Expression Encoder and MBR/Smooth

[MatthewQuinn]

Im toying with Expression encoder at the moment and need some clarification on the MBR/Smooth options.

1) When using the ASF Single File option with multiple video streams, is this in effect kicking out the same product as WMEnc did with the MBR encoding?

2) If the 1 is correct then I assume that all my MBR files are totally compatible with Silverlight and it will negotiate bandwidth selection.

3) If 1 is incorrect then is there anything we can do for MBR files to play in Silverlight?

4) What profiles do I have to use to enable the IIS Smooth Streaming container option?

Thanks in advance

Matthew Quinn
LiverpoolFC.tv

(Junior Member?????)

[benwaggoner]

(11-13-2008 07:40 AM)MatthewQuinn Wrote:  Im toying with Expression encoder at the moment and need some clarification on the MBR/Smooth options.

1) When using the ASF Single File option with multiple video streams, is this in effect kicking out the same product as WMEnc did with the MBR encoding?

Correct. The big difference now is that you can get parallel encoding, instead of the old limit of 4 cores being used across all the streams. Great news for > 4 core machines.

Quote:2) If the 1 is correct then I assume that all my MBR files are totally compatible with Silverlight and it will negotiate bandwidth selection.

Alas, Silverlight 2 doesn't do automatic bandwidth selection. When presented with a MBR file, it'll always play the first stream in the index, which is typically the highest bitrate.

Quote:3) If 1 is incorrect then is there anything we can do for MBR files to play in Silverlight?

For deployment today, your best bet is to split them into individual streams that can be individually addressed. This can be done with the Windows Media Stream Editor, and is a pretty easy tool to write using the Format SDK.

Quote:4) What profiles do I have to use to enable the IIS Smooth Streaming container option?

I'd start with the adaptive streaming preset and go from there.

The key things are to use
1-pass CBR
Container Output Mode = IIS Smooth Streaming
Scene Change Detection = OFF
Adaptive GOP = OFF
Closed GOP = ON
Maximum QP = 31

The latter codec options are required to make sure that all GOPs across the different data rates align.

As a matter of style, I typically change the default settings with
Resize Mode = Stretch
Overlap = ON
Chroma Search = Full Integer Chroma or True Chroma (slower, better)
Search Range = Adaptive (big quality improvment for high-motion HD)

I'll definitely do a blog post about it in detail soon.

[gorytus]

Quote:Alas, Silverlight 2 doesn't do automatic bandwidth selection. When presented with a MBR file, it'll always play the first stream in the index, which is typically the highest bitrate.

We have a few '000 CBR WMV files encoded at 64,256,512,1mb thus four files per original. At the moment we stream on demand ( soon live too) through WMS2008 and were thinking of adding a Silverlight 2 player rather than just a WMP plugin. Users simply select bitrate.

We are planning to go the one file MBR route with EXPEncoder2SP1 - are you saying that this is pointless if we use a Silverlight 2 plugin/ frontend?

(Apologies for apparent thread hijack...)

[MatthewQuinn]

Hijack away my friend, a very valid question.

How do you determine which is the 1st stream in the index? When I encode I tend to start with stream1 as the lowest then work my way up, does this mean users will get the lowest target audience?

I have the Windows Stream Editor from the tools installed with the WMEncoder, it doesnt want to open the source files. Error = "The Profile is Invalid"

[benwaggoner]

(11-26-2008 05:31 AM)gorytus Wrote:  We have a few '000 CBR WMV files encoded at 64,256,512,1mb thus four files per original. At the moment we stream on demand ( soon live too) through WMS2008 and were thinking of adding a Silverlight 2 player rather than just a WMP plugin. Users simply select bitrate.

We are planning to go the one file MBR route with EXPEncoder2SP1 - are you saying that this is pointless if we use a Silverlight 2 plugin/ frontend?

Yes, I wouldn't recommend that route if you're targeting Silverlight 2 today. Better to make individual streams.

What's your timreframe? Adaptive Streaming will offer a much better experience when it's broadly available next year. Have you checked out:

http://smoothhd.com

Yet?

---

(11-26-2008 05:59 AM)MatthewQuinn Wrote:  How do you determine which is the 1st stream in the index? When I encode I tend to start with stream1 as the lowest then work my way up, does this mean users will get the lowest target audience?

I think it's the first listed in the stream editor.

