see, these days I'm a bit more removed from the compression part of the job. I still encode video from time to time, but these days it's either for myself or as a favor. So while I still know what I'm talking about for the most part, I freely acknowledge there might be those who are paying closer attention to the ins and outs of compression.
Last fall I launched a second video site called theVideoUprising. The reason I did that is that these days I'm thinking less about compression and more about the overall video landscape - how it gets delivered, the business deals behind it, etc. I could have carried on writing that type stuff here, but it felt wrong - RWVC is the mechanics of making the video work right and look good. tVU on the other hand is more about the changes occurring in the industry that are driving us to find new ways of watching video and new ways of delivering it to the viewers. So with that in mind, I'll certainly still add content here when it seems right, but don't be surprised if it's few and far between. I will however, trying to pipe up more often just to say hello and to point towards other useful compression sites who might help fill the gap.

Cheers,

Andy Beach

Setting Up a Screen Capture

2010-10-28T15:00:14Z

note: This post is being cross published on Screen Flow's(the application I've been using to capture the videos) blog, the Screening Room.

I recently started answering a few questions by doing screen recordings showing the step by step instructions. This was a much quicker way for me to answer the question and much easier way of sharing the information than screenshots combined with lots of copy explaining the process (which is also fairly tedious to put together). The response was very positive, but immediately spawned a whole series of questions around best practices for encoding screen capture video.

To keep the ball rolling, I thought I'd answer those questions via video as well! But before I can talk about good encode settings, I thought it best to review some tips for setting up your computer to improve the eventual quality of your finished encode. I explain it in more detail in the video, but the highlight are:

Start with a clean desktop - remove all the extraneous icons and dock from the screen, as well as close any web browser windows or other elements you don't want to include in the recording. In the video I do this manually by switching to a new Spaces screen on my mac and moving the files on my desktop to a temporary folder. I neglected to mention Screen flow has a handy feature allowing you to hide all the icons on your desktop (just click the little camera icon in the menu bar and choose hide desktop)
Change your background - busy desktop images are fun to look at while you are working, but add unneeded complexity to the encode, so switch your wallpaper to a single color (i use neutral grey) while capturing.
Change screen resolution to 1280 x 800 - my screen resolution is typically 2560x1600; if I tried to capturing at this size and then present it on the web, all my windows and icons would be so small you'd need a microscope to see them! 1280x800 is the closest native monitor resolution to 720p (1280x720) so I tend to choose it for the purposes of capturing. I like to keep to monitor native resolutions for capturing when possible. First off, its just easier to do (no need to root through custom settings in the display panel) but also some applications look and work better in full screen mode if your sticking with the screen native aspect ratio. Then when I edit and encode, I have two options - I can either crop the video slightly (by 80 pixels vertically) to achieve my 16:9 aspect ratio or i can allow the video to encode with slight pillar bars (two vertical black bars on either side of the monitor image) to keep it at the appropriate aspect ratio. Both work and we'll compare how they look in the final encode in my next post.

Setting Up a Capture from Andy Beach on Vimeo.

In my next post we'll look at what encode settings to use to get the best quality encode for your finished screen capture movie.

On a side note, I worked for a company in New York City that produced how to videos for topics like editing in Final Cut Pro and using Photoshop about five years ago. It's funny how much the technology has changed in just that short time. When we were doing those productions (sometimes as much as a 10 hour video on a single topic) the screen recording tools we had to use were quite different and not nearly as feature rich as Screen Flow. Even in the short time I've been working with it after my long hiatus doing screen capture, I've found several little tricks I wish i'd had access to back then - and I'm sure those of you more familiar with the product will point out even more I've missed along the way.

Using WebM in Episode 6

2010-10-22T17:51:07Z

Several people have now emailed me asking where and how to use the new open source webm extension in Episode 6. I thought it might be easiest to just do a quick recording and show you how to create a new preset or edit an existing one to change it to webm and vp8. hope this helps!

