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I have tested and installed many streaming servers and I am looking still today for the perfect video at the internet. You can spend years only with the encoding process of videos and you will always find new and better solotions for it. But handling videos for the net will get easier with every day the technology moves on with there improvements.
About the Author: Thomas Wulff is in the adult business since 1990 some may know him as Zappu from some boards and the XBiz board where he also acts as a moderator. He was running one of the first hosting companies which where specialized for erotic web sites in Germany. With the Content Shop: Norespect / Skanmedia he has build up one of the largest content stores for adult web masters. Later he was the director of companies like Ision and Beate Uhse New Media. Today he is working for Magic Media ApS an estanblished Adult Content Provider for about 25 Years from Denmark.
Services of Magic Media are:
- Great Sex Content
A adult content provider for web masters and ppublishing houses. Great Sex Content is specialized in european well done amateur content on photos and videos - Hot Content Providers
A news blog system for content provider and the adult industry in general. Everybody can publish there latest with some automated mechanism here - AWM xChange Network
A adult webmaster directory service and banner xchange system.
If you like to contact Thomas, please write an email to webmaster@greatsexcontent.com
General
Videos are probably one of the most important, but also complicated, services of an adult web site today. There are still many difficulties and problems how to handle videos over the net, and it will be close to impossible to serve videos to 100% of your customers without any problems. But, we can help you to improve your services for your customers and set up a video solution which will fit all yours and your customer needs.
Streaming media is a technology that enables you to include audio, video and other multimedia elements into your websites in a more seamless and efficient way than was possible in the past. Visitors to your website will be able to listen to or view media files AS they are downloaded in real time. Media typically consist of audio only, video with audio or any combination of audio, illustrated audio, video, synchronized graphics or animation.
Videos are probably the most important content for today's adult services and sites. More and more customers are accessing the internet with broadband connections and the quality of the video codecs has increased during the last Years as the file sizes of the encoded videos have decreased.
The possibilities how to offer videos at your web site could be divided within two general sections
- HTTP Delivery (Download)
- Streaming
HTTP Delivery
The most easiest and used way to offer videos at web sites is done via usual download. You just store a video on your server and you link to the video file via a http link. The video will be downloaded by the user and appears automatically within the standard video player which is defined by the user. Usually it does not matter at which file format (MPG,WMV,QM,RM etc.) you have stored the video as long as the user as defined a standard video player for the file format.
Another way to present the videos within your web site and using the simple download presentation is to implement the videos directly within your web site by using the standard IMG-Tag (<img dynsrc=videofile>) or an embedded video player in your HTML page. For this, the user must have installed the player you are using within your embedded or object tag. If the plugin is not installed at the users browser, it will appear a pop up which will ask the user to install the needed plugin for the player software.
If you link to the video files directly by download, the IMG-Tag or do you integrate the player within your web site via the embedded/object HTML code, the whole video will be downloaded to the users PC. The advantage of this kind of presenting videos is, you can offer close to any video format you like and you will not have many problems on the users site to watch the videos.
A special version of this kind for offering videos is the VOD – Video On Demand – Service. VOD are also downloaded by the user, but within the Video Header Information are some special information integrated. These information are be read by the video player software and the player will act on the information. In this way you can for e.g. define, the downloaded video could be watched 3 times only, or it could be watched only until a special date, or the first 3 minutes of this video could be watched for free and than the user will be forced to pay to watch the rest of the video.
A VOD solution is not available for all video formats and some extra services (like a transaction server) are necessary to offer a VOD solution.
Streaming
A more comfortable and secure possibility to offer videos from your web site is to use a streaming server to push the videos to your users. The videos are delivered via the streaming server to your users video player and the streaming server decide the quality of the stream which will be delivered to the user.
There are different streaming servers on the market. Which one will be the best for you depends to your needs, the system you would like to use (Win, Apple, Linux) and of course, your personal favorites. The probably most used one is the streaming server of Microsoft which is free of charge, but needs a license for the Windows Server software. Meanwhile there are also other free streaming servers available and also some commercial once. I will come back later to the different streaming server.
