re: streaming video for the web

sonicboom wrote on 10/5/2002, 12:28 PM

i am going to friends nightclub tonight to take pictures and video for his website
i will be back tonight at around 2:00am
then i will download the pix and send to him---he can post what he wants
tomorrow i will edit the video---he wants 3 45-seconds clips
i will make them and email them to him
my question--normally when i save i save to avi. then print to tape
if it's dvd--i save to mpeg2
what format shoud i save to email to him over the web?
i have no clue
we both have cable modem
i wonder how long it will take to send each clip--or all 3 together?
thnx in advance
:)
sbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsbsb

Comments

vicmilt wrote on 10/5/2002, 5:26 PM

Hey Sonicboom...
when it comes to taking pix of friends and parties, here's a tip that I really like.
I take all pix at 1040x768. This is a good compromise of file size with usable quality. And I can get a whole party on a 64meg card.
Then I load all the shots up into a private album on www.Ofoto.com. Once that's done you can email an invite to the album directly from Ofoto to your buddy. He, in turn can pass the address on to all his friends. They can look and/or download directly from Ofoto, and you don't even have to use your web space up.
But more important, they can have beautiful color photographs made and sent for extremely reasonable prices... like $.40 a print for 4x6, about the same as at the mall. And the prints are really beautiful... try a couple.
Meanwhile you don't have to manage or print or pay for anything. It's a totally win/win situation.
As far as streaming video goes, the easiest way is to compress into Quicktime with a Sorenson codec for whatever speed your friend has. Make the screen size 360x240 and the play speed 15fps. If you don't have Sorenson, use a Cinepak codek at a medium resolution with the same settings as above.
Better (if he has DSL or Cable) is to upload the file onto your web server and have him download it directly from there. You can't email anything bigger than one or two meg to most email servers, so this is a good way around it. If you are taking this route use a high quality Sorenson at 640x480 at 29.97fps.
Hope this all helps.

Spirit wrote on 10/5/2002, 10:39 PM

You could also use Wildform's Flix 3.0 to encode your AVI or whatever into the Flash .swf format. See it at: www.wildform.com

wcoxe1 wrote on 10/5/2002, 11:27 PM

Whatever happened to SF's own StreamAnywhere software? I see references to it, but not among the products. Was it no good? Is is still available? Looked ideal when I showed the tutorials to my wife.

My wife needs something easy to set up streaming media for her work. She is the type that thinks that by asking me to find the software that the job is done. Any recommendations for REALLY easy software for streaming media?

Spirit wrote on 10/6/2002, 6:55 AM

I don't want to look as if I'm trying to sell the thing (I have NO connection to them), but I love the product. Flix 3.0 mentioned about converts virtually any type of video format into .swf format.

But even better is that when you do the conversion you can choose to have it automatically "wrapped" in a video player with all the usual VCR controls. You can also choose various preloader functions.

The best IMHO is the intelligent adaptive preloader which will automatically determine the user's connection speed and preload only the percentage of the file needed to ensure continuous playback.

Technically this isn't streaming media, but I think it's indistinguishable from true streaming except in one regard: you don't have to fiddle about or consult experts to make it happen !

Good support from Wildform too.

salad wrote on 10/6/2002, 9:19 AM

SB,
I'd be curious to know just how big a file you can upload to email server on cable. I've emailed files just over 3MB successfully on a 56K dial up.
Hope to get cable this winter.

sonicboom wrote on 10/9/2002, 10:21 AM

thnx for the suggestions everyone
i edited the video last night---1 minute 17 seconds---and i could not email it
the file was to big
it's not worth my while to buy software to send it
however, thnx for all your input
i made a cd-rom of it and when my friend posts it, i will give you guys the website
it's pretty funny
i especially love the slo-motion parts
but once again, i can NOT beleive how clear this cd-rom is
my cd-roms and vcd's are awesome now using vegas as long as i render BEST quality
thnx all and i'll keep you posted
sbsbsbsbsbsbsbb

hotblacktar wrote on 10/22/2002, 8:16 AM

I bought a copy of Stream Anywhere for projects at my job involving streaming content to remote offices.

