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Top Tools for Streaming and Broadcasting Internet Video

By Tara Tabib

This year millions of Americans have joined the trend to tune their computers and other unique electronic devices to watch what used to be content that belonged to exclusively to television broadcast. Why did these Americans turn to the internet instead of their broadcast providers?

The answer lies in streaming video. Streaming video is fast growing Internet technology that allows nearly anyone to broadcast video to a worldwide audience. Newer dual core processors in computers and inexpensive streaming devices coupled with the availability of improved broadband have made streaming popular with an ever widening audience. The ability of almost anyone to produce and broadcast video content has created an explosion in both short and long entertainment as well as educational content. Another reason is to save money. Cable service averages $50 to $100 per month while internet streaming can be free or $8 to $15 per month with subscriptions to a growing number of streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, Vudo, Blockbuster and Pandora.

A variety of new hardware is available that allows consumer to stream directly to their televisions in both Analog and digital formats. Google TV, Apple TV, The Roku Streaming Meda Player and The Boxee Box By D-Link are currently the leading electronic devices that provide both wired and wireless streaming to a variety of televisons. Broadcasting devices such as the sling box also play an interesting role in this electronic viewing revolution.

For the majority of people who don't have the high-speed Internet connection needed to serve streamed video, many companies will serve your video for you. You may not get the huge audience that popular movies and TV shows draw, but with streaming video, it's possible for just about any home videographer to set up a virtual home broadcasting studio to make videos available to the world without having to deal with broadcasters, public television stations or the FCC. In short, it's a wonderful opportunity for video to become more democratized than it ever has been in the past.

For example, YouTube allows anyone to Broadcast their own videos. 48 hours of video are uploaded every minute, resulting in nearly 8 years of content uploaded every day. Hundreds of millions of users from around the world view this content. YouTube also broadcasts 7,000 hours of long-form content on, including thousands of short films and television episodes and hundreds of full-length movies.

The rights to broadcast are also dispute. The traditional broadcast channels to do want to lose viewers so they play along with internet streaming partially, often offering only limited content, while the cable providers argue that the broadcast rights should require a cable subscription. Go figure this logic. But is is possible the cable services could prevail through bizarre legislation or pressure on the content providers channels to slow the transition.

In this article, we will evaluate which streaming video products you may prefer and what technologies can provide the content you want and why. You can use this information to help decide what type of streaming software will best fit your needs. Along the way we'll look at the streaming video marketplace--companies that currently make the technology available, and some of the features of each. In this way, we hope to assist you in using this new technology to reach a wider audience than you ever thought possible.

Technical Issues

Before we get started, let's cover a few basics of streaming video technology as it exists today. Right now, if you have Internet access, you can easily download a variety of plug-ins for your Web browser that allow you to play streamed video on your computer. Most of them are absolutely free, and require no technical expertise beyond the ability to download and install a program on your computer. Once you install the software, you're ready to sample a few streaming video sites. Almost every broadcast channel (CNN, ABC, Fox, CBS, NBC) offer downloadable viewers. (See the Sidebar for links to viewers).

As you surf the Web, you will notice that different sites use different types of streaming video technology. Some make use of RealNetworks' RealMedia software, while others use Xing StreamWorks or Microsoft NetShow software. This is because streaming video is a relatively new concept. Just as home video technology had its Beta/VHS and different DVD format wars, streaming video technology has yet to settle on a single standard for Internet video transmission. The issues of limiting downloads, copying and copyright infringement also affect the selection of the electronic technology.

After you've viewed several streaming videos on the Web, you'll note that the technology is far from mature. Small screen sizes and low frame rates still plague the software for many users. Many of the people interviewed for this article expressed frustration with the existing data transfer speeds of the Internet. As the internet speed increases, viewers expernience smoother-playing videos with better-sounding audio.

Current, the main products available for serving streaming video to audiences are Vivo Software's VivoActive, Microsoft's NetShow, Xing Technology's StreamWorks and RealNetworks' RealMedia with RealMedia and NetShow being the dominant players. For most videographers, setting up and maintaining a highly-technical Web server capable of streaming video would be an expensive and time-consuming task. Luckily, there are companies that specialize in providing hosting services for streamed video. If you have a Web site, your ISP may already support one of the streaming formats.

Server? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Server

As we just mentioned, streaming video works best if you use a computer that is especially set up to serve video. They call this computer a streaming server. It is usually a separate computer than the Web server computer, because transmitting the video can require a serious amount of computer horsepower, and a streaming server can take advantage of more methods of transmitting information over the Internet (called protocols) than a Web server. However, if you don't plan to have a large number of viewers, you can stream video from a regular Web server.

Programs such as VivoActive VideoNow and Geo Interactive Emblaze VideoPro, in fact, do not even use a streaming server. Emblaze VideoPro doesn't even use a player, it automatically loads one using Java when a viewer starts a video.

VideoNow works on any Web server using the HTTP (Hyper Text Transport Protocol) protocol that the Web uses. This means that you can simply add your VideoNow files into your Web site. This method has some drawbacks in terms of playback quality and number of users that it can serve; nevertheless it's the easiest way for anybody with a Web site to stream audio and video to the world.

RealNetworks, the makers of RealMedia, acquired Vivo Software a few years ago. The two products are distinct, with VideoNow being an entry-level serverless product, and RealMedia offering a professional-level multiple-viewer product. RealNetworks Inc also operates the Rhapsody music streaming service.