The most important advantage for using a streaming server is, that never the whole video will be downloaded by the user. It will be delivered only the part of the video, which is watched by the user. This can save you a lot of money and a lot of bandwith and server capacity. Also you can offer a Web TV, where you can offer your own program, including commercials which will appear from time to time or at defined events, etc. You can create your own playlists, get statistics about your customers and how they watch and which videos they are watching.
Of course, the same possibilities you have for VOD at HTTP Delivery, you will have for the streaming solution as well.
Compare HTTP vs. Streaming
|
Function
|
HTTP Delivery
|
Streaming Delivery
|
| Automate Connection Speed dedication of Users |
No
|
Yes
|
| Fast Forward / Backward |
No
|
Yes
|
| Full Video will be download to user |
Yes
|
No
|
| Video Caching |
No
|
Yes
|
| Configurable Bandwith limitation by Video etc. |
No
|
Yes
|
| Access Control |
No (limited)
|
Yes
|
| All Video Formats are delivered and usable |
Yes
|
No
|
| Extra Soft- and/or Hardware needed |
No
|
Yes
|
| Usage of Playlists |
No
|
Yes
|
| Extended Advertising Features |
No
|
Yes
|
| Smil Scripting Language |
No
|
Yes (no all)
|
| Streaming Events (Live) |
No
|
Yes
|
| best length of movies |
<10 Minutes
|
No Limitation
|
Please read also:
Compare the two primary methods of delivering streaming media: a standard Web server and a specialized streaming server.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/compare/webservvstreamserv.aspx
Video Formats
There are plenty of different video formats available and for some of he formats even hundreds of different codes are available. The main video formats are described briefly below, but not all of the video formats are usable for streaming servers.
Codec:
Short for compressor/decompressor, a codec is any technology for compressing and decompressing data. Codecs can be implemented in software, hardware, or a combination of both.
Several different video codecs could be download at: http://www.codec-download.com
AVI
AVI stands for Audio Video Interleave. Created by Microsoft, AVI is one of the most commonly used video formats. There are numerous AVI file formats available. All of these other formats involve the use of COmpressor/DECompressors (CODECs) to read and write the AVI file. One thing to watch for when using CODECs to encode a video that you intend to send to someone else is that the video can only be viewed if they have the same CODEC installed on their system. Codecs serve two purposes: They tell your computer how to encode (or compress) a video file when you save the file, and they tell your computer how to decode (or play) the file when you open the file. Since the same codec is needed to both compress the file and play the file, the choice of which codec to use is extremely important. If the codec you use to compress your file is not installed on your user's computer, your user will not be able to play the video.NOTE: Many AVI players, including Microsoft's "Windows Media Player" will attempt to download and install an appropriate codec if one is not already installed. However, you should not count on this feature, since downloads can be time consuming, and an appropriate codec cannot always be located.All invariably compress the video by reducing frame size from the standard 720 x 480 to 240 x 160 or smaller, by reducing the number of frames per second (giving jerky movements), and by washing out color, contrast and intensity. The resulting file size may be attractive, but the quality is usually quite poor. CinePac and Indeo are common used CODECs. You can view the CODECs installed on your system by going to the Control Panel, activate Sounds and Multimedia, click the Hardware tab, select video Codecs, click properties and select the Properties tab (Windows 2000).