You could save to Real or Windows Media streaming formats.

The wizards made the process extremely easy and included a large assortment of templates to use for building a webpage complete with the embedded video.

I would output to the template I wanted and tweak the code to match our intranet site design and file locations. Otherwise, no tweaking is required.

I actually used it on my old site to produce demos of my freelance musicianship. It is still up but seldom updated: johntruelove.com.

I think SF should do what Adobe did with Image Ready, version 1.0 wasn't a big seller so it got bundled into future versions of Photoshop. Maybe VV 4.0 could include the Stream Anywhere features and also expand to include the QT format.

fosko wrote on 10/29/2002, 4:02 PM

I called Sonic Foundry and they no longer sell StreamAnywhere. Which is a shame because I like how HOTBLACKTAR set up his webpage.

Anyone know is a easy/cheap laternative.
or...
can you tell me simply how to embedd a windows player and file on my page.
also, Hotblacktar.. your clip was 12 seconds.. what was your file size ?

Tyler.Durden wrote on 10/29/2002, 5:39 PM

Hi fosko,

To see the HMTL for embedding Winmedia files, just look at the source code (View>Source) on the new split-screen tutorial. there are four movies on that page:

http://www.martyhedler.com/homepage/Vegas_Tutorials.html

"Split-Screen II"

You might look for a set of tags beginning with "object"...

I'll try to place some here and see if the webmasters will pass the string:

<OBJECT ID='MPlyr' CLASSID='CLSID:22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95'
ALIGN='left' WIDTH='176' HEIGHT='144'>
<PARAM NAME='FileName' VALUE='/ima/00/02/05/80/titlem.wmv'>
<PARAM NAME='AutoStart' VALUE='false'>
<PARAM NAME='ShowDisplay' VALUE='false'>
<PARAM NAME='ShowControls' VALUE='true'>
<PARAM NAME='PlayCount' VALUE='1'>
<EMBED TYPE="application/x-mplayer2"
SRC='/ima/00/02/05/80/titlem.wmv'
NAME="MediaPlayer"
WIDTH=176
HEIGHT=144>
</EMBED>

</OBJECT>

It may get stripped, so I may edit the post to get this commentary out.

***moments later***

OK, that's cool... you can see the string. the ALIGN tag only works in IE (I think). Anyway, you can fuss with this for a start and try modifying the string to get the display you want... you of course need to upload your wmv file to your webserver and point to it with relative or absolute URLs.

HTH, MPH

fosko wrote on 10/30/2002, 12:00 PM

Thanks martyh, I'll give that a shot.
and I appologize for my horrendous typing in my last post. I just spotted that :-)

fosko wrote on 10/31/2002, 11:02 AM

Hey Thanks again Marty.
Ya know..I knew how to figure it out but it's been a while since I've delved into a web page and I had a blind moment ;-)

I am a bit confused though (in a good way). This seems to work perfect:
1) Plays video in web browser instead of opening a bunch of Media Player windows all over the place, which is annoying to me.

2) It seems awful fast. I mean.. when I've streamed things online before it seems like there's a longer wait, but this is cool.

Please check out my test page and let me know what you think.

http://www.fosko.com/test.html

I'm also thinking about NOT doing a Real Player version. I'm not a big a fan and I'm thinking.. if the player is embedded in the web page, it elinmates the need for seperate files.

Thanks again

Tyler.Durden wrote on 10/31/2002, 11:23 AM

Hi fosko,

That's some good lookin video...

You might want to update the string further down to get the url of my test clip changed to your clips... it needs to have both places updated to be cross-browser compatible. know there aren't that many Netscape users, but it's just good practice, IMHO.

FWIW, Many page authors prefer to have a picture-link spawn the player, so the page doesn't have empty player windows... your call there.

HTH, MPH