No. 306 (April 2006)

Bookshelf Archive

Hands-On Guide to Webcasting

During the last decade, webcasting over the Internet has become an important industry, with many tools and equipments available to choose from. Webcasting is today an integral part of broadcasting and a large majority of broadcasters now webcast their programmes over the Internet, either live or on-demand.

This book is one of the first in a new Focal Press series "Hands-On Guide to Webcasting" intended for streaming and digital media professionals, edited by Dan Rayburn. Its subtitle "Internet event and AV production" hints that the book is focused on how to plan, produce, publish and distribute webcasts of certain live events such as conferences, conventions etc. While useful for those who intend do start a webcasting business, the book is too simplistic for advanced users and indeed broadcasters who have long years of experience. Today, the main problem of webcasting is more than just the use of specific technologies; it is about costs, scalability, content and rights.

To illustrate this point, the EBU successfully webcast the Winter Olympic Games (WOG) held in Turin during two weeks in February 2006. The EBU offered both on-demand clips and live streams to their audiences via www.eurovision.net. The numbers of live streams and downloads that were accessed are more than impressive. Some 1.5 million unique visitors across Europe enjoyed the Olympic audio/video content on their computers. More than 23 million streams were distributed. The maximum number of streams per day was close to 1.2 million. The peak value of concurrent streams was as many as 45'000 – using the Content Distribution System (CDN) from Akamai. More than 50 countries were served. In total, some 400 TB of streaming data were served, 90% of which were live streams and 10% on-demand downloads.

Some 300 video/audio clips ("best moments") – coded in Windows Media and Macromedia Flash, and properly secured to prevent storage on hard-disk drives – were still available on the Eurovision website at the time of writing (early April 2006).

These numbers represent a tremendous growth compared to the Summer Olympic games in Athens which were held only a year and a half ago. In the case of live streams, there has been a 20-fold increase compared to Athens. On-demand downloads from the Turin games were 200 times greater.

In addition to the EBU-produced webcasts, individual EBU Members were also allowed to webcast from their websites, provided they adhered to the restrictions imposed by the International Olympic Committee concerning territorial coverage and copyright. Namely, it was not allowed that any EBU-generated stream would be accessible from outside the European territory. Fortunately, the results of compliance were satisfactory and no infringements were recorded.

The point of all this is that, in addition to the shear technical quality, it is most important for webcasters to meet the legal and regulatory requirements of geographical integrity, rights management and various other criteria (advertising, protection of minors and human dignity, etc). The European Parliament has issued a Directive – COM(2005) 646 – which regulates all audio-visual services, both linear and non-linear, on any platform including the Internet. This Directive thus consolidates and harmonizes legal regimes for conventional broadcast television/radio services and new audio-visual media carried over any communication channels including IPTV, mobile networks and the Internet.

In order to embark successfully in webcasting, it is largely insufficient to address merely the technical and operational issues that are included in this book. Vitally important for commercial success are many legal and regulatory issues, which the reader – unfortunately – will have to try and find elsewhere.

Hands-On Guide to Webcasting
Steve Mack and Dan Rayburn
Bound volume of 235 pages
ISBN 0-240-80754-5. Price: £19.99
Focal Press, 2006
Web link

Franc Kozamernik

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Hands-On Guide to Windows Media

Some independent surveys indicated that, as of January 2004, 95% of all media players installed on PC desktops worldwide, were Microsoft's Windows Media (WM). RealPlayer and QuickTime follow closely by 86% and 82%, respectively . Windows Media remains the distinct leader for all media company sizes – ranging from small companies with less than $50 million turnover up to relatively large companies with over $5 billion turnover. Windows Media is also the first option for all interest group segments such as individual users, operators, business users, consultants, etc.

What are the reasons for Windows Media to become so successful?

Excellent coding quality was a prerequisite but the decisive factor for the market success was a suitable business model and the right licensing policy. No licence fee is required for either the encoder or decoder (as opposed to some other competitors such as Real). Media streaming servers are available for free and only a licence agreement needs to signed by the user.

It should be pointed out that Windows Media is and remains a proprietary technology, as opposed to an open, internationally standardized system. In this respect, Windows Media is not dissimilar to Real or QuickTime. Being proprietary, does not mean that its usage cannot be for free. This argument can be reversed: namely, open systems may be subjected to payment of licensing fees for some patents.

It seems that Windows Media is the most attractive streaming technology today. Windows Media Player 10 is the newest generation player and is an all-in-one powerhouse media player for video and audio entertainment on Windows XP computers and many portable devices.

This book takes the reader through all steps of media production, including the capture of audio and video, encoding and distributing the content. Live webcasting, and specific encoding required to optimize live encoding and distributing, is also covered.

As streaming technologies may in the future be able to cope with high-definition television, the book also deals with WMHD encoding.
WM is increasingly used on portable devices such as personal digital assistants and mobile phones. Microsoft has built Windows Media Player 10 Mobile specifically for those purposes.

Most importantly, the book gives useful insights into Windows Media Rights Management, dealing with copy protection and media redistribution.

This book is a very useful and enlightening hands-on companion for those broadcasters and individuals who use, or plan to use, Windows Media streaming technology.

Hands-On Guide to Windows Media
Joe Follansbee
Bound volume of 261 pages
ISBN 0-240-80759-6. Price: £19.99
Focal Press, 2006
Web link

Franc Kozamernik

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