High Def Streaming

I am looking for the best way to deliver HD content on the web. I have taken an HDV file, Approx 500 megs and compressed down to MPEG-4, converting to flash and a file size of 11 megs.

I have lowered the data rate to 1200, anything faster stops. anything lower looks less than acceptable. I used Sorenson Squeeze 5.0 beta to compress. The end user has the option to expand to full screen size. Any suggestions as to what the best combination of data bit rate/screen size works best? I would like to get the file size up to about 15 megs if possible and still have it play without stopping and starting.

Please Advise

I wish this was easier...

Making the decisions needed to stream ANY video over the web, let alone HD is hard.

The basics are simple, the more bandwidth, the better the video quality. -However, in our current world, a good number of people surfing the web do not have enough bandwidth to stream SD with reasonable quality, let alone HD.

So you need to decide, first, who your audience is. -What is the minimum likely bandwidth your audience members are likely to have. You also need to determine what kind of computer power they're likely to posess. The majority of people with laptops can't even fit a 1080-size picture on their screen, let alone have the computing power to download, decode h.264, and display simultaneously, in real time.

Once you make those decisions, you than have a "starting place", where you can then evaluate the rest of the decisions you need to factor in.

I have streaming HD on the web at: www.DocumentaryNarration.com. Since the website is directed at media professionals, I have made the presumption that the majority of my audience has good bandwidth and computing capability. Even with that, I offer 3 different bandwidth/screen sizes, 1200kbps (~SD), 2000 kbps (ED) and 3000 kbps (HD).

Good luck,

Travis
VoiceOver Guy and Entertainment Technology Enthusiast
[www.VOTalent.com]

Nice reading, Travis. I hate FLASH video (yours looks nice in spots but there is clearly issues with water / rocks / sky colors getting blocky & muddy), but love the narration.

Travis is on point with the suggestion of knowing your target audience. I, too, gear my stuff at industry pros so my stuff is higher AV quality / file sizes. I find a Fast Start H.264 clip with AAC Audio encoder looks & sounds cleaner & sharper than FLASH...and you can step through it frame by frame if you wish (can't do that with FLASH). You can also download H.264 clips without 3rd party software. Playing with the data rate will get you very small files leaving them cleaner than FLASH.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Hi Joey,

In my own little survey of "streaming" systems, I've actually not found much difference in h.264, .wmv and Flash-8. At the same streaming rate, each has subtle differences, which show up differently on different machines.

I've chosen Flash-8, temporarily, because it's the only format I can count on working on Windows and Macs (and, even Linux.). As the "installed base" of the latest version of Flash becomes more commonplace, I plan on transitioning to h.264/Flash. The "issues" you speak of, were the trade-offs I decided on for what I considered to be a reasonable data rate. Just like h.264, increasing the streaming speed diminishes the viewing problems.

Travis
VoiceOver Guy and Entertainment Technology Enthusiast
[www.VOTalent.com]