Making a WebM Setting in Episode 6 from Andy Beach on Vimeo.

Two other quick notes - first off, sorry for the audio - i used a headset mic and the audio is a little "poppy." I have a much nicer mic for recording these type videos, but didn't have the time to set it up. Secondly, let me know if this type of video tip is helpful as I would like to do more. Feel free to drop me a line with suggestions for video compression things you need help with and I'll try and answer it with a video!

FaceTime on the Mac

2010-10-20T19:46:37Z

The FaceTime Beta UI. On the left is the image from your camera and on the right is your addressbook, recent calls, and favorites list.This morning Apple, INC made several announcements, including availability of a beta FaceTime application for OSX 10.6 and later. As I mentioned, FaceTime is a Snow Leopard only application and requires an account with Apple to use (i'm using my MobileMe account, but I believe any iTunes Store account would work as well).

The experience is pretty good, I was able to quickly do a facetime chat with my brother, both from the desktop and my iPhone4 (he was on the desktop beta for both. The quality from the phone was much better, but that's because I'm using a 3rd party webcam on my MacPro which is much lower quality than the current line of built-in cameras on the Macbook Pro's, iMacs, and the Monitors.

Like the iPhone4, this is most likely a streaming h.264 video stream, though i'm unsure the specs being used for the encode, i'll root around and see if i can figure that out this week and do an update.

How I Watch "TV"

2010-10-15T23:46:28Z

It seems like this is a super un-hip thing to say, but I love watching TV. I mean, for god sakes, I have spent my whole career working and playing with video, so how could I not? And like most folks, I do the majority of TV watching in my den. But like any well meaning, good hearted video geek, I have shifted a lot of my viewing habits to non traditional methods. Sometimes that means mobile devices, but not always -- after all, I paid for that big honkin' flat panel, I might as well make the most of it. So how does a self describe video geek consume content?

Just because I dont watch it on my TV doesnt it mean its not TV. And just because it shows up on my television, doesnt it mean its traditional cable or broadcast content like you'd expect to find (in fact, I watch video podcast on my TV quite a bit these days). so with all this in mind, I thought it might be handy if I ran down the various methods -- hardware, software, and services -- I use for keeping up on my shows...

My First Look at Episode 6

2010-10-04T17:20:22Z

If you have ever read or heard me chat about the compression tools I use, you know Episode has weighed in heavily. And that love of that application as a catch all dates back to when it was still Popwire. Part of what drew me to this app orginally was how reminiscent it was of Terran's Media Cleaner Pro in terms of codecs and formats supports (lots) and the dials and knobs you could use to tweak the settings (also, lots).

The New Episode 6 Interface on Windows 7The New Episode 6 Interface on OSX 10.6

Back at NAB of this year, Telestream announced a major revision of Episode which has now launch. Episode 6, now available in a few configurations is a fairly major update to the user interface and adds a whole new notion called workflows.

But workflows arent the only update - here's a quick rundown of what's new:

Episode Engine is now available for the PC.
Extended browsing, monitor and deployment possibilities. Bookmark, browse, monitor, and deploy to local folders, SMB network shares or FTP servers. You can even automatically upload to YouTube with metadata.
One click clustering: All versions of episode (Mac and/or PC) can collaborate and share work.
Built in file sharing: Episode systems will dynamically share content with each other, avoiding file sharing issues.
All mpeg formats (MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, H.264) now use Main Concept codecs.
Split and stitch encoding is available in Episode Engine for mac and windows.
Split and Stitch encoding is available for all supported formats in mixed Mac and PC clusters.
Episode command line interface (CLI). See user manual for details.
Support for encoding to the new Google webm format.
ProRes codec is now included with Episode (all editions). This allows decoding (Mac and PC) and encoding (Mac) ProRes files without requiring the separate installation of the Apple ProRes codec.
New Colorspace Conversion Filter: Converts 601 to and from 709 color. In addition this filter can also convert video levels between studio (scaled) and Full (RGB) levels.