MPEG1
MPEG-1 (Moving Picture Experts Group format 1) is an industry standard encoding format that is widely used. It's normal format is a frame size of 352 x 240 and a constant bit stream of around on megabit per second, a rate well within that of any CD player. MPEG-1 at this size consumes around 10 megabytes for each minute of video, so a typical CD can hold about 1 hour of video. MPEG-1 is roughly equivalent to VHS in quality, although would might not think so when watched on a computer. Video CDs (VCDs) use the MPEG-1 format, and look good when viewed on a television.MPEG-1 is the best MPEG Media Type for use on the Web and for use in videos that will be distributed via e-mail This is due to the fact that MPEG-1 files are generally easier on system resources and smaller in file size than other MPEG Media Types. An issue that must be considered when selecting an MPEG Media Type is the CPU speed of the system that will play your videos. For example, even slightly older Pentium systems (such as those with CPU speeds under 350 - 450 MHz) cannot reliably decode and play the MPEG-2 media type. However, MPEG-1 can be decoded and played on just about any Pentium (or generic Pentium) computer.
MPEG2
MPEG-2 is the standard used with DVD and is of a much higher quality than MPEG-1. This format provides for 720 x 480 resolution and with much less loss of detail over MPEG-1. However the file sizes are 3 to 4 times larger than MPEG-1.A DVD can contain many hours of MPEG-2 video, but the cost of DVD writer are still quite high. MPEG-2 on CD is possible, a format known as SVCD but can only contain about 20 minutes worth of video.
Quicktime (.mov)
Quicktime is the video format devised by and used by Apple and can be used at varying quality and file sizes. It is quite widely used and influenced the design of the MPEG formats.Real Video
Real video is a streaming video format used for distributing video in real-time over the internet. With streaming video, you do not have to download the complete file before beginning to watch it. Rather the viewer will download the first section of the video (say a minute's worth) a being the viewing of the video while the remainder download in the background.Windows Media Format (WMV)
WMV is Microsoft's latest streaming video format replaces ASF. WMV uses MPEG-4 encoding which is designed specifically for streaming media application. WMV provides a high quality audio and a varying quality video stream that is sensitive to the bandwidth selection made at the time of viewing. At the high bandwidth setting, the video quality can be quite reasonable.Flash Video
Within the last Year the flash video format became more and more popular. The real advantage of this format are that close to any Windows installation will be able to play this format without any downloads, therefor I would say it's as popular and common as the Windows for Video format (wmv). The quality is good, but you will not get the same quality as with other common video formats which are made to deliver videos. Anyhow, a flash video will give you some options you can achive with other video formats only if you are using a streaming server (like scripting) and it's sometimes realy worth to have a closer look to it.Streaming Server
Streaming Servers will give you much more possibilities to handle and serve your video content. Also they will save you a lot of bandwidth and traffic as usually nobody is watching a full porn video and they will deliver the video data to your viewers only as long as the players are connected.Today you will find a few streaming server solutions around some are free and others are pretty expensive, but of course, they are worth in view of the possibilities they will offer you. Anyhow, it's always a good idea to start with a free version of a streaming server to learn how they will work and more important to learn how to structure your video data and what will be the best solution for rendering the videos to get them to the streaming server.
Of course you do not need to think about a streaming server if you have just a few videos to deliver to your customers, but if you get more and more online, closer or later you have to think about. Also, a streaming server does not run without any problems. The main problem will be always to decide on which port you will run the streaming server. Usually the open port 80 is taken already by your web server and the port 81 is used for your billing solution. Well, as many user today are running a firewall or behind a firewall in there offices, usually most of the other ports are blocked by the fire wall.
This will be the point to think about running a streaming server on another server or at least on a different ip on the same server and do not offer any http service with it. If you have an administration for the streaming server over the web, run it on port 10001 or something like this, but make sure the streaming server will run on port 80. This will already fix about 95% of all the problems which usually occurs.
Another important issue for selecting a streaming server are the costs. You have to break down the overall costs for a streaming solution to the costs per concurrent stream. Even it probably a little bit older, but it will still give you a good idea how to calculate these costs, read the Cost Per Stream Analysis by Approach.com.
The advantages of a streaming server are:
- You will save bandwidth: A streaming server will serve to your customers only the bandwidth they are asking for. Further on the server will never serve the whole video. It will be served to the customer only the parts of the video, which are really watched.
