Build your own Micro Studio

Over the last two years the rise in mini or “micro” studios around the world grew as the new economy of virtual meetings hit an all-time high. I don't mean micro-studio apartments, what I'm talking about is transforming small office spaces into a personal video production studio with enhanced audio and video technology that provide professional studio quality in a safe environment. 

As it's said, necessity is the mother of invention. COVID created challenges and opportunities for the video industry, and it forced us all to work differently and adapt, and regardless of what happened the need to communicate was our driving force and the show must go on. 

So, early in the pandemic my team and I created a series of micro studios within our regional headquarters by converting empty offices into small studio spaces we call micro studios. We did it by necessity, as we had to socially distance our studio presenters and talent since they couldn't be in the same space due to COVID restrictions. But in our micro studios, they could safely meet with each other over a video call from their own mini studios.

But why go to all the trouble of building your own micro studio if the built-in webcam and microphone on your laptop and just regular ambient light works fine for most meetings? 

Because production quality matters, and high-quality video content increases engagement. So, if you’re presenting important information, teaching a class, public speaking or if you're appearing on any virtual event or broadcast TV, and you want to stand out and look and sound the best you can, then this blog post is for you. 

As we built our micro studios, we tested a lot of different equipment and set ups and developed an affordable solution that we could replicate. We've successfully connected them to Zoom, Teams, WebEx, Vmix call, OBS, Restream, and many other virtual event platforms. Several of our regional leaders use our micro studios on a regular basis for their important board meetings and high-profile external events. I'd also add that we instituted and follow COVID workplace safety procedures to keep our staff and guests safe by wearing masks and disinfecting workspaces and equipment.

Here are the main components of our micro studios:

1. Computer - The Apple Mac mini M1 model 16 GB RAM, keyboard, mouse, is great if you’re using it primarily for virtual meetings and lighter streaming applications this model works great and runs, Zoom, Teams OBS, and all productivity apps with ease. 

2. Monitor - This is a real subjective choice, depending on what other work you do an inexpensive LCD monitor with HDMI inputs will work. We use the LG 29WN600-W 29" 21:9 UltraWide and the Acer B277 27" LED LCD Monitor.

3. Speakers - The Yamaha NX-50 Premium Computer Speakers were recommended by my audio engineers for their great sound at an affordable price. They work well and sound great although for most applications we prefer the in-ear monitors for very conversational sessions. This helps avoid any sort of audio slap back that isn’t eliminated by the echo cancellation in the video call software. 

4. Webcam - Logitech Brio 4K Webcam is the industry standard to get HD quality and look really great on camera. There are plenty of other options for higher quality with DSLR‘s, Blackmagic Pocket cinema cameras, but the Brio is a workhorse for your business meetings and webinars. Logitech has the Logi Tune app you can download that controls the settings from the Brio like your zoom ratio, white balance, focus, brightness and contrast. Logitech Capture app is also a content creation tool you can use with your webcam.

5. Audio interface - We handle audio differently than regular meetings, which usually are fine with just an inexpensive USB headset or Bluetooth earbuds. We use professional studio sound equipment that includes an audio interface, an omnidirectional lavalier microphone and an in ear monitor. In the micro studios we use the Focusrite Scarlett Solo 2x2 USB Audio Interface, and for our travel audio kits we’ve developed for our senior leaders we use the Shure X2U XLR-to-USB Signal Adapter. Both devices have professional XLR inputs and headphone jacks to monitor your audio input and output and a USB port to connect to your computer. The Scarlet has quarter inch 6.35 mm (1⁄4 in) outs which helps integration with other professional audio equipment. 

6. Microphone & in ear monitor - While more inexpensive options are available, we go DPA all the way. We use the 4060 Series Miniature Omnidirectional lavalier microphones and DPA Microphones d:fine In-Ear Broadcast Headset. We use DPA microphones in studio and these amazing mics have withstood the rigors of space travel and exploring the sounds of Mars. More inexpensive options are available like the  Sennheiser XS Lav USB-C Lapel Mic or any of these USB Lavalier Microphones.

7. Lighting - Depending on the room and size of the space, we use a similar approach but have several different lighting instruments with both ring lights and soft light panels. We don't use three-point lighting in our micro studios since that would be too dramatic and overkill. The key is to have flat even lighting on your subject so that there are no shadows. Soft incident light helps create that look and a simple way to achieve this look is to bounce your lights off your office walls. You can also position your lights to avoid those round ring light circles or lighting reflections in glasses. We use a few different lights in our spaces, like the VL-200T Portable LED Video Ultra-Thin Dimmable Lighting Panel with the Neewer Mini Set of Two Aluminum Photography Back Light Stands. We also use the more expensive Litepanels Astra 6X Bi-Color LED Panels. For ring lights, we use the CLAR Luminous Pro 19" Bi-Color Ringlight Plus which has actually been discontinued, so a good alternative is the CLAR LF-Y500 Double Arm 3000-6500K LED Light or the VidPro RL-18 LED 18" Ring Light. 

8. Green screen - Using a green screen with your virtual backgrounds on Zoom calls will enhance your quality with a professional looking chroma key. We use the FUDESY Collapsible Chromakey Panel Green Screen-77 x74 Backdrop with great results.

There are so many other equipment options out there as the market shifted to remote work and home studios over the last two years. We've tried out many solutions and found this collection of products work best in our environment. I'll be sharing more detail on some of the individual components and devices in future posts.

I'd love to hear what technology and solutions you're using in your own micro studios. Let me know if you have any recommendations or what you're doing to get the best audio and video quality for your virtual events.

Jan Ozer's Thoughts on Why Adobe Abandoned Flash for Mobile

Streaming Media West was abuzz this past week with Adobe's surprising announcement that it will abandon future development of Flash Player for mobile devices following the next release 11.1, and will be more aggressively contribute to HTML5 innovation with key players, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM. Adobe will continue to support its current Flash development. Over the last few years HTML5 and H.264 video have been gaining momentum as an emerging standard for online and mobile video, spurred on by Apple's exclusion of Flash on its popular iDevices and negative press it received from Steve Jobs' Thoughts on Flash. Adobe had developed Flash Player to run on Google's Android and other non-Apple mobile platforms, but its official statement from its blog post now says,"HTML5 is the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms."

