Streaming Production Track

_______________________________________________________________________________

Production for Streaming

You can’t have high quality streaming video without high quality video – compression is only half the story. Video Production for Streaming is a focused ½ day course that details how to optimize set design, lighting, and other production techniques for streaming quality. The course will help beginners achieve competency at these skills, while helping experienced professionals new to streaming understand the unique issues related to streaming production.

The course will combine lecture with on-site demonstrations of all equipment discussed, from lighting and audio to cameras and microphones. This will take students “beyond the PowerPoint” and enable them to immediate apply the lessons. Students will be given checklists and procedures for most common tasks, and will return to their offices with the skills necessary to setup and shoot high quality for streaming delivery.

DOWNLOAD AGENDA [PDF]

_______________________________________________________________________________

Encoding H.264 Video for Flash, i-Pod/Phone/iPad and Silverlight

H.264 has become the “it” codec, central to the three-screen strategy, but is confusing to produce, with obscure settings (B-frame pyramid?/CABAC?) and encoding interfaces (and output quality) that varies dramatically by encoding tool, plus a reputation for slow playback on some computers.

This seminar cuts through the confusion by describing the most common H.264 encoding parameters, detailing playback CPU load on a range of computers and delineating encoding requirements for computers and the iPod/iPhone/iPad trilogy. It then compares the output quality produced by tools like the Adobe Media Encoder, Apple Compressor, Sorenson Squeeze and Telestream Episode Pro, and concludes by demonstrating how to encode into H.264 format with these tools.

Overall, students will walk away understanding:

• The performance, quality and compatibility implications of all H.264 encoding parameters,
• How to produce for and deliver to Apple’s iPod/iPhone/iPad,
• How to configure H.264 video for optimum quality/playback smoothness on a range of computers
• Which encoding tools produce the best quality H.264
• How to encode to H.264 format using Apple Compressor, Adobe Media Encoder, Telestream Episode Pro, Sorenson Squeeze, and Rhozet Carbon Coder.

Flash Delivery Track

_______________________________________________________________________________

Flash Delivery: Flexible Protocols and Custom Player Development

In this intensive half-day workshop, students will gain the information and tools needed to plan and deploy web video applications. First, they will learn how to deliver optimized, high quality content with the Flash Platform’s flexible delivery protocols. The pros and cons of progressive delivery, RTMP streaming, and the new adaptive streaming solution in Flash Player 10.1 will be covered, helping to choose the best delivery method for specific audiences. File format details, content preparation tools and workflows will be discussed.

Once students have a clear understanding of optimum delivery methods, we will outline the options for building custom media players. We’ll focus on both third-party solutions (Influxis.com) and on the Open Source Media Framework, with an overview of its structure and ActionScript classes, along with hands-on examples to get started with the framework. Students will walk away with a basic custom player and an understanding of how to use the framework to build both simple no-code players and complex interactive players that leverage analytics, advertising, and social media APIs.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Flash Delivery: Flash Media Server Crash Course

Over 75% of web video today is delivered on the Flash Platform. Flash Media Server (FMS) is Adobe’s streaming server that is powering this content delivery. The latest version of FMS provides robust, scalable live and on-demand streaming, along with powerful features such as real-time interaction, Dynamic Streaming, DVR functionality, smart buffering and more.

Students in this ½ day course will gain a deeper understanding of how the server works, what it can do, and how to deploy streaming media applications that leverage its features. Students will install the Flash Media Development Server on their laptops, set up their first live broadcast, and even see how easy it is to create a custom 2-person videoconference. We will also demonstrate utilizing third-party FMS hosting (Influxis.com) and look at the pros and cons of various hosting solutions.

Advanced students will learn how to integrate streaming and interaction into their applications, while beginners will leverage the tools and built-in services that ship with FMS, along with time-saving third-party tools, to learn about the server and how to get started streaming. Students will walk away with real hands-on experience with streaming on the Flash Platform, and an understanding of what is possible with FMS — and how to achieve it.