Streaming MPEGs

One of the first companies to offer a streaming media solution for the Web was Xing Technology. Xing Technology's early success in the field of MPEG video and audio encoding led to the development of StreamWorks. Unlike most streaming applications, which require you to convert your video from a QuickTime, MPEG or Video for Windows file into a proprietary streaming format (such as Microsoft's Advanced Streaming Format, or RealNetwork's RealMedia Format), StreamWorks streams MPEGs. StreamWorks supports MPEG-1 video, MPEG-1 Layer 3 audio (.MP3s) and MPEG-2 audio.

To get an idea of how the StreamWorks software operates in practice, we spoke with some of the techies at Internetwork Broadcasting (www.internetwork.com), a company that helps corporations, organizations and individuals place their streaming audio and video programming onto the Internet. Current clients of Internetwork Broadcasting include the College Radio Network (an all-audio offering) and Junior Dub's Irie Reggae page, which regularly streams live reggae events to the world. On the whole, Internetwork's employees reported that Xing's StreamWorks Live software is easy to use, and provides a high-quality stream--especially in the audio realm.

Xing uses a pricing structure based on the number of people you want to be able to serve at one time. Xing's StreamWorks Live costs $3,000 per 50-seat license (or 50 simultaneous users). For each additional 50 seats, Xing charges an additional $1,500. This pricing structure is reflective of the company's current marketing goals: corporate and educational intranets. The production of streaming video files for Web or intranet delivery via StreamWorks is very simple and inexpensive. To use the StreamWorks encoder, you need to convert your existing QuickTime or Video for Windows files into an MPEG-compressed file. This can be done using Xing's MPEG Encoder or any of the other MPEG encoders available on the market. If you plan to stream video, and don't want to have to deal with converting your video into a non-MPEG format, finding a Streaming Video Provider that uses StreamWorks could be your best bet.

Competion Between The Players

Since the introduction of streaming video, many things have changed in the market. The most obvious change is in the corporate playing field. While two years ago there were 10-15 companies with streaming software, that number dwindled through corporate buyouts. Microsoft bought Vosaic, and RealNetworks, at the time known as Progressive Networks, bought VivoActive. VDOLive, the first company to offer streaming of live events shifted focus to videoconferencing, while other companies failed to gain enough users to gather a foothold in the market.

RealNetworks' grouped together their highly successful RealVideo and RealAudio streaming technologies under the single name of RealMedia. Now, a series of corporate partnerships and power-plays has helped place RealNetworks in the forefront among streaming video software companies..

RealNetworks offers a variety of products--from the free RealPlayer browser plug-in, to a full line of RealSystem G2 server software packages. To get started right away learning how to stream video or audio, RealNetworks offers their Basic Server and RealProducer Encoder software as free downloads from their Web site. The Basic Server can handle up to 25 streams of RealAudio and/or RealVideo. Upgrading to the Basic Server Plus ($695) increases the number of available streams to 40, and includes several software enhancements. The Basic Server Plus includes RealProducer Plus, a content creation and publishing application. The Basic Server Plus also offers optional support for RealFlash animations for an additional fee.

RealNetworks also offers a number of pre-configured software solutions for a variety of specific streaming media applications: the Classroom Solution, the Intranet Server, the Hosting Solution and the Commerce Solution. (Prices for these applications vary widely, from $1,895 for the Classroom Solution to $21,595 for the full-blown Internet Solution, which includes support for up to 400 simultaneous streams.)

On the content-creation side, RealNetworks offers RealProducer Plus G2 software ($150). This software incorporates scalable data rates and encoding for a wide variety of file types (including real-time sources as well as .AVI, .WAV, .MOV, .QT, .AU, and .MPG files). This software also includes the ability to create animation, video or audio content fully embedded in the HTML code. This allows for the triggering of HTML commands as the video or audio content streams--including the display of new pictures and text information at specific times.

According to Jo Sager of JamTV, one of the most appealing aspects of RealNetworks' software is accessibility. In her words, "It is fairly user friendly, and can be learned quickly and easily by just about anybody." Jo also had the following advice for those who are thinking of going the streaming-video route, "Experiment with all the tools and gadgets out there to see what works best for you. Also, don't forget to test, test, test." JamTV is a hip music/streaming video site (www.jamtv.com) which offers a wide variety of streaming audio and video content, as well as music and entertainment news, tour dates, live webcasts and other information for the music enthusiast..

Of course, any great change in the Web-based digital media creation and delivery marketplace must include the world's biggest software production company--Microsoft. Their creation and promotion of Advanced Streaming Format (.ASF), a single standard streaming-media file format, has become a significant part of the recent Microsoft anti-trust lawsuits. The fact that Microsoft offers the tools to create .ASF files from existing audio or video content as a part of its free Windows Media Player software has gotten plenty of media-creation software companies up in arms. To further the debate, Microsoft also offers NetShow Services as a free upgrade for owners of Windows Server, thus enabling anyone with a video capture card and a capable server to create and stream NetShow content for free.

NetShow Tools includes additional tools for encoding .asf files and creating scripts for embedded HTML commands. Also available for purchase from Microsoft is the Netshow Theater Server, which allows broadcasting of high-quality MPEG and MPEG-2 content over a high-bandwidth network. The potential applications include education, video-on-demand for hotels and airlines, and corporate intranets.

If you have access to the video-capture and server technology you need, it's possible for you to create your own streaming video files for little or no initial investment. So get out there and start building your own streaming video programs today while the open market completion makes this both affordable and possible.

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