While Adobe had a strong presence at Streaming Media West with its Platinum sponsorship of the conference, prominent spot on the exhibit floor and usual pre-conference session with Kevin Towes, the company was tight lipped about why it decided to withdraw Flash from the mobile market. I caught up with Jan Ozer, Video Producer, Writer, Publisher of StreamingLearningCenter.com and author of Video Compression for Flash, Apple Devices and HTML5, to get his perspective on the implications of the announcement for the online video industry, mobile developers and consumers.

Ozer says Adobe made this move for three reasons. Number one, they were fighting against the current at least with Apple, and then with Microsoft's recent announcement about their tablet oriented operating system, they can't fight this. Number two, Ozer says, Adobe wasn't getting then support it needed from Google and other vendors to make Flash work effectively on mobile platforms. The last thing he says is, as computers get more powerful people are building applications that require more power and faster CPUs to run smoothly, and Flash-enabled tablets and phones simply don't have the power to run smoothly and deliver a quality experience.

This doesn't mean that Flash on the desktop is going away anytime soon, and Ozer says that it will actually create a tale of two websites, with a web version that is completely immersive Flash experience, and the other more simple and targeted for mobile devices.

"That's already being done by some vendors like Converse, who, if you visit it with an iPad, sends you to a simple e-commerce site, but if you visit with a computer, sends you to an immersive Flash experience. The other is that many vendors, seeking to minimize development costs, will produce a single site using HTML5 that lacks much of the immersion that Flash can provide." 

While many are saying Adobe's announcement is significant, Ozer points out:

"In terms of video, remember that HTML5 doesn't have many key technologies now being used or implemented by the primary distributers of non-UGC video on the web (networks, studios, etc). These include adaptive streaming, digital rights management (DRM), peer-to-peer delivery, and in the enterprise space, multi-casting. Remember also that at last count (November 9, 2011), the penetration of HTML5 compatible browsers on connected computers was under 60%. Streaming producers are going to need a plug-in based option for several more years, and Flash is the obvious choice. "

He described the implications in greater detail on in this blog post, Adobe to Discontinue Flash for Mobile, and offered this advise to online video publishers.

"If you're a web producer trying to access these mobile devices, your strategy doesn't change much either. You've had to deliver to desktops with one technology and iDevices with another, Android has always been a fractured market. Now you'll likely deliver to all mobiles using a single technology (let's hope) and all desktops with another. Certainly Google's adaption of HTTP Live Streaming in Android 3.0 is a good sign."

Related:

• Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Adobe to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5 (Adobe Featured Blogs)
• Adobe to Discontinue Flash for Mobile | StreamingLearningCenter.com
• Adobe to Discontinue Flash on Mobile Devices - Streaming Media Magazine
• The Future of Flash a Hot Topic at HTML5 Video Summit, SMW - Streaming Media Magazine
• Flash Into (Not so) Thin AIR - Streaming Media Magazine
• Adobe Abandons Flash For Mobile Devices

Fear and Loathing in Online Video: The Codec Conundrum Continues

My last post described, what Google's decision to drop H.264 from Chrome in favor of its own WebM format means for online video publishers, and concluded that this situation creates even more complexity video publishers, along with the potential of a massive increase in video publishing costs. It's been over a week now since Google made that announcement and commentary across the web all led to a similar conclusion – that Flash video is the winner in this latest codec conundrum, and now the safest bet for online video publishers producing video for the web.

Many have both lauded and lambasted Google's decision while many others have shrugged it off as not being a really a big deal.

Regardless of the debate around "open" and "closed" standards and patents or codecs and containers – the net result of Google's decision affects the entire ecosystem of video content creators, publishers, developers and advertisers and has created an atmosphere of fear and loathing in online video.

Google replies to criticism 

Google defended its decision in follow up post on the Chromium Blog: More about the Chrome HTML Video Codec Change, where Google Product Manager Mike Jazayeri addressed some of the key questions.

Regarding Google's decision to support WebM for HTML (video) tag, Jazayeri provided the following explanation:

"We believe there is great promise in the (video) tag and want to see it succeed. As it stands, the organizations involved in defining the HTML video standard are at an impasse. There is no agreement on which video codec should be the baseline standard. Firefox and Opera support the open WebM and Ogg Theora codecs and will not support H.264 due to its licensing requirements; Safari and IE9 support H.264. With this status quo, all publishers and developers using the (video) tag will be forced to support multiple formats.

This is not an ideal situation and we want to see a viable baseline codec that all browsers can support. It is clear that there will not be agreement to specify H.264 as the baseline codec in the HTML video standard due to its licensing requirements. Furthermore, we genuinely believe that core web technologies need to be open and community developed to enable the same great innovation that has brought the web to where it is today. These facts led us to join the efforts of the web community and invest in an open alternative, WebM."

Jazayeri admitted that H.264 has broader support in the publisher, developer, and hardware community today but due to its licensing requirements and patent royalties, which could potentially increase over time, it could not back it as the baseline in the HTML video standard. He reiterated Google's vision to create "open innovation" for video on the web, and that its significant investment in making WebM an open platform for development was proof of that.

But Google was not abandoning H.264 altogether, Jazayeri said, and pointed out that the majority of H.264 videos on the web are viewed in plug-ins such as Flash and Silverlight, and H.264 will continue to be supported in Chrome through a plug-in as well. He admitted that this decision will force publishers to create multiple versions of their videos, but argued that it was already the case since Firefox and Opera never supported H.264 in the HTML (video) tag.

Additionally, Google is already doing with YouTube videos and with the proliferation of mobile devices, platforms, and connectivity types across the web, he added that most content providers already produce multiple versions of their videos. Google is confident that WebM will emerge as a viable and compelling solution for publishers and the WebM Project team will soon release plugins that enable WebM support in Safari and IE9 via the HTML standard (video) tag.


