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Vast distribution

May 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Brian Stevenson

Use simultaneous multiformat encoding for efficient content repurposing.

Distributing content to multiple viewing platforms is commonplace for almost all content rights owners in today's competitive and increasingly fragmented media environment. The expanding breadth of viewing devices is accompanied by divergence in the encoding formats and parameters required for optimal device compatibility. While traditional production and distribution platforms used a limited range of formats, little such consistency exists today. IPTV, Internet TV, broadcast, mobile phones and personal media players all have their own unique characteristics, and no one encoding format comprehensively serves them all. For any multiplatform distribution strategy, encoding to multiple formats, resolutions and bit rates is an unavoidable requirement. Factor in nondistribution formats for acquisition, production and archive, and the types of deliverables number in the dozens.

Just looking at one distribution platform, playback on a personal computer from the Web, leads to an array of format considerations. Compression formats common on the Web currently include VC-1 (the SMPTE standard related to Microsoft Windows Media), H.264 (also known as AVC, or MPEG-4 Part 10), On2 VP6 and Apple Quick-Time. Technologies for building Web-viewing environments vary in which compression formats they support. Adobe Flash technologies support H.264 and On2 VP6, while Microsoft Silverlight supports VC-1 and H.264.

To reach the broadest audience possible across varying connection speeds and operating systems — and especially if syndicating the content — you may choose to offer Web-based content in multiple resolutions, bit rates and compression formats. Even if only a single format is used, recent enhancements in Web video delivery to dynamically adapt to variations in consumer bandwidth are dependent on the creation of streams in multiple bit rates and resolutions concurrently. You will likely also want to create a full-resolution archive copy of the content for future transcoding into additional new deliverable formats as required.

Efficiently repurposing content for these varying platforms and devices presents new challenges, and the encoding systems used to create these deliverables are critical points in the process. The quality, performance and efficiency of the encoders and surrounding workflow have a significant impact on productivity, costs, the viewer experience and the timely availability of content. It is no longer enough for an encoding system to be able to output just a full-resolution and proxy version. Efficient multiplatform output requires encoding solutions that optimally support multiple formats and target devices. Even better are solutions that can create these deliverables simultaneously in real time, where the total encoding time is the same as the duration of the content. Faster-than-real-time encoding can also be achieved when encoding from a nonlive source, such as existing mezzanine media files.

In this article, encoding primarily refers to creating file-based deliverables. The inputs to the encoder could be live sources (such as a video router), decks or existing media files, while the deliverables could be used for subsequent on-demand viewing or download on multiple devices, Blu-ray or DVD authoring, archive, or a plethora of other purposes. Most of the same concepts also apply to encoding for real-time distribution (such as broadcast or live streaming), although the breadth of compression and container formats used in file-based production and distribution far exceeds that used for live delivery.

Real-time, multiformat efficiency

Most file-to-file transcoding solutions can create multiple output formats from a single source. However, when capturing and encoding from a live source or tape in real time, solutions differ considerably. (See Figure 1.) Some output only a single compression format, resolution and bit rate at a time. Others can output multiple resolutions and bit rates concurrently but only in a single format, while the most flexible solutions can capture and encode to multiple formats and output parameters simultaneously in real time.

This latter class of encoding solution offers numerous benefits:

• Less equipment
  By eliminating the need for separate encoders for each format, multiformat systems reduce space and power requirements while lowering equipment acquisition costs.
• Reduced operational complexity
  While separate encoders for each format could be deployed in parallel to achieve simultaneous deliverables, doing so adds to the complexity of the workflow. Automation requirements would increase to ensure that all encoding is perfectly synchronized, while any change to the combinations of desired deliverables may involve rerouting of signals between the encoders and reconfiguration of the settings on multiple systems.
• Faster turnaround
  Systems that support multiple formats, but not concurrently, can still reduce overall equipment requirements, but require multiple passes from a repeatable source (such as tape) to achieve the desired deliverables. By performing multiformat encodes in a single real-time pass, significant time is saved.
• Less wear on supporting equipment
  If the source content is tape-based, each additional ingest and encoding pass incurs another complete playout of the tape content, causing additional wear on the deck.
• Flexible redeployment
  A broadcaster's encoding needs today may be very different in the not-so-distant future, and multiformat systems can easily be redeployed and repurposed. Significant changes in preferred deliverable formats (for example, from On2 VP6 to H.264 on a Web site) may also be transitioned by offering both formats in parallel on an interim basis to reduce viewer alienation.

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