Of all these elements, here are the big standout features for me:

Cross Platform Support - Episode 5 brought about a PC version of Episode which I was very happy about. I'm a cross platform guy - I often need to troubleshoot systems for others that are both PC and Mac, so I need to be up on both and often certain files are just easier to encode and manipulate on one OS or the other.

Clustering - Support for using both PC and Mac versions of Episode as a shared resource on a network for encoding.

Deployments - being able to save share points and then assign them to workflows

Workflows - the graphical interface for dragging together blocks of watch folders, encode settings and deployment points to create whole workflows that can then be saved . This is such a logical way to work for me that I'm very happy to see it make it into the UI.

Sample Worklfow in Episode 6

Webm Support - this is the first professional encoding application i've gotten my hands on that supports webm, so i'm excited to be able to play around with it more. I've already tested out multiple freebie apps, but they always lack the control over settings I crave.

Three Flavors

Episode (priced at $495) includes support for Flash 8 & 9, H.264, Windows Media, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1, DV, 3GPP and much more, plus One-Click Clustering and file sharing, processing of one job at a time, and unlimited batch processing.

Episode Pro (priced at $995) includes Episode features listed above, plus support for high-end professional formats and parallel encoding of two jobs at a time.

Episode Engine (priced at $3,995) includes Episode Pro features, plus unlimited parallel encoding and Split-and-Stitch distributed encoding for high volume throughput at maximum speed.

Which version is right for you?

If you are just creating content for the web, the base model of Episode is likely all you need. I typically run Episode Pro because I often find myself with a wide range of professional formats that are supported in it. If you are encoding a huge amount of content regularly, episode engine is designed as a dedicated encoding station, similar to products like Rhozet's Carbon Coder or Inlet Technologies Armada.

If you want to see Episode Pro in action, check out the webinar I presented recently (September 28th). I showed off some of Episode 6, though several different encoding applications were covered (in full disclosure, Telestream sponsored the webinar).

Bound for Europe

2010-09-05T18:09:34Z

September for me has meant (at least for the past several years) a trip to Amsterdam to take part in IBC. This year is no different, though i'm heading out a little early to speak at a workshop the European Broadcaster's Union has put together at their headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. They describe this program (called OCEAN) as:

OCEAN stands for “Open ContEnt Aware Networks”. It is a 3 year European Commission funded project (STREP) which started on 1st February 2010. Its mission is to design and develop a second-generation open content delivery system (CDN). The OCEAN system performs content caching in the broadband cabinets and exchanges, thus bringing the media files much closer to the end user than traditional CDNs. This additional caching layer is complementary to the traditional CDNs (such as Akamai, Limelight, Level3) and is interoperable with them. OCEAN deploys a network-controlled, content-aware, highly scalable and adaptive content delivery techniques. To this end, OCEAN may significantly improve the efficiency of the overall internet distribution mechanism.

For my part, I'll be there representing SeaWell (remember, my day time job?) and discussing using technologies like H.264 SVC as a way to reduce the number of encodes needed to deliver content to all the screens and resolutions they hope to reach. It should be an interesting day and having never been to Geneva, I'm hoping to fit in a little tourist time before or after the event.

Then its off to Amsterdam and the International Broadcaster's Conference (or European NAB as I often think of it). IBC is always a fun, and tiring event - it is a vast show with everything from High-end production equipment, mobile network delivery companies, and even a variety of transmission and radio companies (it's not a show without checking out the latest folding parabolic transmitter i'll never use). It is also a reunion of sorts, as I'll run into old college friends, former work colleagues, and random people i've met in my time of working in the online video industry. I'm also hoping to catch up with those attending the show who've read my book or followed my work in compression - its always fun grabbing a beer and chatting about the geekiest of production topics. If you happen to be attending the show, use the RWVC contact form to drop me a note and we can plan to get together! If you aren't attending the show, don't worry, i'll be posting a few notes during the show about some of the cooler things i see while i'm there.