Jazayeri's final point acknowledged the elephant in the room:

"Bottom line, we are at an impasse in the evolution of HTML video. Having no baseline codec in the HTML specification is far from ideal. This is why we're joining others in the community to invest in WebM and encouraging every browser vendor to adopt it for the emerging HTML video platform. Our choice was to make a decision today and invest in open technology to move the platform forward, or to accept the status quo of a fragmented platform where the pace of innovation may be clouded by the interests of those collecting royalties. Seen in this light, we are choosing to bet on the open web and are confident this decision will spur innovation that benefits users and the industry."

Fear, loathing and confusion

Jazayeri's post generated over 240 comments which spoke to the clear division within the business and developer communities, with many who have spoken out against Google's principles of "open" calling it inconsistent and hypocritical, including:

• MG Siegler: Google Clarifies Their H.264 Stance, Hands Keys Of Web Video’s Future Back To Flash
• Dan Frommer: Sorry Google, But "Open" Is A Crock 
• John Gruber: Daring Fireball: The Practical vs. Idealistic Scenarios for the Near-Term Future of Online Video
• Tim Sneath: An Open Letter from the President of the United States of Google - MSDN Blogs
• Prasad Naik: Google Drops H.264 in Chrome. What does it mean?

While on the other side of the argument, others have come out in defense of Google's decision:

• Haavard - Is the removal of H.264 from Chrome a step backward for openness? and Haavard - John Gruber's fundamental misunderstanding
• John Dowdell; VIDEO debate, cutting to the chase « jd/adobe
• Thom Holwerda: Microsoft, Opera's Haavard Respond to Google's H.264 Move and Google: H.264 Stifles Innovation

But some have gone into great detail to provide unbiased analysis of the situation:

• l@antimatter15: The Ambiguity of “Open” and VP8 vs. H.264 – Blog.
• Steve Yelington: The video tag mess, and why Google's interests are (mostly) our interests | yelvington.com 

The video industry responds

Many voices within online video industry have spoken up as well, mainly to educate consumers and publishers. Brightcove launched its Jumpstart Your Online Video Strategy for 2011 webinar series and Sorenson Media's David Dudas provided, A Simple Explanation Of The Huge WebM Versus H.264 Debate in a recent article on Business Insider.

Dudas offered the following analogy:

"You can think of the H.264 and WebM video formats as modern day VHS and Betamax tapes, and think of the Web browsers on iOS and Android devices as the respective tape decks  (left as an exercise for the reader to determine which is which). Imagine coming home from the video store with your favorite new move on VHS tape and trying to cram it into a Betamax deck. Wouldn't exactly work, would it? Well, that's the same experience consumers will have in the near future as they try to watch H.264 video on Chrome-powered devices, or WebM video on Safari-powered devices. The format wars are alive and well my friends.

So what does this mean to you, the business person who depends on online video as a core part of your business? Quite frankly, it means you're on the hook to ensure cross-device compatibility for all your video content."

Dudas offered a few real world examples of publishing video to Hulu and Netflix to describe the complexity that content publishers face to get their videos to "just work" on each of the platforms. Hulu provides a rich viewer experience on the web, but it doesn't work on the iPad. In contrast to Netflix, which works on almost any device.

But making it "just work" isn't easy, as Dudas said:

"The complexities of device compatibility go far beyond the H.264 vs. WebM debate: each device supports different frame sizes, data rates, codec profiles, adaptive streaming protocols, digital rights management frameworks, and so on. The encoding phase of content production - and, to a lesser extent, the delivery - is where all of these things are either done right or done wrong. Doing it wrong means your encoded content may not play back, or - if it does play back - it may look absolutely terrible. We're not sure which is worse. On the other hand, doing it right means your customers will be delighted rather than frustrated, captive rather than fleeting, which translates to more time and money spent with your business."

On ProVideo Coalition.com, Allan Tépper said that Google has thrown a monkey wrench into video distribution and complicated video producer's workflow, and echoed Dudas' advice:

"What does this mean for us content producers? The goal of any intelligent content producer is to create material which is visible on all popular computers, mobile devices, set top boxes & HDTV sets with onboard streaming, including Apple’s iOS (AppleTV, iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch) and Google’s Android phones, tablets (including most non-Apple ones), and GoogleTV. Unless Google relents (which I hope but do not expect to happen), content producers who want to offer a universally accepted, seamless experience on the mentioned devices will be now need to encode web video in at least two video códecs (i.e. H.264 and WebM or Theora) with the required web code to auto-negotiate among raw H.264, raw WebM (or Theora), and H.264 embedded in Flash. Google has thrown a monkey wrench into our workflow and best practices, and I’m not the only one complaining."

Will Google drop H.264 in YouTube?


That's the big question that's been on everyone's mind. The Guardian’s Charles Arthur asked Google directly and was told that this change is related to Chrome and not YouTube. Google supports many formats on YouTube, and has an opt-in HTML5 trial for YouTube. Browsers that support the video tag in HTML5 can choose either the H.264 video codec or the WebM format (with VP8 codec).

Arthur went on to ask a number of other related questions that posed by commenters of his previous post, Google's WebM v H.264: who wins and loses in the video codec wars?, and summed up Google's answers:

• "YouTube isn't giving up H.264. At all. You can, if you're determined, get WebM/VP8 content on YouTube (both to contribute and download). There's the possibility that it is re-encoding all its content into WebM - just as it did to H.264 in June 2007, when the iPhone was about to arrive. That took something like three or four months to do. The library is bigger now, but so is Google's processing power."
• "The lack of any date, or inclination, on the part of YouTube indicates that this is purely a decision made by the Chrome team to push things along."
• "This isn't going to affect the mobile side - so iPhones, iPads, iPod Touches are not going to go dark."
• "Hardware to decode VP8 might be on the horizon - but Google can't do much to push it along except improve the codec, and do things like, well, drop H.264 support in its browser. (Pretty much everyone will see no difference, because the H.264 decoding will be handed off to the operating system.) I asked how many people are working on improving the VP8 codec, since that's sometimes helpful to know: is it a priority? But Google didn't want to discuss team sizes. Hm."

