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MillimeterNAB 2008
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM
Perspective on this year’s show.
Hulu chose Flash for its ubiquity and customizability and H.264 for its quality.
Streaming and Encoding
By Jan Ozer
The streaming world has had a positively rocking year, which should mean a wild and woolly time at the Las Vegas Convention Center's South Hall. In this article, I'll discuss the major developments over the last 12 months, tell you what I know (and can currently tell) about who's going and what they're going to show, and identify some hot items to look for on the show floor.
The streaming market is broken into four submarkets: codecs, encoders, distribution (servers), and players. To a great degree, changes in the codec submarket tend to drive changes throughout the other three. So let's start there.
The biggest news over the last 12 months was Adobe adding H.264 playback to the Flash Player — which has already shipped — and the Adobe Media Player, which has yet to ship but will shortly, according to the company. Strategically, this was a great move, because H.264's audio compression is vastly superior to that of MP3, and H.264 has much more live-encoding support than VP6. That's not to mention its better long-term prospects for playback support in standard-centric markets such as cell-phones and that tiny little iPod market. At the same time, Adobe added support for graphics-card hardware acceleration and scaling — which should improve the quality of all those fullscreen YouTube videos (and others, of course).
The obvious question is how to produce H.264 content for the various versions of Flash Player and the new Flash Media Server, which I discuss below. There's a new F4V format that's supposed to accomplish this, but the specs have yet to be finalized. To a degree, this hasn't been important, because H.264-capable Flash Player penetration doesn't appear to have reached the tipping point. However, if you listen to the Adobe folks, you would think that the H.264-capable player was spreading faster than flu germs at a daycare center, so knowing how to produce and optimize Flash-compatible H.264 video should soon be critical.
While you're at the show, ask the Adobe folks when the specification will be finalized. When talking to the various purveyors of encoding software, ask how they plan to handle encoding H.264 content for Flash distribution and when they will offer support for live H.264-based, Flash-compatible streaming.
In November 2006, Microsoft released Windows Media Format SDK 11, which updated the Windows Media Video 9 (WMV 9) codec. This new version added an Advanced Profile and various parameters that you can tweak via changes to the registry or by using command-line encoding. Before that, in April 2006, the VC-1 codec was also released. Every time I ask Microsoft about the relationship between WMV 9 and VC-1, the answers are different and seemingly random: It's the same codec; it's a different codec; it's different but uses the same technology — almost like those old Magic 8-Balls that you shake to get answers such as “Without a doubt,” “Don't count on it,” or most appropriately, “Reply hazy, try again.”
If you pass through the Microsoft booth, ask an attendant to explain the difference between Windows Media 9 and VC-1; actually, do it twice, and if you get the same answer (and it makes sense), email me and let me know. From where I sit, as long as you're streaming, WMV 9 is your codec; if you're producing content for Blu-ray or other HD non-computer-based playback environments, think VC-1.
Back to the ability to tweak your Windows Media encoding parameters: This feature will be critical to optimizing WMV output. At least one program, Fathom from Inlet Technologies, supports these tweaks within the application interface — which is much simpler than doing it via the command line, by tweaking your registry manually, or by using the Power Toy to change the registry setting for you (www.citizeninsomniac.com/wmv). I know that at least one additional encoding company, which must go unnamed, will show this capability at NAB. If you distribute Windows Media video and are hunting for an encoding program, these tweaks are a critical feature.
For me, the biggest loser when Adobe adapted H.264 was On2 Technologies, which previously owned the only high-quality codec that played back under Flash. Apparently, the financial market agrees: The company's stock, which peaked at about $4 a share in May, is now down to about $1 a share — although it was already down to around $2 a share in August when Adobe made its announcement.
During 2007 and 2008, On2 took some aggressive steps toward the device-and-telephone-handset market. In November 2007, the company acquired Hantro, which provides embedded solutions for semiconductor and device manufacturers. On2 also carved its VP6 codec into two profiles: VP6-S, which uses less complex algorithms for superior playback on low-power devices, and VP6-E, the full-strength codec for desktop playback.
To me, the market for mobile video will be the next great streaming battleground, and On2 will likely play a significant part. If you're publishing content that you hope to distribute via mobile devices, I would ask On2 about its vision at the show. You should also ask about its Hantro 8190 multiformat decoder, which is the first hardware decoder to support Flash, H.263, H.264, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, VC-1, Sorenson Spark, and VP6.
The other big loser when Adobe adopted H.264 was Apple — which previously had a near monopoly on H.264 streaming. Now that Flash can stream H.264, it removes a very compelling reason to consider the QuickTime Streaming Server. Because it's a free server, there's no revenue loss, but QuickTime's mind share is definitely on the wane.
You probably know that Apple isn't exhibiting at NAB, and the significance of that decision in regards to Apple's professional applications has been widely discussed. With Final Cut Pro's star still ascending, however, it's hard to criticize Apple's decision, and it certainly can't be taken as a harbinger of Apple's disinterest or intent to withdraw from the market.
However, as the broadcast world turns ever more toward streaming and online delivery, QuickTime usage (outside of the distribution of movie trailers) is getting smaller and smaller. If Apple intends to slow that decline, it's missing a great opportunity to pitch 100,000 broadcast professionals who help choose streaming technologies.
That's the codecs; now lets look at encoding. At a high level, the encoding submarket is broken into multiple categories: batch, enterprise, live encoding, and engines (or licensable modules that you incorporate into the backend of a server environment). Let's address each in turn.
Continue the discussion on Crosstalk the Millimeter Forum.