Telestream Grabs Anystream

2010-08-16T20:20:52Z

Late last week it was announced that Telestream was purchasing Anystream from Grab Networks. Anystream was the transcoding piece of a multi-company merger (first Anystream bought Cauldron Solutions, then merged Voxant, when they were renamed Grab Networks). I spoke briefly with Dan Castles (Telestream's CEO) this morning regarding the acquisition. Some, including myself, have questioned where this acquisition fits in at Telestream, as they have appeared to outsiders to be primarily focused on desktop and Mac based solutions for the past several years. Dan says thats not quite right. "While we have focused in recent years on desktop solutions, it's only because this market didn't exist previously for us. We started in the enterprise space and have stayed committed to it - in fact most of our engineers are still focused on products like Flip Factory and Vantage for our enterprise customers," said Castles.

Vantage is a newly announce addition to Telestream's offer at this years NAB and combines a number of features (such as transcoding and quality control) to create a more an automated workflow than previously offered.

Castles concluded by stating, "With this purchase, Telestream can deliver file based transcoding workflows for everyone from the consumer to enterprise customer, both on the Mac and PC."

Thats a pretty broad swath, but if you look at their portfolio, they do indeed have the products to back it up. Telestream offers a range of products with a good mixture of both PC and Mac based solutions (though not all solutions are cross platform, it should be noted).

For desktop customers, Telestream offers a variety of tools including:

Flip4Mac, a plugin component for QuickTime that allows it to playback and trancode Windows Media Video on the mac. Prices for Flip4Mac range from free (player only) to $179 (HD and SD, 2 pass encoding support, integration with Compressor and Final Cut Pro). Flip4Mac is a Mac only solution.

ScreenFlow Screencast ($99), a Mac desktop based screen and video capture and editing tool for creating your own video podcasts.

Wirecast ($449) allows you to broadcast a live stream from your desktop or laptop (Mac based).

Episode Encoder ($495 and up) is their desktop based transcoding solution. It is geared towards the prosumer set with solutions that start relatively inexpensive, but scale to include distributed encoding nodes and other high end features not typically seen in desktop applications (See Episode Engine on the enterprise list). Episode 6, the newest release is expected to ship in the next 30 days. Episode is both Mac and PC based.

On the Enterprise side, Telestream has:

Flip Factory(starting at $5495) is their original high-end transcoding system designed for broadcasters to deliver content to a variety of platforms (mobile, web, TV, etc). Flip Factory is a PC based solution.

Vantage (price undisclosed) combines transcoding from Flip Factory with capture, media analysis, management, and QC for completely automated infrastructure for transcoding content. Vantage is a PC based solition.

Episode Engine ($3950 and up) expands the reach of Episode Encoder by allowing it to distribute its encoding tasks to server based nodes. Like its front end cousin, Episode engine is both Mac and PC based.

Webinar Coming Soon - suggest topics!

2010-08-10T22:30:04Z

I'll be presenting another free webinar in September (date is TBD) through the fine folks at newmediawebinars.com. The topic is specifically compression for the web and I'll highlight things like encoding for your own server vs encoding for YouTube and the like. What other areas of compression for the web would you like to see covered? Got a pressing problem or something you'd like help with? If so, use the contact link above to shoot me your request and I'll attempt to cover it during the event! Check back for details on date and time as well, that should all be wrapped up and announced this week!

News Re-cap from the Week

2010-08-06T19:21:41Z

Lots of news has been hitting the web this week. From OTT to Playon here is a rundown of this week’s eye catchers:

OTT (over-the-top)
WiPhoto by Mr.T in DC th announcements of Google TV, Streaming Media Global brings us a discussion over gatekeepers. In theory, he who owns access to the home can define what the consumer watches and pays for, this can be critical to broadcasters who want to push their content. This article reviews some key challenges that the major players will face.