WebM's growing support

While this situation has become more complicated for video publishers, many within the tech industry believe that support for WebM will grow as the format gains wider adoption among software and hardware vendors. This past week, the Free Software Foundation, a non-profit corporation that advocates free software ideals and an early supporter of WebM, publicly urged web site owners to distribute videos in the WebM format, and abandon H.264.

This infographic by Niels Leenheer shows the current and future state of H.264 vs. WebM.

From: http://html5test.com/

Changes for Google, Apple and HTML5

Whether or not Google's claim of open video is genuine or not, or if its stand against H.264 in Chrome is really a swipe at Apple's dominance in the mobile browser market, it's interesting to note that both Google and Apple have seen a change in leadership within the last week – with Steve Jobs taking a leave of absence with Apple COO Tim Cook stepping in at Apple and Google Co-founder Larry Page replacing Eric Schmidt as Google's new CEO.

It's also interesting to note that just a few days after the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the international community that oversees the HTML standard, introduced a new HTML5 logo  to promote next-generation Web technology, a related standards group, the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG), a community of web browser manufacturers and people interested in evolving the HTML, declared that HTML5 was dead and that the HTML specification will henceforth just be known as "HTML" referred to simply as HTML.

As for the online video industry and what the future holds, the codec conundrum continues.

2010 Was a Breakout Year for Online Video: A Klessblog Year-End Review - Part 2

In part two of this 2010 year-end review, I pick up in April with online video well on its way to becoming mainstream. Monthly video views were on a momentous rise with a billion views a day on YouTube, and long tail video sites captured half of the video views. Video viewers grew more tolerant of video advertising – even the hated pre-roll, Flash vs. HTML5 war heated up with the release of the iPad, Chatroulette captured the public's fascination, OTT video consumption continued to grow, more SMBs and marketers got on board with video marketing, VC money kept pouring into video startups, and online video platforms continued to expand into new markets with major growth in Europe and Asia-Pacific markets.

The month of April started for me with the news that I'd be going to the Streamy Awards thanks to my friends at Popscreen, and I was also going to make my first trip to New York City to go to Streaming Media East.  I was excited to go to the Streamy Awards where I met up with my good friend Mark Robertson, and we actually ended up having front row seats to what's been called, "the train wreck awards" or as Kevin Pollack called "the best rehearsal award show." Aside from the technical difficulties which were forgivable, there was a fair amount of outrage from the web television community by the tone of show, which came off as sophomoric, tasteless, self-deprecating humor that included LisaNova and Chris Hardwick getting molested on stage by Shaycarl and HiimRawn. I know the organizers meant well and worked hard to make the Streamy Awards a success, but the overall execution of the show, which for many went from bad to ugly, set it on a collision course with the devoted web television community.

Aside from the show itself, the Streamy Awards were a great time, and I got to see a lot of friends and meet many new friends too. Several highlights included live performance by The Gregory Brothers of "Magical Streamys Remix" and "Auto-Tune the News #8" and also getting to meet some of the stars and creative team of Safety Geeks: SVI who told me that Season Two will go 3D and John Cleese would be joining the Cast!

Streaming Media announced their third annual Announcing the 2010 Streaming Media All-Stars of people who do their part to advance, evangelize, and expand online video and audio – unsung heroes, visionaries and industry veterans. I was honored to be a 2009 Streaming Media All-Star, and I was pleased to see Mark Robertson among the list that included: Steve Garfield, Lisa Larson-Kelly, Kevin "Nalts" Nalty, Jan Ozer, Andy Plesser, among others.

As April turned to May, I noted that I wasn't able to keep as current on this blog with news and information, as I had been focusing my energy on other areas, including: webinars, meetups, and travel to new places. I did though, get in a CEO Conversation with Seth Kenvin, Market 7 about how his company was making the video production process more collaborative. I also returned to a reoccurring them on the blogm when Don McMillan released a new and expanded version of his classic Life After Death by Powerpoint 2010, which provided a hilarious excursion from all the Flash bashing and Google world domination news.

In May, I participated in Reel SEO's first educational webinar yesterday on, Encoding Video for the Web with the amazing Robert Reinhardt of VideoRx.com and @flashfreaker on Twitter who dropped major video encoding science and Mark Robertson who organized and moderated the event. I shared tips on "What Producers Need to Know about Video Compression." We had 263 attendees from all over the world who stayed with us for the scheduled hour, and 140 or so stayed on for the additional half hour of Q&A.

Encoding Video for the Web - Webinar from ReelSEO.com

View more presentations from Mark Robertson.

The following week, I was in New York City for Streaming Media East 2010 to both attend the event and moderate a panel discussion, Media Framework: Video Publishing Platforms. I packed my Kodak Zi8, microphones, tripod, cables, connectors, batteries, etc) to capture interviews throughout the two-day event. I was joined again by my comrade Mark Robertson, who I thank for hanging out with me, working with me on team coverage of the event and for showing me a great time New York City.

Many thanks as well to Dan Rayburn, Joel Unickow, Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen and the management and staff of Information Today Inc. for putting together great shows, and congratulations on the launch of their new website OnlineVideo.net. According to Eric, OnlineVideo.net focuses on hands-on tips and how-to information to help you get the most out of your online video initiative, it's "Streaming Media for the rest of us." Eric worked closely with Streamingmedia.com writer Troy Drier to fill the site with new content, which as he noted, their other online and magazine publications have become essential reading material for the streaming video industry.

While there were no major industry shaking announcements at Streaming Media East, there was a fair amount of buzz around Adobe's Flash Access 2.0 delivery news and video support on the iPad using the HTML5 video tag. I spent a considerable amount of time on the exhibit floor interviewing online video platform providers, technology gurus, video evangelists, fellow bloggers and friends I've met at the many industry events over the years. Everyone I spoke with shared their unique perspective on the industry, and why video is such an important communication medium.