- More Secure: A streaming server will make your videos more secure. There are many possibilities to secure your videos while using a streaming server, like: Digital Right Management (DRM), no caching on customers site, no download, seesion control, user authentication etc.
- Faster delivery: The delivery of the videos to your customers will be faster, because the video has not to be download first. The video will start playing just after some seconds.
- Better quality control: As you are able to handle multiply versions of one video within a video stream, your customer will get every time the best quality of the video which he/she will be able to watch.
- Video Control: Functions like using play lists, broadcasting, fast forward and rewind of a video, jumping to special key frames and dynamic advertising within a video are only available with a streaming server.
- Statistics: Have you ever wondered about how long your customers are watching a video? With a streaming server you even get aware of how many times and to where they forward or rewind a video. You will get aware of your customers connections and much more.
Heliax
RealNetworks
Ok, a little bit I have to say about the RealNetwork Streaming Server. I have ran the old streaming server of them for many Years and I was very satisfied with the Streaming Server of Real. It was running on a Linux RedHat System and was pretty stable and easy to administrate. Even the performance was really good as the Real Server never has used a lot of more than 2% of the CPU. But why I am not using the new Heliax Server, as this server offers so many new possibilities and it is probably the only server which can stream all today's known formats? Well, it easy. The pricing and license policy of Real has change dramatically with the Heliax Server and it's close to impossible to pay the license fees for this server. The little comparison chart of the Big 3 below, shows up only the prices of the old streaming server (+$6000) but with Heliax you can triple this price easily. Products: Players: RealPlayer, RealJukebox, RealSlideshow. RealPlayer has 150 million unique registered users. Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux. RealServer: Real Server Professional, Real Server Intranet, Real Server Plus, Real Server Basic.
Apple Darwin
This Streaming Server is available in two versions, the Quicktime Streaming Server based on Mac Systems and the open Source Version which is running on Linux Systems. It's a good streaming solution but you will miss some advantages and newer functions you will get with a Real or Microsoft Streaming Server. The main problem with the Darwin or Quicktime Streaming Servers are, that the are made for the Quicktime Format and will not stream any other video format except .mov and mp4 files, even the Quicktime Encoder will give you the best sound of all the encoders which are available. A good page to get more infos and detailed tutorials how to install the Darwin Streaming Server is http://www.soundscreen.com/ and of course the official homepage of the Apple Quicktime Streaming Server and the Apple Open Source Project Darwin.Products: QuickTime Streaming Server 3: Free. supports RTP/RTSP and HTTP streaming, requires Mac OS X. Features: Serves QuickTime files stored on the server (video on demand), Supports more than 2,000 streams to QuickTime users concurrently, Supports hundreds of stored files, Acts as a reflector for live broadcasts, Provides access control to media files using authentication modules, Compliant with Lariat Darwin Streaming Server 3: open sourced, based on QuickTime Streaming Server, supports Linux, Mac, Windows, SunOS QuickTime Media Player: for Mac and Windows.
Microsoft
The windows media server is probably the most used streaming solution now a days. The media servers will be for free together with the license of the 2003 Server and Enterprise Edition of Windows. It will give you a very detailed administration interface and many possibilities to control your streams. Anyhow, the problem with the windows media server is the integrated authorization system. To integrate the Microsoft Streaming Server into a member site, you will need to install some third party solutions to get the protection a webmaster is usually looking for.A third party product like VideoGuard of HoyaSoft (http://www.hoyasoft.com/product_videoguard.html) allows administrators to
- password protect streaming media (video and audio) served through Windows Media Services / NetShow
- Restricts the connection of user IP addresses
- Validates Form Login against ODBC database
- Checks content access rights against ODBC database
- Updates intensive reports of media streaming to ODBC database
- Limited Concurrent Logins: Multiple persons using the same username and password are detected and prevented from logging in at the same time This prevents illicit users from posting their usernames and password on the Web
- Dictionary Attack Protection (DAP): Protects the login form from subversive dictionary attack programs. Dictionary attack programs run through a list of dictionary words, attempting to find a username and password combination that works
- Limited contents by IP address in a given time
- Prevents Web spiders from stealing media by blocking their IP addresses
The disadvantages of the Microsoft Media Server are that you can stream ASF (wmv, wma, asf) files only but the costs per stream are much lower than with any other solution and do not forget that 98% of all your customers are on a Windows machine and the player is already installed to watch the Windows Media videos.
