Flash live streaming multiple bitrates

[flwtech]

We are trying to understand the requirements for a project to stream live video to a Content Delivery Network running Flash Media Servers. Multiple cameras will be fed into a Tricaster Studio.

The question - what do we need to encode the output of the Tricaster Studio to multiple bitrates (300 / 500) or (300 / 500 / 800) of Flash. Some have told us that we need an appliance such as the Viewcast Niagara Surf. Others have said that we can take the output of the Tricaster into a video capture card and use FMLE 3.0 to send out multiple bit rates of Flash.

If we can use a video capture card, we are looking at DRC or Osprey cards which are listed as compatible with FMLE 3.0. This will be a live event sent to a Content Delivery Network such as Edgecast or Limelight and we are very concerned about the quality.

We are also concerned about the PC hardware required to host the video capture card and do the transcoding in real time for a live event. If anyone has hands-on experience with this type of setup, we would appreciate your insight or any corrections to my current very shallow understanding. This is uncharted waters for us.

Thank you!

[TimT]

You are very right to be concerned. As Outside Broadcast manager for a content delivery network (global-mix.com) I cant emphasise how important it is to avoid cutting corners on testing everything end to end, from the UPS backing up the encoders, the CIR & routing over the IP link to the CDN through to embedded players on the customers site.

We get good consistent results with Black Magic cards. When installed in a high spec PC (quad processor with lots of RAM) they run at aprox 10% CPU usage. I would rather run multiple encoders each with a Black Magic card for resilience, as opposed to a single box/point of failure & they are inexpensive!

Let us know if you would you like to run tests with our CDN, Outside Broadcast Unit, encoders etc?


Regards

tim.thompson@global-mix.com

(06-08-2009 03:57 PM)flwtech Wrote:  We are trying to understand the requirements for a project to stream live video to a Content Delivery Network running Flash Media Servers. Multiple cameras will be fed into a Tricaster Studio.

The question - what do we need to encode the output of the Tricaster Studio to multiple bitrates (300 / 500) or (300 / 500 / 800) of Flash. Some have told us that we need an appliance such as the Viewcast Niagara Surf. Others have said that we can take the output of the Tricaster into a video capture card and use FMLE 3.0 to send out multiple bit rates of Flash.

If we can use a video capture card, we are looking at DRC or Osprey cards which are listed as compatible with FMLE 3.0. This will be a live event sent to a Content Delivery Network such as Edgecast or Limelight and we are very concerned about the quality.

We are also concerned about the PC hardware required to host the video capture card and do the transcoding in real time for a live event. If anyone has hands-on experience with this type of setup, we would appreciate your insight or any corrections to my current very shallow understanding. This is uncharted waters for us.

Thank you!

[cata12]

@flwtech

Hello:
You shall try a broadcasting solution for the project you want to develop. If it's a LIVE show why using a Tv capture card ? You just need a video camera connected to the computer and with the software installed you will be able to do the streaming on any websites.
I can tell you about BlinkoTV because this is what I am using and it is very user friendly. You just need 2 minutes to setup everything. A good computer configuration will be needed (3 Ghz processor and 1 Gb Ram)and a good internet connection ( balanced upload/download speed). You can also set the bitrate and the video quality (SD or HD).