Comment Feed for benwaggoner http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/Dev/App_Themes/C9/images/feedimage.png benwaggoner en Tue, 21 May 2013 09:06:38 GMT Tue, 21 May 2013 09:06:38 GMT Rev9 Re: NAB Day 1: Smooth Streaming released, Partners, 1080p in SL3, new VC-1
It's an evolulution of the work we did for HD DVD/Blu-ray but with some further enhancements since then. Smooth Streaming can use a longer Group of Pictures (distance between keyframes) than Blu-ray, which offers some encoding advantage. But we could get roughly the same quality in a Blu-ray encode if needed at the same bitrate using the same new techiques. There's nothing about this stream that would be harder to decode than a Blu-ray stream; it's actually a lot lighter-weight given its much lower bitrate.

posted by benwaggoner

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/NAB-Day-1-Smooth-Streaming-released-1080p-in-Silverlight-new-VC-1-and-more#c633759837790000000 Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:56:19 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/NAB-Day-1-Smooth-Streaming-released-1080p-in-Silverlight-new-VC-1-and-more#c633759837790000000 benwaggoner Re: NAB Day 1: Smooth Streaming released, Partners, 1080p in SL3, new VC-1
We've got a number of vendors demonstrating Smooth Streaming encoder at the show right now. So support will be widely available this year.

We'd be happy to see cloud encoding services using Smooth Streaming, of course. I'm not aware of anyone announcing that yet, but I think we're got a very compelling technology for cloud-based delivery among others. Being http based makes things much easier in that market.

-Ben

posted by benwaggoner

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/NAB-Day-1-Smooth-Streaming-released-1080p-in-Silverlight-new-VC-1-and-more#c633759497800000000 Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:29:40 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/NAB-Day-1-Smooth-Streaming-released-1080p-in-Silverlight-new-VC-1-and-more#c633759497800000000 benwaggoner Re: NAB Day 1: Smooth Streaming released, Partners, 1080p in SL3, new VC-1
There's not a beta of Expression Encoder 3 available at this point.

We'll certainly be looking to make these improvements widely available, but this is just an advance taste of what's going to be coming down the road a bit.

-Ben

posted by benwaggoner

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/NAB-Day-1-Smooth-Streaming-released-1080p-in-Silverlight-new-VC-1-and-more#c633759199940000000 Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:13:14 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/NAB-Day-1-Smooth-Streaming-released-1080p-in-Silverlight-new-VC-1-and-more#c633759199940000000 benwaggoner Re: Expression Encoder 2 Service Pack 1 – Intro and Multibitrate Encoding posted by benwaggoner

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/Expression-Encoder-2-Service-Pack-1-ndash-Intro-and-Multibitrate-Encoding#c633681793950000000 Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:03:15 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/Expression-Encoder-2-Service-Pack-1-ndash-Intro-and-Multibitrate-Encoding#c633681793950000000 benwaggoner Re: Expression Encoder 2 Service Pack 1 – Intro and Multibitrate Encoding
Alas, the link to Alex's blog in fact explains all of this Smiley.

You could say that Smooth Streaming is an evolution of the classic "Intelligent Streaming" MBR with some significant changes
  • The the file format (fragmented MPEG-4) allows us to make each GOP of video a simple byterange in the file, which ASF didn't allow.
  • We make sure that there are clean switching points between each bitrate, so the last frame of a GOP and the first frame of the next GOP can be decoded one after the other. This means we never have to run two decoders, or pause playback when switching streams.
  • The wire format has each GOP as its own little file with its own unique http request. This makes proxies and caching in general much easier. And as http, there aren't any firewall issues.
  • The heuristics that control stream switching are delivered in managed code as part of the player, and so can be updated daily if desired, and tuned for particular content and audiences. Intelligent Streaming was hard-coded into WMP. The bitrate switching implementation in WMP was one of the hardest things to get right, and you only had a chance every few years.
  • We also got the multilingual captioning and audio language thing nailed down a lot cleaner than with ASF.

posted by benwaggoner

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/Expression-Encoder-2-Service-Pack-1-ndash-Intro-and-Multibitrate-Encoding#c633678288110000000 Sat, 17 Jan 2009 22:40:11 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/Expression-Encoder-2-Service-Pack-1-ndash-Intro-and-Multibitrate-Encoding#c633678288110000000 benwaggoner Re: Best practices for Windows Media Encoder in 2009 @steenman,

Great suggestions. I'll pass them on to the Expression Encoder team.