• Jeffrey Hayzlett, Kodak's former celebrity CMO told me "How Video and Social Media Helped Kodak Get Its Mojo Back". Hayzlett said that in today's media landscape, it's vitally important to be where your customers are and that's why Kodak immersed itself in social media - to engage in a two-way conversation with customers. 
• Jeff Whatcott, SVP of Marketing at Brightcove, demonstrated the new HTML5 video advertising solution available through partnership with Brightcove and FreeWheel. 
• Bismarck Lepe, Ooyala Co-Founder and President of Products gave me a demo of Ooyala's new YouTube video management tool. Ooyala tapped into the YouTube APIs to give publishers the ability to search and discover YouTube video directly from Ooyala's Backlot interface and deliver them within the Ooyala player.  
• Kaltura Co-Founder and CEO Ron Yekutiel said that flexibility and control are the key differences between Kaltura and the other online video platforms on the market, with full control of Flash, Silverlight and HTML5 video content, and the flexible new Kaltura Exchange which fosters third-party development for their open source video platform. 
• Sam Blackman, CEO and Co-Founder of Elemental Technologies, demonstrated Elemental Live and Elemental Server, two enterprise-class video processing systems for live and on-demand streaming that use GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) and other massively parallel chips for video processing. Andy Beach explained, "What the heck is H.264 SVC?", Peter Csathy President and CEO of Sorenson Media, talked about the latest release of its OVP solution and said Sorenson 360 v2 Ready to Take on Enterprise OVP Market. Sorenson rewrote the CMS – moving away from Adobe Flex and fully embracing web application technologies of AJAX and HTML5 – with the goal was to bring greater functionality, speed and customization to video publishers.
• Nick Balletta, CEO of TalkPoint Communications said that webcasting for enterprise communications may finally be reaching a tipping point, and that Talkpoint sees webcasting a business and workflow tool. Years ago it was something nice to do, now it's become a critical part of people's businesses. 
• Eric Armstrong, President and CEO of Kontiki, said that video is the most effective way to reach and engage employees. According to Armstrong, simple media, like email or voicemail is fine for communicating basic facts. But if the message is complex, if there's a lot of changes going on in an organization or if there's a vision or a strategy that needs to be communicated, a leader needs to stand behind the message – and video is the most effective way to communicate those types of messages. Video makes you the owner of the message.
• Jeff Malkin, President of Encoding.com, talked how his company's cloud-based encoding business model works, and how the company and customer base has shaped up over the last year and half. Malkin described Encoding.com's value through cost-savings, quality, and a scalable solution. 
• Lou Schwartz, Head of the Americas for KIT digital, shared an update on the recent merger of Multicast Media with KIT digital. Schwartz discussed the rationale for the merger transaction, and KIT digital's product roadmap strategy focused on multi-platform delivery and greenfield markets. 
• Andy Plesser talked about the launch of Beet.TV in 2006, Beet.TV's unique style of news reporting, how distribution and sponsorship has grown and his perspective on the state of online video today. Beet.TV is generally recognized as the first business-oriented video blog publishing an average of two new videos per day. You can usually spot Andy or his West Coast correspondent and Senior Producer, Daisy Whitney and her husband Jeff Brooks at conferences and industry events, interviewing many of the shakers and movers in the online video industry.
• David Wadler, CEO of Twistage, often pitches Twistage as a glue company – a series of disjointed pieces that they glue together to give publishers a customized video workflow. Most online video platforms, he said, are vertically integrated applications in silos and consumers are generally not given a choice to customize their video workflow. Twistage is built on a core set of open, REST-based APIs, and can seamlessly integrate into any existing workflow as a white-label product. 
• Bill Curci, VP of Marketing at VMIX, talked about the new video analytics and reporting suite, which they call 3D Analytics. Curci explained that their personal 3D analytics suite helps publishers make decisions on a predictive basis – to track what's working and what's not working and make changes to a campaign based on the performance of the specific video(s). 
• Steve Vonder Haar, Research Director and Founder, Interactive Media Strategies talked about how the business video market continues to rise despite the recession. He said, with the rise of hosted video solutions, SMBs found it even easier to deploy video applications, through the robust and scalable SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) offerings of online video platform providers. This has helped fuel the growth of online video communications — with a trend toward moving from internal communications behind the corporate firewall to outward bound audiences.
• Finally, Jim Lanzone, founder and CEO of Clicker.com, talked about how Clicker got started cataloging what's on online to become the "TV Guide for the web," and that with OTT video we're in period between the old world of cable and the coming world of online television. He noted that there are a lot of in between solutions right now, with many different OTT solutions, boxes along with TV manufacturers, cable companies, online portals all fighting to control your experience and that the future will become more dispersed and more fragmented in terms of content providers, while destination sites, like the ABC.com iPad app will grow stronger as they consolidate the viewing experience and disintermediate (cut out the middleman) the market.

Following my trip to New York City, I was a featured speaker on a webinar hosted by Ragan Communications on, "How to produce Flip videos that inform, engage and entertain your employees." I wore my day job hat for this event, as a multimedia professional for Kaiser Permanente, and was joined by my colleague Elizabeth Schainbaum, a staff writer in our Corporate Communications department. We discussed how we're using Flip and Kodak pocket video cameras to capture important employee news to post on our company's Intranet portal. I shared a few important and helpful helpful tips to produce a better videos - such as,  use a tripod or hold the camera steady, interview a few people, make sure they introduce themselves and keep their answers concise, also have them include your question in their answer for context, try to have an interesting background, stay close since the microphone is built in, shoot some B-roll so you can edit in some cut-aways, just to name a few.

How to produce Flip videos that inform, engage and entertain your employees

View more presentations from Online Video Publishing [dot] com.

A few days later, I spoke at the Eastbay LocalPreneurs Meetup Group about how to, Quickly and Easily Master Online Video Promotions and Watch Your Sales Skyrocket, and covered the online video industry and trends, tips for producing online video for business, specific platform you can use to broadcast yourself and, some of my favorite online video resources.

Quickly and Easily Master Online Video Promotions and Watch Your Sales Skyrocket

View more presentations from Online Video Publishing [dot] com.

