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Code Along with Cam : Simulated Live Streaming

With the release of native live streaming support in Brightcove 4 the question is not if you should take up live streaming but when. Live streaming offers a video initiative bags of possibilities but true Live Streaming can be costly. We do work with many partners that can complete this value chain very seamlessly, or for simple projects there's the very easy to use and free Adobe Live Media Encoder that can connect any camera to the servers via a PC. But then there's the question of trying before buying. Before investing in establishing what could be a hefty workflow...

LBDG December - Integrating with a CMS

The London Brightcove Developer Group was such a great success last month that we're going to host another one! This time we're looking at integrating Brightcove with CMS's. We'll be supplying pizza and beer and this time we're going to team up with our friends over at Drupal and run our event at the same time as their Drupal for Video event with some cross talks. Our Brightcove track of the night will be peppered with CMS Integration talks and howtos. This time we won't be doing a coding challenge, instead we will be spending more time looking at: *...

Video Encoding 101 - Under the hood of the Codec (Part 1)

The series so far: Introduction - http://blog.brightcove.com/global/2009/10/video-encoding-101-the-series.html The Beginning -http://blog.brightcove.com/global/2009/10/video-encoding-101-from-the-beginning.html The Problem Number 1 - http://blog.brightcove.com/global/2009/10/video-encoding-101-the-problem-number-1.html In general a codec has one task. Take a data feed in a specific encoding (be it analogue or digital) and run it through an algorithm to try and compress the feed in such a way that the message is no lost during storage and decompression. In fact that's where the word codec comes from : COmpression DECompresion Implied in between these 2 transformation states is a new Encoding Specification itself for storage - a language to convert to and store the data in....

Live Broadcast of the Facebook Garage Event

I'm heading down to give my 15mins of cents to the London Facebook Garage tonight. For those not able to make it tonight we're going to do what we did with the Drupal for Marketing event and stream this live over the BC3 platform. We'll also have the same tie into a Facebook Livestream box and you can embed the stream directly into your FB Profile by clicking the button in-player. You can see more about the event here : http://www.facebookgarage.co.uk/ Enjoy! Please note that the stream probably won't come up until 7pm so keep trying to connect. This event...

Speaking Gig at the next Facebook Garage London

Just an FYI - for those in the London area that are keen, there is a Facebook Garage user group tomorrow night (November 11th) which I'll be presenting at. I'm going to spend my 15 minutes of fame looking at how Facebook and Brightcove can combine to be a powerful tool in both the Push and Pull video syndication models. I'll post my slides up here after the show but feel free to come on down and learn not about my stuff but other great presentations around developing with Facebook. Facebook Garage : http://www.facebookgarage.co.uk/ The Eventbrite Invite : http://facebookgaragenov.eventbrite.com Drop...

Live Broadcast of the Drupal For Marketing Event

Tonight our technology partner Drupal will be hosting a Drupal for Marketing event here in London. You can see details about it here: http://drupal4marketing2009.eventbrite.com/ A couple of Brightcovers are going over to participate and we thought it would be fun to follow in the footsteps of Manchester City FC and live broadcast part of the event. You can view it in the player below and the feed should start around 6.30pm GMT - feel free to post it on your Facebook profile by clicking the FB Share link. Please note that if the stream doesn't start to referesh the page...

Code Along with Cam : Next Gen Embed Video in Facebook News Feed

I've been reading a great post by fellow Brightcove Blogger Chris Little over at our Ecosystem blogroll about how Brightcove Players have been whitelisted by Facebook. This essentially means that a user can share a video from your player/site and have it appear in their FB Newsfeed for immediate inline playback. I have need of such an integration to help spread the word of a live event we're looking at doing with Drupal tomorrow. After digging into the code - I found it had some limitations given the FB's architecture requires the metadata of the video and player to be...

Video Encoding 101 - The Problem Number 1

The series so far: Introduction - http://blog.brightcove.com/global/2009/10/video-encoding-101-the-series.html The Beginning -http://blog.brightcove.com/global/2009/10/video-encoding-101-from-the-beginning.html So.... the$64,000 question: What is Video and how to do we delivery it over the web? In its most basic sense video is just a consecutive series of static images presented fast enough that our brains process the incoming feed as a stream of continuous scenic data. To get further in depth around the structure of video is out of scope of this series but here are some lovely links if you want to get into the really nitty gritty of video and its science: The key measurement of video...

Video Encoding 101 - From the Beginning

The series so far: Introduction - http://blog.brightcove.com/global/2009/10/video-encoding-101-the-series.html So to start any discussion we need to begin with the fundamentals. Specifically what is the process of video encoding? Or even more generally what is encoding and how does it apply to Online Video? At its very fundamental sense encoding is effectively the storage of data in a well defined format. An example of encoding is my writing this blog post: the thoughts and abstract ideas in my head (the data) is written (encoded) into words and sentences following a series of rules (the format) so that the reader , already skilled...

Video Encoding 101 - The Series

It seems we've finally hit that critical mass. The novelty of online video is starting to wear off quickly and we're now left with acceptance and expectation from the the online community that a website must have video as a core component of its design and offering. Services such as the iPlayer and Hulu have made catch up TV the primary way to view episodic content for many teenagers and young adults. The iPhone has made consuming the latest video on the move all the rage. Even the governments of the world have embraced video as a core to their...