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Encoding/Transcoding

Encoding and transcoding video is at the heart of online video, and Streaming Media offers deep dives into encoding parameters, bitrate ladders, per-title encoding, content/context-aware encoding, CBR, VBR, and ABR. Here you’ll find the latest news, reviews, tests, and analysis to help you stay on the top of your encoding/transcoding game.

Streaming Media Connect back in November with a peek at Building the 2027 Streaming Strategy Playbook.
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Features

AI's Streaming Stack: Image Interpretation

The companies covered here have substantially leveraged AI or incorporated it into their currently shipping tech. The representatives I spoke to discuss some very interesting approaches for what essentially is image interpretation, including detecting if content has been tampered with using AI, local AI processing, and automated clip generation such as vertical formatting.

Zero-Sum Game: Calculating and Managing Streaming TCO

While total cost of ownership spans an encyclopedic number of operational touchpoints, managing a video P&L ultimately comes down to making targeted, high-impact architectural choices.

Review: Magewell Director Plus

In this review, I'll tell you about the new Magewell Director Plus all-in-one streaming device … and how I tried to kill it. 

Multiview’s Vendor Landscape: How Streaming Architectures Determine Success

Multiview isn't a feature you bolt on. It's an architecture decision that shapes which devices you can reach, how much you pay to operate at scale, and how much control your product team has over the viewer experience. Server-side, packager-side, and client-side each represent a genuinely different set of tradeoffs across those dimensions. The right choice depends on your device footprint, customization requirements, existing infrastructure, and cost model. This article is meant to give you a solid framework for making that call.

Spotlights

Readers' Choice Awards Winners' Circle: LiveU

LiveU's Dan Pisarski talks pushing the boundaries of IP video transmission and reliability with the LiveU LU900Q

The World Cup Is Live. Is Your Infrastructure?

The World Cup is live. The infrastructure is either holding or it isn't. The difference was decided long before the opening whistle.

Low-latency streaming via CDN: How to optimize LL-HLS and LL-DASH for sub-3-second latency

Alexey Petrovskikh explores how GCore's low-latency live streaming solution leverages LL-HLS and LL-DASH to achieve a glass-to-glass delay of 2.0-3.0 seconds.

Hot Products: Kiloview Cradle Series RF02: The Ultimate Unified Media Center

RF02 is a groundbreaking, compact 2RU AV-over-IP solution that integrates an 18-card system, a high-bandwidth network switch, and KiloLink Server Pro for centralized management, offering complete and flexible workflows.

Columns

Untethered Broadcasting: Where the Live Sports Streaming Puck Is Going

In the metaphorical "where the puck is going" sense, anticipating and serving the needs of "highlights first" Gen Z viewers for whom linear, lean-back, beginning-to-end game-viewing is less than satisfying is critical to moving with the times and maintaining major sports leagues' relevance in the years to come.

Innovation vs. Optimization in Streaming Delivery

While innovation is good at the outset of a transformation (such as analog to digital video), it can become counterproductive to building sustainable businesses. Continuous innovation means taking away resources from making existing technologies more scalable, resilient, and reliable—three traits that are critical to the success of something like a streaming platform.

Orphaned Tech: Struggles With Legacy NDI Gear

Not every new customer has the bank to buy all new gear. It's typical to buy used gear, get it running, and then upgrade only as the need and cash flow dictate. But a challenge comes with using older NDI gear.

Why You Should Embrace Sustainability (But Not For The Reason You May Think)

To really make an impact, we have to put sustainability within a context we can understand. It's hard, whether as individuals or businesses, sometimes to grasp the very huge concept of climate change and then commit to "sustainability efforts" as a way to have an impact. But when there is context, sustainability efforts can be achieved without actually trying to focus on them in particular. Within the streaming industry, that context is power.

Encoding/Transcoding Companies and Suppliers