I also had a great Twitter conversation about Choosing an Online Video Platform with @JustinEdmead of TDot TV. I met Justin through Twitter and we had exchanged a number of messages around the video industry and Online Video Platforms (OVPs). One evening, we had an interesting conversation on Twitter about his exhausting process of selecting an OVP to power the video on his lifestyle video destination site, TDot TV. Justin wanted to replace the platform he built on his own with a scalable hosted video solution. He ultimately selected Brightcove and explained his rationale in a series of 140 character messages which we exchanged over the course of a few hours. Our conversation proved to be a great case study of a publisher who went through the process of comparing and selecting an OVP that was the right fit for his video portal. Justin learned a lot in the process and openly shared his findings with me and the Twitterverse through our open conversation.

In other industry news, Google released VP8 as an open source royalty free video codec, and launched WebMproject.org with broad support from the online video industry. The announcement was aimed at making high-quality, open video freely available to everyone as noted by Google's vice president of product marketing Sundar Pichai who said, “We think video should be a great, free and an open option for all.”

It's been more than 6 months since the WebM Project launched at Google I/O and the project nears a major release of VP8, code named Aylesbury, WebM Project Manager John Luther gave an update at Streaming West 2010. Overall, WebM has seen an incredible adoption rate and is supported in some way by all the desktop browsers. It's become part of FFmpeg, runs on all the major platforms and has been integrated into Skype 5 multi-party conferencing and YouTube HTML5 beta (80% daily videos available in WebM). In addition, 20 new partners have joined long list of software and hardware companies that support the WebM ecosystem. So the future looks quite bright for WebM, and is a clear competitor to H.264 as a standard for online video. But will it pose a major threat to H.264? Stay tuned as the story develops.

Editor's note: This ends Part 2 of Klessblog's 2010 Year-End Review. Stay tuned for Part 3 tomorrow which will conclude this series.
Additional note: Updated 1/29/11 since I forgot to add my Twitter conversation about Choosing an Online Video Platform with @JustinEdmead of TDot TV.

Skype Makes Our Dreams Come True with Skype for iPhone 3.0, Video Chat Now Available!

After much waiting and anticipation, just like that – Skype for iPhone now comes with video. There had been rumors and sightings online about a possible release at CES next week, but Skype finally made our dreams come true with the release of Skype iPhone app. Skype has been no stranger to the news lately with an IPO next year and on the heels of its major outage – Skype "gave the people what they want," by enabling video chat chat capability across the Apple iDevice line, including the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and 4th generation iPod touch with i0S 4.0 or above. Like its previous iPhone apps, Skype for iPhone 3.0 is free.

Mobile video has been considered one of the biggest trends that will explode in 2011, and now Skype's impending dominance of the two-way video chat market is apparent. With its global and mainstream reach of approximately 25 million people signed into Skype at any given time, along with its recent integration with Facebook, Skype has become the biggest disruptor of the live video space. Ironically, among the list of competitors includes Apple's FaceTime, along with Google voice and video chat, Fring, ooVoo, Qik and other live video mobile apps.


Techcrunch's Leena Rao spoke with Rick Osterloh, VP of Consumer Products for Skype, who said that the company had been working on developing video capability in the app for some time and that Apple has been a "great partner" and that “mobile is going to be big for Skype."

 In Skype's press release today, Neil Stevens, general manager of Skype’s consumer business said:

"With video calling representing approximately 40% of all Skype-to-Skype minutes for the first six months of 2010, our users have been eager to get Skype video calling on their mobile phones. By bringing video to mainstream users at their home or work via their desktops, on the go with their mobiles, or into their living room via their TV, Skype has made it possible for millions of people to share video moments wherever they are.”

With this new software, users will be able to:

• Make free Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls over 3G and WiFi.*
• Share video calls on Skype with people on specified iPhones, PC or Mac.
• Talk face-to-face or show what you're seeing with front- and rear-facing cameras.

* Additional data charges may apply. Skype recommends a strong WiFi connection for video calling to get the best quality.

Check out this bizarre Skype ad introducing the new iPhone app. (Friendly warning: Don't watch this if you are creeped out by guys dancing around their underwear, as evidence of the the video thumbnail. It seems that the producers wanted to show that you can "share the moment, anywhere.)

The application works in both portrait and landscape mode, but the downside with the iPhone 3GS and iPad is that neither have a front-facing camera, which makes it less ideal for video chat – but you can receive video on the iPad and chat with a compatible headset and use the rear-facing camera on the iPhone 3GS. However, that may change if the iPad2 comes equipped with a camera. 

Your device will need to be running iOS 4.0 or above and that you are using Skype for iPhone 3.0 or above. The contacts you are calling must be using one of the following Skype clients:

• Skype for Windows version 4.2 and above
• Skype for Mac OS X version 2.8 and above
• Skype for iPhone 3.0 and above

There are many hands-on reviews of the the app on Engadget, GigaOm, 9 to 5 Mac, TMCnet and others, and the reports are that the video quality is clear but not as clear as FaceTime. 9 to 5 Mac estimated that video calls over 3G will use around 3.4 MB of data per minute.

Skype has been growing steadily with 560 million users and 8.1 million of those users pay an average of $96 a year for premium services. Skype generated $13 million in profit on net revenues of $406 million in the first half of 2010. Skype's Android app doesn't yet support video calling, but Skype may have more releases set for CES and ooVoo just released their Android version.

Related:

• Skype 3.0 for iPhone: New Dimensions in Smartphone Video Calling | Voice on the Web
• Skype for iOS Hands-On: A Solid FaceTime Competitor: Mobile Technology News «
• Skype for iPhone gets Video Chat. Works over 3G and with Computers (data usage: 3.4MB per min.) | 9 to 5 Mac Skype for iPhone gets Video Chat. Works over 3G and with Computers (data usage: 3.4MB per min.) | Apple Intelligence

About Skype
Skype is a communications platform provider whose purpose is to break down barriers to communication. With an Internet-connected device, families, friends and colleagues can get together for free with messaging, voice and video. At low cost, they can also call landlines or mobiles virtually anywhere in the world. Skype has recently introduced group video, allowing groups of more than two people to do things together whenever they're apart.