Products: Windows Media Encoder: The media player (video and audio) that is shipped with every Windows box. Supports streaming from MS Media Services. Platform: Windows and Mac. Windows Media Player for PocketPC: Windows Media Player 10: Compression file/formats: ASF, WAV, AVI, MOV, MPEG, MIDI, IVF, AIF, VOD, AU, MP3, ID3 Windows Media Rights Manager: Windows Media Services: Streaming server. Compression: Microsoft ASF (MPEG-4). Streaming protocol: MMS (proprietary), RSTP and HTTP. Platform: Windows 2003 Server. Supports Digital rights management. Administration: Service Based
Cost Comparison Sheet: The Big Three
Unreal Media Server
This Streaming Server would might be a good solution and alternative to the Big 3 Streaming Servers. It can stream close to any video format which is available and you are able to make your video streams secure by using the integrated session based authentication system. The Unreal media server is a Streaming Server for Windows. It can stream for e.g. AVI (DivX, XVid), MPEG-1/2, MPA, WMV, WMA, ASF, MP3, QuickTime and Live media sources include: digital cameras, microphones, TV-tuners, analog video sources (analog camera or TV) connected to Video card or to FrameGrabber card that supports DirectShow interface. The free version of the Unreal Media Server is able to serve 15 concurrent streams. For an unlimited version which does not has any limitation you have to pay a small fee of about $800.- The server runs pretty stable just the load of the videos is a little bit bad as it can take more than 20 seconds before a video starts playing (depends to the video size and format). The pitty here is, that you do not get any info that the video is loading. Another disadvantage is you will need to install the ActiveX Player to watch the videos. This will sometimes keep some people out for watching your videos.Burst.com
Product: Burstware. Streaming media server software solution, proprietary transport protocol, codec neutral, live functionality, fail-safe functionality. Runs on Quicktime and MS Media Player with Burst plug-ins.Kasenna
Products: Mediabase: Streaming and content management software. Three layers: 1) Media Distribution 2) Media asset management (acquisition, storage, meta data management) 3) Media streaming through Kasenna pump (QuickTime, MPEG 1/2), RealServer, streaming. Platforms: Irix (SGI), Linux, Solaris.Streaming21
Products: S21 Player: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MP3, ASF, VCD. Microsoft Windows Media Player based. MediaServer: compression standards: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MP3, ASF, VCD. Java based remote management. Scalable servers, fail-safe functionality. MP3 Server: User authentication and license access control. Architecture that facilitates e-commerce with ODBC MediaCaster: Live and scheduled multicasts and broadcasts. Up to 7 concurrent audio and video channels per server.iVast
Products: iVAST Studio SDK: a suite of iVast technologies that integrate with 3rd party authoring tools. iVAST Server: MPEG-4 streaming server software. iVAST SystemWare: corba compliant middleware for 3rd party application integration (ad serving, accounting, e-commence, digital rights management). iVAST Player: MPEG-4 player (video, video object planes, 3D rendering, 2D vector graphics, interactivity).Philips Digital Networks MP4Net
Products: WebCine Player: MPEG-4 player, Windows. WebCine Encoder: MPEG-4, video and audio. WebCine Server: RTP, RTSP, runs on Linux.3CX
Products: IXJET Streaming Server: Streaming server. Supports MPEG2, MPEG1, QuickTime and ASF files. Platform: Windows NT. Requires Microsoft Netshow Services. IXJET Live Server: Uses Array Microsystem's VF100/200 MPEG-1 encoder board. rcPlayer: Platforms: Windows, Mac. Requires QuickTime, DirectShow 5.1 or later for software MPEG-1 decoding or Java Media Framework MPEG-1 playback.On2
Products: TrueCast™ Client/Server Architecture: streaming server. Compression technology: VP3™ Codec. Hosted by On2. Player: Java based VP3 decoder. VP3 Plug-in's for QuickTime player and RealPlayer.Star Media Center