Quote:I have the Windows Stream Editor from the tools installed with the WMEncoder, it doesnt want to open the source files. Error = "The Profile is Invalid"

Really? Do you have DRM on the files? What video/audio codecs are you using? Is WMP 11 installed on the machine you're using Stream Editor on?

[MatthewQuinn]

No DRM on the files and yes wmp 11 installed.

As there are a few of us out there with thousands of MBR files that may not be effectively useable with Silverlight it might be nice to see a batch utility knocked up by the guys at MS to enable us to strip down our archives and re-purpose.

[Rodolphe Bailly]

(11-26-2008 05:33 PM)MatthewQuinn Wrote:  No DRM on the files and yes wmp 11 installed.

As there are a few of us out there with thousands of MBR files that may not be effectively useable with Silverlight it might be nice to see a batch utility knocked up by the guys at MS to enable us to strip down our archives and re-purpose.

Yes, I'd love to see that also. I have exactly the same problem... a few '00000 of MBR files...

[Dave]

(11-25-2008 09:32 PM)benwaggoner Wrote:  Alas, Silverlight 2 doesn't do automatic bandwidth selection. When presented with a MBR file, it'll always play the first stream in the index, which is typically the highest bitrate.

A long shot but what if you were to specify the WMS WMContentBitrate and WMBitrate modifiers along with the source?

"WMContentBitrate - Specifies the maximum bit rate that can be streamed from a source, in bits per second. You can use this modifier with the WMBitrate modifier to manually control which stream in a multiple-bit-rate stream is selected when intelligent streaming is not desired."

"WMBitrate - Specifies the bit rate that the Windows Media server cannot exceed when delivering a stream, in bits per second."

Dave

[MatthewQuinn]

One of Silverlights main appeals for me was that it was perfect for the last 7 years of archives we have here, this current news doesnt make me feel warm to it any more.

If there was a batch utility to strip out the seperate streams from the MBR file then I would happily perform the operation. I think it would be a wise move from MS to attempt to retain the content owners by enabling them to repurpose quite easily.

At the moment I am talking to lots of content owners and we are all umming and aahing over Flash, Silverlight, SmoothHD, Dynamic Streaming. It seems like there will always be a point where our older archive may have to be presented in its legacy format, the main appeal for me of Silverlight was always having one player and all our content in that one player.

[Dave]

(12-01-2008 06:48 AM)MatthewQuinn Wrote:  One of Silverlights main appeals for me was that it was perfect for the last 7 years of archives we have here, this current news doesnt make me feel warm to it any more...

Longevity of content has always been one of my concerns here in the land of academia, where content often is created once with the intent of associating it with a course module which then requires to be available for week 'x' term 'y' over the next several years until such a time as a course module is updated and the content replaced.

A lot of earlier academic content has been created using voice and screen CODECs in order to squeeze as much out of the available bandwidth at that time, so currently another hurdle when it comes to Silverlight.

This would appear to differ from a lot of commercial content which would appear to be frequently updated and immune to the problems of archiving, or rather the playback of archived content. Unlike academia though, there is usually some financial gain associated with high turnover of content in that it tends to sell an associated product or service.

(12-01-2008 06:48 AM)MatthewQuinn Wrote:  ...At the moment I am talking to lots of content owners and we are all umming and aahing over Flash, Silverlight, SmoothHD, Dynamic Streaming. It seems like there will always be a point where our older archive may have to be presented in its legacy format...

I don't think the problem will just be restricted to Silverlight somehow. Do you think that you would get any assurances from other proprietary formats that their content will still be usable on their platform in seven years time ? Is their track record significantly better for support of legacy content ? Probably not.

Perhaps then a motivator to use standards based formats when it comes to archival content, however then you typically have to take a sacrifice in quality/bandwidth/storage at the time of content creation.

The problem may be short-lived with Silverlight, as once it gets more established, then there will probably be less of an incentive to keep the installer small and the likes of support for MBR content may return.

However it does ask questions regarding to workflows and the lifecycles involved with content; even more so the richer it gets, as it won't just be the video content you have to be concerned about but all the associated material as well.

Perhaps the solution is to expect to have to repurpose archived content and develop a workflow which can accommodate it. Archive your content in 'mezzanine' formats along with your edit decission lists and metadata in such a way that allows you to re-encode it in the background into whatever format is required as and when. The chances are that tomorrow's formats are going to offer advantages making it worthwhile anyway. (Seven years ago, most of us were probably still encoding with dial-up in mind.)

However a utility to split a MBR into its component streams via a script would be useful

Dave