Founded in 2003 and based in Luxembourg. Skype can be downloaded onto computers, mobile phones and other connected devices for free at www.skype.com.

You can get news and updates from Skype on its blog: blogs.skype.com Twitter: twitter.com/skype or Facebook: www.facebook.com/skype.

¡Viva La H.264! MPEG LA Liberates H.264/AVC For All Free Video Content Forever... But What Does It All Mean??

The video codec format war heated up last week, with the announcement by the MPEG LA, that it has freed up the license of the H.264 AVC (Advanced Video Coding) codec, and will not charge royalties for any content that is free to consumers. The MPEG LA is the firm that manages the patent pool for AVC, and earlier this year, it announced it would not charge royalties for such video through December 31, 2015 (PDF link). But now and forever, it has made it free for the life of the license and will only charge for AVC encoded video content sold to end users in any form for a fee, on a title or subscription basis.

H.264/AVC video format is the digital video coding  industry standard H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10, or AVC  used widely in set-top boxes, media player and other personal computer software, mobile devices, Blu-ray Disc™ players and recorders, game machines, personal media player devices and still and video cameras. Apple has become most outspoken proponent of AVC, and backs it as the standard video codec used for its HTML-5 video compatible mobile iDevices like the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, as well as for iTunes videos, and Microsoft also announced support for H.264-encoded HTML5 video in IE9 earlier this year.

Many have speculated that the move by the MPEG LA was spurred on by Google's release of VP8 as an open source royalty free video codec, a new rival to H.264/AVC and potential replacement to the open source Theora. Google announced the release of the VP8 video codec under the WebM Project at the i/O developers conference in May, with broad industry support. Absent from the list of supporters was, of course, Apple.

The tug of war between these two competing video codecs has reached an inflection point according to Streamingmedia.com's Tim Siglin, who says:

"There is little doubt that the most recent announcement by MPEG LA is, in part, a counteraction against the potential inroads that WebM may make in the online video space."

The codec issue is a big dilemma for online video publishers says Jan Ozer. He recently authored a recent survey for StreamingMedia.com, Supporting the iPad and HTML5, and found that less Than 50% of publishers ready to implement HTML5 video,

According to Ozer:

"54% of respondents who were considering HTML5 support rated the lack of single codec either a serious concern, or a very serious concern. Lack of HTML5 browser penetration was rated even more of a concern, but that will resolve in time. The codec issue appears to be a permanent problem which will force producers to encode in as many as four or five different formats in the short term, and at least two in the long term."

Rounding out the analysis from Streaming Media is Dan Rayburn who acknowledged that while the MPEG LA's royalty free license is good news for content owners, it does not address the future market needs for subscription based content services and device manufactures who will continue to pay to license the codec.

Rayburn also agreed that the lack of a codec standard is a major sticking point for the industry:

"The news also does nothing to address what I consider to be a bigger issues which is the need for browsers to give us a single codec we can call use. Companies like Mozilla and Opera are still going to have to pay for a license if they want to support H.264 which means we are not any closer to have much in the way of video standard on the Internet."

As far as browsers go, they are waging their own war. Safari supports H.264, Firefox, Opera and Chrome support WebM, and IE9 will support both as well as its own VC-1. Mozilla has refused to support H.264 as a codec for the HTML5 video tag in Firefox, and it's unlikely it will in the future. Theora plays natively in FireFox 3.5, Chrome as of version 3.0.182.2 and Opera as version 10.50.  All browsers can play H.264 encoded video presented in Adobe's Flash plug-in, but as everyone knows, Flash doesn't play within Apple's iOS on its iDevices. According to current global browser market share and trends of the five major browsers, IE 6.0-8.0 leads with 52.68%, followed by FireFox 3.0+-3.5+ with 31.49% and those numbers are growing steadily as people migrate to the newer versions. Chrome has grown to 9.80%, Safari has about 5.09% and Opera is 1.90%.



Ultimately, it's all not just about patents and licenses, there's a much bigger back story. I like this post by Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire, The Future of Web Content – HTML5, Flash & Mobile Apps, which provides a detailed industry analysis on the codec format and browser wars. He says video is a cornerstone issue and the emergence of the mobile device industry has brought the issue to the forefront:

"With massive growth in hand-held web browsing from smartphones, iTouch devices and the pending iPad product, this has raised a deeper issue for media publishers who are eager to have their content be accessible to end-users. In particular, it is the show-down between Apple, Google and Adobe over who can control video formats on these devices that is creating challenges. Again, this is not about “what is the right technical solution”, it is about the political economy of who controls the formats that in turn lead to owning downstream audience and monetization opportunities."

While many big video websites, like YouTube and Vimeo, have rolled out their own HTML5 video players, we are held at bay by the big browser developers that can't agree which video codec to support in HTML5. The MPEG LA's move has brought us closer to a standard - with the two dominant video codec standards AVC and WebM - the tug of war continues and we're caught in the struggle. Until there is broad support for all codecs and containers across the industry, we won't be reaching a web video standard anytime soon.

About MPEG LA, LLC

MPEG LA is the world leader in alternative technology licenses, enabling users to acquire worldwide patent rights necessary for a technology standard or platform from multiple patent owners in a single transaction as an alternative to negotiating individual licenses. MPEG LA’s initial licensing program for MPEG-2 digital video compression helped produce the most widely employed standard in consumer electronics history, and the MPEG LA® Licensing Model has become the template for addressing other technologies. Today MPEG LA manages licensing programs consisting of essential patents in 57 countries. MPEG LA is an independent licensing administrator; it is not related to any standards agency and is not an affiliate of any patent holder. For more information, please refer to http://www.mpegla.com.