A directshow video player that can playback videos (formally known as AIW Player), playback DVDs (decoder needed), control your tv-card and broadcast/stream over the internet or LAN your tv-card programs (both TV channels and FM Radio stations). All in one solution and it's freeware.VLC media player / VideoLAN
VLC (initially VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream video.Flash Media Server 2
The Flash Media Server is a new Streaming Server compared to the other video streaming servers. With a price of about $6.000,00 it's probably not the cheapest streaming solution, but of course it will give you some other possibilities which are dedicated to flash applications. At the end you have to encode the videos in any of the common formats like MPEGI, WMV, AVI etc and integrate these videos into your flash file. Therefor you will not save any efforts to encode the videos, but you have some other to script some interaction to your videos.Video Converting & Helper Tools
And first the bad news: There will be never a common way how to convert videos to videos for the internet use. There will be always a problem. It could be the quality of the orig. video is not good enough, or the codec of the AVI file is not available, or just the bandwith of the user is not wide enough to get the video it self or the audio of the video. But, and now the good thing, there are ways to deliver to about 99% of the customers a video they can watch, even this will take always some preparation time.The most important thing to encode videos is the CPU power of your computer. As more CPU power you will have as faster the process of the encoding will go through. Also some amount of main storage (RAM) of a minimum of 1024MB or better 2048MB would be very helpfull. And last but not least, of course the videos will take some disk space, so 160GB of disk space would be also not to bad at all.
A lot of tools are available on the market to convert videos to different formats. To say this or that will be the best tool of them is probably not possible and will be by the end always a personal choice. At the end all of them are doing more or less the same thing. Converting videos from one format to the other format.
A usual process to convert videos would be as described below:
The Video Source could be a VHS, SVHS, DV-TAPE, DVD or just a video in any format which should be encoded to a new format.
The Converting process depends always to the source of the video you have. It could take just one step (encoding from one to another format) or more steps (encoding videos from a DVD to internet videos). A lot of tools how to encode DVD and Videos from other sources are also available at the net. Some of the best you may find at http://www.videohelp.com/ and at http://www.doom9.org/ You also will find some links to some of the needed utilities and little helper tools there.
DVD Rippers
I do not want to list here all DVD Rippers which are available, I just will mention the ones I usually use. I must say there is no real reason to use more than one ripper, but sometimes the DVDs are organized a little bit unusable by the production companies and it seems that the one Ripper can handle some of them much easier then the other. Anyhow, you will need a Ripper to extract the VOB Files and convert them to a readable format fro the encoding tools. Some Video editors like Vegas Video are able to handle the VOB Files of a DVD directly, as the VOB files are usually MPEG2 Video Files, but it's not a big fun to handle 4 files where each has a size 1GB, so it's easier to Rip them first and encode them to a more handy format with a smaller file size.My favorite Ripping Tool is the DVD Encrypter, http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=dvddecrypter&btnG You can rip the DVD by files, IFO Index or just as a ISO image (which you usually do not need). Also you can select the Audio file and the sub titles you like to get from the DVD. Just keep in mind, when you rip a DVD to encode it to another video format, you can use one audio sequence only as none of the video formats will be able to handle different audio sequences with a video. The other tool I usually use to rip DVDs is the Smart Ripper.
A good tutorial how to use the smart ripper could be found at:
http://www.dvdhelp.us/index.html?html/tutsmartripper.html~mainFrame.
