Further Information About Video & Audio

Flash Streaming Video

Our streaming video service involves optimal testing and setting of bit rates, encoding; bandwidth; frame rates; video data rate, audio data rate, video size, number of users. We will consider and discuss all these issues with you in order to achieve the highest video/audio streaming quality for your website, CD or DVD.

Advantages of streaming video:

• Streaming video enables the speedy delivery of large media files over the Web by utilizing advanced multimedia technology (e.g. Flash communications media server or Windows Media server). This delivers and plays back video content while it is being streamed, as opposed to not being able to begin video playback until after the file has been completely downloaded. As a result the web page appears more quickly and the video to be viewed immediately.
• There is also a hybrid method known as progressive download. In this method the video clip is downloaded but begins playing as soon as a portion of the file has been received. This simulates true streaming, but doesn't have all the advantages.
• A streaming media or streaming video server is a specialised application which runs on an Internet web server. This is often referred to as "true streaming", since other methods only simulate streaming. True streaming has advantages such as:

• The ability to handle much larger traffic loads.
• The ability to detect web users' connection speeds and supply appropriate files automatically.
• The ability to broadcast live events or hold video conferences across the internet.

Streaming video differs from video for download in that it is viewed while it is being delivered over a network and is not saved to the user's computer. It allows the user to start watching right away after requesting the video and to jump forward to any point with little or no playback delay – see our OCMC example. Flash video is just one of several streaming video formats.

Advantages of streaming Flash video

Streaming Flash video has many advantages over downloaded video as well as other streaming formats:

• Great support across browsers and operating systems
  With browser penetration for the Flash plugin above 98%, almost anyone who can browse the Web can watch streaming Flash video without installing any new software or plugins. Your website users can expect consistent media experiences across operating systems and browsers by the installed Flash Player (SWF).
• Instant On
  Streaming Flash video starts playing instantly when the page is loaded or the play button is selected. Streaming Flash starts playing faster than streaming Real Video, Windows Video, or QuickTime.
• Advanced Seek
  Viewers can jump immediately to any part of the video regardless of the length of the video or whether it has been fully downloaded. Streaming Flash video buffers almost instantly, faster than streaming Real Video, Windows Video, or QuickTime.
• High-quality Video
  The new Flash codecs offers superior video quality at smaller file sizes.
• Customizable player skins - and more
  We can design custom players that reflect your site's design and branding or that have unique functionality.
• Programmable connection and delivery control
  As Flash developers we can use ActionScript programming to fine-tune how your video is streamed. For instance, we can serve different quality streams, or automatically calculate an amount of video to buffer before playback, based on the viewer's connection speed.
• Rich Media
  Your streaming Flash video can be just one component of a Flash presentation containing text, still images, animation - even interactivity - all synchronized using Flash's mature timeline model.
• Content Security
  Streaming Flash Media is not cached by Web browsers, and your Web pages do not link to it directly, so your videos are never saved to users computers. Pages on non-BU servers can't embed your videos in them either. Unauthorized redistribution of proprietary streaming Flash video content is very unlikely.

Other Video Technologies

We can develop video / Audio for the web using:

• Windows Media Server using
• RealMedia
• Quicktime

Video File formats / Audio File Formats

We can work with a variety of file formats such as MPEG (MPEG-4 etc.) (which relates to the development of video and audio encoding standards) QuickTime (QT), MP3 etc.

Audio Codecs / Video Codecs

A codec is a device or program capable of performing encoding and decoding on a digital data stream or signal. The word codec may be a combination of any of the following: 'Compressor-Decompressor', 'Coder-Decoder', or 'Compression/Decompression algorithm'. We encode using the most optimum codec and Compression quality to ensure highest quality video and audio results.

Audio Formats

Working with MP3, AIFF or WAV, Flash file formats etc.

NOTE; The MP3 audio standard is the audio subset to the MPEG video standard. MPEG is the basis for standards such as DVD video. ActionScript can also access more information from the MP3 file.

Other notes

Flash video file format is Flv and we use a Flash encoder.

Flash communication streaming server uses Rtmp (Real time messaging protocol) to stream audio & video.

We’ve added cue points to videos to reach a specific position at a click of a button. We control play with action script. And brand the SWF custom player controls.

Particular attention is given to file conversion and encoding and bit rates etc. to achieve the highest video quality.

Further information about our video web streaming and audio web streaming and encoding services

• Podcasts, audiocasts, videocasts, the latest digital media online streaming for audio cast and video cast presentations
• Video for Websites using video streaming, the latest web video presentation technologies and video encoding formats eg. Flash Video
• Video Streaming with Windows streaming server, Flash video streaming, audio streaming, video & audio encoding
• Flash Video for Web Design, Flash video streaming, windows streaming server, audio streaming
• Video streaming and Audio streaming technical information
• Ecommerce subscription audio and video web development Oxford College of Coach Mentoring case study