How to Produce VVC With FFmpeg

Anytime you start working with a new codec, there are some fundamental tests that you should run to achieve optimal performance/quality optimization. In this article, I'll take you through those tests while encoding VVC using a version of FFmpeg that includes the Fraunhofer VVC codec.

Buyers’ Guide: Podcast Mixers for Live Streaming Production

Today's video producers are now able to leverage new technologies that can really help with the live streaming production—especially on-location. By utilizing what are commonly called "podcast mixers," streaming producers can deliver a bit more polish, while also gaining better flexibility in production.

How to Script for FFmpeg Using PowerShell and BASH

FFmpeg was designed as a cross-platform solution for video and audio recording, conversion, and streaming using simple static command lines. Using variables and "for loops" in a command string simplifies the reuse of existing scripts and helps automate their operation. While you can't use these scripts in the Windows Command window, you can use Microsoft PowerShell in Windows and Bash on Linux and the Mac. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create and run such scripts with PowerShell and Bash.

'Performance Everywhere' Optimization of Your Streaming Solution for Ultimate QoE

Alexander Skamarokha, Head of Performance Optimization Team at Oxagile, discusses ways to optimize your streaming solutions and get an ultimate QoE for your users.

Adventures in the Movieverse: Web3, Blockchain, Eluvio, and the Future of Streaming

The movie-watching experience has entered an unprecedented and thrilling new era of full-immersion entertainment with the arrival of a pioneering, living NFT and Web3 offering from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Extended Edition. This Web3 movie event is fueled by Eluvio, a developer of blockchain-based 4K streaming and ticketing technology and the self-described "blockchain home for crypto content."

Winning the Data War: Accessing and Leveraging Streaming Analytics

This article explores the topic of data rights versus technology capabilities as it impacts media companies' ability to leverage accrued data and analytics to target relevant audiences, expand their reach, and monetize their content offerings. If the intersection of data rights ownership and technology capabilities access were captured in a Venn diagram, the space in between would be very small for some media companies.

Preserving Our Intergenerational Legacy (or Streaming Media's Feet of Clay)

So considering streaming, file transfer, or even leaving the long tail simply unused and archived as the storage media changes around it over years, there's much to think about for anyone wanting to leave a video as an intergenerational legacy.

Advertising, Bundling, and the Future of Premium Streaming

With the arrival of lower-priced ad tiers for premium streaming services, increasing aggregation and shape-shifting bundling options, ongoing changes to the streaming landscape are transforming consumer behaviour and adoption of pay TV and streaming services. But what do the numbers say about emerging market trends? How are platform providers interpreting evident shifts, and does that translate into user experience innovation? And is there really a "Great Rebundling" afoot, as so many pundits have claimed over the last 6 months?

Review: Netgear M4250 Network Switch

As streaming producers, we are already expected to provide expertise in video cameras, switchers, live streaming, audio, and wrapping cables using the over-under method. How are we now going to master the advanced network management requirements of NDI? Start with the Netgear M4250 AV line of switches.

Review: Videon EdgeCaster EZ (w/ LiveEdge Core 8.5)

This review will highlight Videon's EdgeCaster video encoding appliance and explore its unique LiveEdge Compute technology for encoding and delivery, as well as how it works with popular video streaming platforms. I'll also discuss why many video production and remote production teams will likely move to a tool such as this in the future for streaming delivery.

Review: Blackmagic Design ATEM SDI Extreme ISO and ATEM Mini Extreme ISO

Blackmagic has set a new standard for an affordable and professional all-in-one HD video switcher, and the biggest consideration is which model fits your workflows.

Lessons Learned: What the Pandemic Taught Us About Remote Teaching

Although failing to enter the popular lexicon as of yet, the term "emergency remote teaching" (ERT) is intended to avoid conflating what we'd now call "traditional" online education with the improvised adaptation of face-to-face lesson plans and classroom experiences to the synchronous videoconferen­c­ing platform available to any given school dur­ing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Paramount SVP of Ad Operations Jarred Wilichinsky Talks Adtech Stacks and Strategy

The unforgiving world of ad tech means any mistake can cost millions of dollars. Ad tech is the key to a successful AVOD/FAST monetization strategy, but there are so many moving parts that it can be a challenge to get it right. Wilichinsky provides practical insight into what works, what doesn't, and how ad-supported delivery compares to subscription offerings.

The Future of Streaming Monetization: Beyond the SVOD/AVOD Divide

All too often, the monetization discussion revolves around a simplistic binary that expands only slightly on the old ad-supported broadcast model for home-based media and entertainment: subscription vs. advertising. Savvy publishers, rightsholders, and streaming services see a more nuanced landscape. Gamification, interactivity, merchandising, and direct-to-consumer apps let both publishers and advertisers super-serve fans with content that goes beyond live linear or VOD.

The 2022 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards

The readers have spoken! Here are the top technical solutions of 2022, as determined by none other than the readers of Streaming Media.

The Streaming Toolbox: Ateliere Discover, Axinom Mosaic, and nanocosmos nanoStream Cloud

In this article, I'll look at three tools that provide interesting services for building media services and products. Ateliere Creative Technologies provides not just traditional MAM capabilities but also content management and app delivery. Axinom, likewise, has a development platform for building back-end services. nanocosmos expands on the old OVP model by delivering low-latency video for live, interactive-product developers. While I see a little bit of overlap with two of these products, it would be interesting to try to use everything here together.

Review: Moscow State University Video Quality Measurement Tool 14.1

Unlimited file analysis and Python interface highlight the new features

Google Chrome Plays HEVC: What Does it Mean?

In late September, Google quietly let slip the news that it now offers playback support for HEVC in Chrome when it's already available in the underlying platform. This is bigger news than Google is letting on, but its immediate impact remains to be seen. We surveyed a number of experts and analysts to gauge its meaning for increased HEVC usage and more, and how it affects DRM and HDR.

The Streaming Toolbox: Piano, Jet-Stream, CommScope

A look at the Piano Analytics platform, the Jet-Stream streaming platform, and CommScope's Manifest Delivery Controller (MDC)

Why Edge Computing Matters in Streaming

With so much of today's internet traffic flowing through large data centers—some estimates say that 20% of all of the world's data traffic is concentrated in a few counties in northern Virginia, with 80% of that being IP video traffic—how are we going to move from the centralized delivery model of data centers that are a million or more square feet in a single-floor cavernous facility to the edge, where pro­ces­sing can occur closer to the homes of even the remotest rural areas of the U.S.?