As for exporting and importing script and marker streams, have you experimented with the XML import/export features inside EE? Did that work for you at all? I've found it pretty easy to manipuate those with Excel.

I very commonly run multiple instances of EEv2 SP1 without any issues. Can you provide any more details on what you're trying and what errors you're getting?

posted by benwaggoner

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/Best-practices-for-Windows-Media-Encoder-in-2009#c633669379220000000 Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:12:02 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/Best-practices-for-Windows-Media-Encoder-in-2009#c633669379220000000 benwaggoner Re: Best practices for Windows Media Encoder in 2009
  1. Correct. It's a newer implementation than FSDK 11 (4th generation of VC-1 compared to 3rd generation, if you will).
  2. Yes. That's what EEv2 uses for VC-1 encoding.
  3. You just get WME the app. It'll use whatever .dll files you have as part of the SDK.
  4. Yes, those hotfixes should be installed in addition to WMP and WME.

posted by benwaggoner

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/Best-practices-for-Windows-Media-Encoder-in-2009#c633669070290000000 Wed, 07 Jan 2009 06:37:09 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/Best-practices-for-Windows-Media-Encoder-in-2009#c633669070290000000 benwaggoner Re: Silverlight 2 powering Netflix on Mac @jagowar

That's a great idea. I'll pass the suggestion on!

-Ben

posted by benwaggoner

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/Silverlight-2-powering-Netflix-on-Mac#c633616111120000000 Thu, 06 Nov 2008 23:31:52 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/Silverlight-2-powering-Netflix-on-Mac#c633616111120000000 benwaggoner Re: Silverlight 2 Released! posted by benwaggoner

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/Silverlight-2-Released#c633597111280000000 Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:45:28 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/Silverlight-2-Released#c633597111280000000 benwaggoner Re: H.264 and AAC support coming in Silverlight posted by benwaggoner

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/H264-and-AAC-support-coming-in-Silverlight#c633567397160000000 Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:21:56 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/H264-and-AAC-support-coming-in-Silverlight#c633567397160000000 benwaggoner Re: Changing jobs: Silverlight "Principal Video Strategist" I haven't done consulting work outside of Microsoft since I joined, but I'll continue to work with Silverlight partners, compression tool vendors, etcetera on implementations. It's like the best parts of consulting, without having to charge anyone.

posted by benwaggoner

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/Changing-jobs-Silverlight-quotPrincipal-Video-Strategistquot#c633404387210000000 Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:18:41 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/Changing-jobs-Silverlight-quotPrincipal-Video-Strategistquot#c633404387210000000 benwaggoner Re: Elephant's Dream 720p @ 2 Mbps file now posted posted by benwaggoner

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/Elephants-Dream-720p--2-Mbps-file-now-posted#c633179565360000000 Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:15:36 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/Elephants-Dream-720p--2-Mbps-file-now-posted#c633179565360000000 benwaggoner Re: Elephant's Dream Sample @HDDVD.Net

For HD DVD, we can do bitrate analysis and such on the disc without decrypting it, since the encryption happens at a lower level. I don't believe there are any public tools to do this, but I'm sure someone will release one soon.

We also have our own analysis tool that ships with PEP/CineVision PSE that lets us do very detailed analysis of the bits before they get muxed in.

posted by benwaggoner

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/Elephants-Dream-Sample#c633167672450000000 Wed, 06 Jun 2007 22:54:05 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/benwagg/Elephants-Dream-Sample#c633167672450000000 benwaggoner