Related:

• To Infinity and Beyond: MPEG LA Extends H.264 Internet Video Moratorium Indefinitely - StreamingMedia.com
• MPEG-LA Announces No royalties on Free Internet Videos - Ever
• iPad and HTML5 Adoption - Supporting the iPad and HTML5
• Larry Kless' Weblog: Google Releases VP8 as Open Source Royalty Free Video Codec, Launches WebMproject.org with Broad Support from Online Video Industry
• Analysis: Royalty-free H.264 may clear way for HTML5 video standard | Browsers | iOS Central | Macworld

Related WebM reading:

• What Does the Webmproject Mean for the Future of Video on the Web
• VP8, WebM, and HTML5 video « Zencoder Blog
• Diary Of An x264 Developer » The first in-depth technical analysis of VP8

The iPad Cometh - The Online Video Industry Gears Up for the Launch

Over the last several months HTML5 and H.264 video have been gaining momentum as an emerging standard for online video, spurred on by the announcement earlier this year of Apple's new iPad. The device will be available to those who pre-ordered early later this week on April 3rd, and new orders will ship in two weeks. It has been touted by Apple as the future model for online publishers, even though like its predecessors the iPod touch and iPhone, it doesn't support Flash. Apple pre-sold 120,000 units on the first day, with 51,000 of them purchased in the first two hours on sale, and analysts predict that 10 million will be sold in 2010.

There has been a great deal of discussion on why Apple chose to exclude Flash, which has been the dominant format for video on the web with Flash Video having approximately 75% market-share for online video. But according to Steve Jobs, Flash is a "CPU Hog" that would drain the iPad's battery and it's "full of security holes". In speaking with the Wall Street Journal he reportedly said, "We don't spend a lot of energy on old technology," and suggested the WSJ to abandon Flash for the H.264 codec.

Jan Ozer though recently disputed the "CPU Hog" comment, and ran a series of tests and found that Flash actually was not a CPU Hog. He noted that Apple blocks Flash from accessing hardware acceleration which helps with efficient video playback. Fair or not, the turf wars wage on with all the big players Apple, Google, Adobe and Microsoft taking sides and looking to expand their market-share. See Tim Siglin's post, Commentary: Working Around the Web, where he provides some great commentary on Apple's "pure HTML" approach vs. Adobe "standards-based" plug-in approach. While Flash is not going away for the foreseeable future, up and down the stack the online video industry is adapting to HTML5 as an emerging standard, and the opportunity that the iPad brings, with a number of announcements made in the last few days.

Brightcove unveiled its new Brightcove Experience for HTML5 -- a framework for publishing and delivering interactive and advertising-supported Web video for HTML5-compatible devices. The platform is available free to Brightcove's more than 1,000 customers and provides support for intelligent device detection, playlist rendering, and transcoding and playback of H.264 video content from Adobe Flash video, analytics tracking, social sharing controls, advertising insertion, and other capabilities. Customers who are using Brightcove's HTML5 solution include Time Inc. and the New York Times (a Brightcove investor).Brightcove says it's platform agnostic and has been supporting HTML5 and H.264 since 2008.

Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove chairman and chief executive officer said:

"The Brightcove Experience for HTML5 fills the gap between the current playback capabilities of the emerging standard and what our customers need to operate successful online video businesses."

A few days prior, Brightcove rival Ooyala announced that it will support full video delivery to iPad when it launches on April 3rd. For over a year, Ooyala has had iPhone support in the form of an intelligent video embed lets the Ooyala player automatically recognize each device and adjust video quality and format for the best possible viewing experience.

According to Bismarck Lepe, President of Product:

"The iPad is more than just another connected device. It's an innovation that will drive new ideas in portability and personalized media."

Kyte announced an iPad SDK and HTML5 support for developing Kyte-powered iPad apps for distribution through the Apple iTunes App Store, as well as web-based support for the iPad through a new, universal embed code that outputs HTML5 video. The new SDK and HTML5 support provides customers with the flexibility and choice to build native iPad applications, or extend compatibility of their new or existing Kyte-powered websites to the iPad.

Gannon Hall, COO, Kyte said:

"Representing the next phase in media delivery and Internet connected devices, the iPad is a platform every video publisher needs to plan for," "Kyte has long been focused on delivering innovative, forward looking functionality that gives video publishers the ability to reach and engage audiences no matter where they are. Our support for HTML5 and our release of an SDK for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch is the next step in this progression."

Like Ooyala and Kyte, Delve Networks announced that it too will support full video delivery to iPad when the tablet device launches. Customers will be able to content for their iPad readers using the same easy-to-use Delve video platform where they currently manage their website videos.

Encoding.com, one of the companies in particular best suited to cash-in on the need for HTML5 video transcoding services. today announced support for HTTP Live Streaming for Apple's iPhone, iPod touch, and the soon to be released iPad mobile devices. HTTP streaming enables publishers to provide users with a better video experience by continuously adapting the video stream in real-time to match the user's available bandwidth.

Encoding.com President Jeff Malkin told FierceOnlineVideo:

"The Codec format war that's been brewing between apple, Google, and Flash and all of that together has created a perfect storm for a business like ours where we're automating a very complex process and taking it off the plates of our clients. We're making it simple for our customers and, timing-wise, our new service couldn't be better situated

Limelight Networks announced it will support rich media content delivery to the iPad on day one of the product availability. Customers of the Limelight REACH and Limelight ADS services will automatically have their mobile distribution and monetization services updated for the new device, enabling them to present a brilliant and properly formatted media experience to purchasers of the widely anticipated tablet.

"We will be formatting content for the best playback experience on those shiny new Apple toys. And the best part? We’re not reinventing the wheel here or coming up with a new application just for the iPad launch. Our existing technology and infrastructure is specifically designed to adapt content for delivery to any new devices that pop up. Our targeted delivery profiles change, but the process stays the same. Which means we’ve got you covered not only for the Apple iPad, but also for whatever product launch event comes next." - Apple iPad – We’ve Got You Covered, The Limelight blog

Rounding out the announcements is MeFeedia with its HTML5 video pre-roll solution. Currenty, the All Player™ platform powers over 50 million monthly video ads across web and mobile devices (including where flash is not supported) and can show video ads to any browser that supports HTML5 natively.

Look for more announcements in the days to come as well as more on the format wars. In particular, the tensions have also been building between Apple and Google, and Google fired back the other day with the announcement that their Chrome browser will ship with an integrated Flash Player plug-in.