Converting Tools
If you have the chance to store the ripped VOB files, just keep them and store them on a save place. I will guarentee you, you will need them again. Maybe not tomorrow, but at least when the you deceide to encode your videos again, because the bandwith of the user has increased and the can get now a better version of your videos. But there are many other reasons why to keep them as well. Just keep my words in your mind: You will need them once a day! But, another possibility to keep a good version of your videos, but not using that much storage would be to convert them to a HQ Version of any other codec. Good codecs to keep and store videos for later usage are DivX and the WMV-VCD Codec (the AVI Version of WMV). Encode the videos first to one of these codec with about 1900KBits up to 2400Kbits for the Video itself and 224KBits for the Audio at MP3. These video formats will also allow you to grab screen photos from your videos in a good quality and the file size of your original 4GB videos will be reduced to about 1.8 to 2.5GB per 90 minutes video.MPEG Mediator: (http://www.google.de/search?hl=en&q=mpegmediator) is probably the most easy and fastest encoder which is around. But the best this tool is for free and automatically comes with the bbmpeg codec which is also for free. If you have installed the different MPEG4, DivX and MWMV-VCD Codecs it also can encode your videos to the different AVI Formats using one of these codecs. I must say, I never would use it for MPEGs with the bbcodec, as I personally do not like the results and do not have the time to play around with this codec. If you are looking for an excellent MPEG Codec I would recommend the Panasonic Codec for MPEGI & II or the latest MPEGI & II codec from Canopus where we already at my second suggestion for video tools.
Canopus (http://www.canopus.com/ ) are offering probably some of the best video tools for beginners, semi- and professionals. They are not only offering encoding tools, you can get the also a real time MPEGII editor as well as some video cards which will fit for any need.
VideoCharge (http://www.videocharge.com/) is not only a converting tool for videos. It includes also an editor to cut videos and to apply some effects or filters to the videos. But the most important tool at VideoCharge is, the easy way to make thumbs or preview scenes from the videos. With the batch tool of VideoCharge you can easily take screen grabs from any defined frame or time line you like. VideoCharge is a full-range editor, which allows users to perform practically any operations with incoming files such as: splitting files up into several scenes, merging several files into a single file, cutting scene(s) out of video files, creating video file(s) based on selected scene(s), creating thumbnails for video files in manually or automatically mode, addition Watermark to movie(s) or thumbnail(s), Solving Interlace Video problem. A very special tool of video charge is, that the splitting process could be automated, but this will work only if you have a second of a black screen during the different scenes.
Encoding a DVD to a WMV Video
I want to describe here closer the way to encode a video from a DVD to a WMV video file, as the WMV Video format is probably the most common used video format at the net.- First of all you have to rip the VOB Files from the DVD. I usually make this on the basis of the ifo files and not on the vob files, so I can exclude the menue control and trailers, photo gals etc. which are sometimes also on the DVD. If you have more than one languages on the DVD, you have to select the right audio for the ripping process. You can handle one audio sequence only for the ripping process with the video. The English audio sequence usually is placed on 0x80. The ripping process usually takes about 20 minutes per DVD.
- Now you will have the vob files incl. the audio sequence on your Hard Disk (do not start the process to encode the DVD directly from the DVD, as this can damage your DVD Drive because of the amount of I/O's which are happen during the encoding process). Load the ripped VOB files into your encoder (for e.g. MPEG Mediator). I usually encode the video now to an AVI format using the WMV Codec for AVI, but you will also get great results by using the DivX Codec. Usually I use 1950Kbit/s for the video and 224Kbit/s (MP3) for the audio. The encoded video will have about 1.6GB (90 Minutes) and you will not recognize any big differences to the original MPEGII video which has about 4GB. This process will take between 2.5h to 8h (or more) depending to the processor of your PC.
