Should I buy a hardware encoder or use a designated workstation to encode?
Hi there! I will need to encode and stream high quality video live
over the internet to over 400 individuals for over a hour. Should I buy a hardware encoder like the Niagara 7500 or should I buy a really high end workstation and place encoder software on it? If I purchase a hardware encoder, do I also need to buy software like Wowza or Flash Server? What's the difference? My boss would like me to look into purchasing equipment that will last us in the long run (at least run for 5-10 years). If you do live streaming video, what is your workflow and equipment used? For instance right now (I think) the workflow we have is: camera to hardware encoder, hardware encoder to software encoder, software encoder to server, server to www, www to customer. All of our equipment is outdated (over 8 years old) which is why I am looking into purchasing new equipment. Thank you for your time. |
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Technically speaking, there are some software solutions out there, but I would suggest that much of it is geared towards low-end consumer webcam quality, or "good enough" type quality (frame drops, deinterlacing issues, degraded audio/video quality, etc). I try to follow the trends of the broadcast industry (which now include web and mobile video), and I've not seen anything but hardware discussed in the past -- not from the broadcast industry. Free software example: http://www.adobe.com/products/flashm...hmediaencoder/ The 7500 uses SDI input -- do you need or want SDI input? There are other options for appliances. Niagara has the 2120: http://www.visiblelight.com/mall/pro....aspx?pid=1228 VBrick and Digital Rapids are two more I can think of off-hand, without pulling any magazines off the shelf. Quote:
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That sounds like a standard legacy process, or a standard process done on a low budget. Quote:
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Thank you so much for the reply!!
Your answer made my day! I thought I wouldn't be able to get around purchasing a new hardware encoder, but wanted to make sure I had done enough research and spoke with others on justifying buying a new encoder vs buying a high end workstation. 5 to 10 years is definitely pushing it I agree. I will need an encoder with SD/HD inputs so your suggestions totally appreciated. I had been looking at Digital Rapids before, but kept thinking of Niagara since its what my company tends to buy. Since a lot of people in our video group got laid off, I haven't been able to ask anyone why Niagara was chosen. >>What is the format of video created by the current hardware encoder? Are we talking MPEG-2 here? >>That sounds like a standard legacy process, or a standard process done on a low budget. Currently the hardware encoder is taking in video an osprey 100 card and has the ability to create .ram, .wmv and .avi files. It seems like a decent encoder; it has 2.8 Ghz Intel R Xeon with 1 Gig of Ram but it seems limiting with it only having the ability to do three formats, but then again I guess that's where having Adobe Media Sever comes in handy right? We will be running this from one of our dedicated servers or possibly in the future, off of a VM. Thanks again for your help! |
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I remember the days of WMV vs QT for online "high quality" media. So it's somewhat hilarious that Microsoft and Apple both lost the fight for streaming video to another format entirely: H.264. Both of them now have their own H.264/AVC/VC-1 derivative formats (Silverlight from MS, and a truly crappy H.264 version from Apple). Nobody misses RealMedia. It was the hallmark of bad quality for most of the late 1990s and into the early 2000s. It served it's purpose long ago, to bring us into the age of video/audio streamed online, but that format just needs to go away now. It's completely useless. Quote:
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