- Now I usually cut (for e.g. EasyVideoSplitter from http://www.doeasier.org/) the encoded video into the scenes or sequences I would like to have. These cut videos are also always my save copy as far as I will ever encode them again to a higher resolution for the internet usage.
- The last step is to encode the cut videos to the wmv formats you like to present at your website. The easiest way to do this, is to use the BatchEncoder Utility of Microsoft. You should have installed the different tools, codecs and packages which you can download at the Microsoft.com site. A list of the needed downloads you will find below:
1) Microsoft .NET Framework Version 1.1 Redistributable Package
2) Windows Media Player (v.10 for XP v.9 for 2000/2003 Server)
3) Codec Installation Package (WM 7 & 8 Codecs)
4) Windows Media Encoder 9 Series
5) Windows Media Encoder 9 Series SDK
6) Windows Media Video 9 VCM
(The followings are nice to have)
7) Sample Code for Using the Windows Media Audio and Video Codec Interfaces
8) Windows Media Player Mobile Code Samples
Of course, you also can use any other encoder you like or you can convert the videos also to any other distributable codec like RM or QM if you prefer this.
I usually use 4 different resolutions for the WMV Files (LQ, SQ, GQ and HQ). You can organize these easy by using different profiles for the BatchEncoder. Below you will find the definitions of the HQ profile I am using. Just copy them and save them as a .prx (encoder profile) to the folder within \Windows Media Components\Encoder\Profiles. You can edit it with the MS Profile Encoder which will be delivered together with the MS Encoder Package and change the video and audio stream information for the other profiles and safe these as a new profile.
HQ Profile
<profile version="589824"
storageformat="1"
name="WMV-A-Class"
description="">
<streamconfig majortype="{73647561-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}"
streamnumber="1"
streamname="Audio Stream"
inputname="Audio407"
bitrate="31960"
bufferwindow="8000"
reliabletransport="0"
decodercomplexity=""
rfc1766langid="de"
>
<wmmediatype subtype="{00000161-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}"
bfixedsizesamples="1"
btemporalcompression="0"
lsamplesize="742">
<waveformatex wFormatTag="353"
nChannels="2"
nSamplesPerSec="44100"
nAvgBytesPerSec="3995"
nBlockAlign="742"
wBitsPerSample="16"
codecdata="008800001F0031170000"/>
</wmmediatype>
</streamconfig>
<streamconfig majortype="{73646976-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}"
streamnumber="2"
streamname="Video Stream"
inputname="Video407"
bitrate="699000"
bufferwindow="8000"
reliabletransport="0"
decodercomplexity="AU"
rfc1766langid="de"
>
<videomediaprops maxkeyframespacing="30000000"
quality="98"/>
<wmmediatype subtype="{33564D57-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}"
bfixedsizesamples="0"
btemporalcompression="1"
lsamplesize="0">
<videoinfoheader dwbitrate="699000"
dwbiterrorrate="0"
avgtimeperframe="333333">
<rcsource left="0"
top="0"
right="640"
bottom="480"/>
<rctarget left="0"
top="0"
right="640"
bottom="480"/>
<bitmapinfoheader biwidth="640"
biheight="480"
biplanes="1"
bibitcount="24"
bicompression="WMV3"
bisizeimage="0"
bixpelspermeter="0"
biypelspermeter="0"
biclrused="0"
biclrimportant="0"/>
</videoinfoheader>
</wmmediatype>
</streamconfig>
</profile>
Usefull Links & Tricks
- Adding Windows Media to Web Pages
- Detailed Object Model Comparison
This is one of the most important pages.
There are big differences between the old 6.4 version to the new version 10 of the Windows Media Player and which parameter tags could be used or changed.
- How to Distribute Using Windows Media Services 4.1
- Microsoft Windows Media - Windows Media Player FAQ
- Microsoft Windows Media - Windows Media SDK Components
- Microsoft Windows Media - Windows Media Services 9 Series
- Using the ActiveMovie Control in Web Pages, Part I HTML Tags
