Overview |
The Discover Video Live Transcoder (DVT) receives live MPEG-2,
live H264/Flash, live Windows Media, and other streams and converts them in real time to live H.264
or WM streams.
DVT also transcodes files from one format to another, automatically. Up to 30 simultaneous transcode streams are supported. With the optional Media Server, you can deliver live streams directly to iPhone/iPad/iTouch
as well as to Flash Players, Silverlight, and more, or use your existing
Media Server of CDN.
When DVT converts input files to H.264 (.mp4) or WM (.wmv) files, it also
optionally uploads transcoded video files and thumbnail images to any FTP destination.
For organizations that have deployed live video from VBrick, HaiVision,
View Cast, Digital Rapids, and other encoders companies, or have live MPEG-2 from satellite links, the Live Transcoder allows you to deliver your existing live video to viewers over the public Internet The Live Transcoder can achieve better than 100:1 compression, allowing you to convert a high speed live MPEG-2 video to any bit rate you desire
for Internet streaming.
For organizations that have deployed standard Windows Media streaming (unicast or multicast), the DVT allows you to stream in one format, yet deliver your stream in multiple formats without using additional uplink bandwidth.
DVT give you live multi-rate streaming by receiving your single rate
stream and transcoding it to multiple lower rate streams.
- Educational Institutions -- Deliver your existing live MPEG-2 TV channels to other schools and buildings using the public Internet.
- Transportation Departments -- Send your live highway surveillance video feeds to multiple districts, state officials, emergency workers, etc.
- Streaming Service Providers -- Convert your new or existing Windows Media streams to live H.264 and deliver to Flash player and mobile devices.
- Commercial Organizations -- Add public Internet or private network low speed delivery to your existing MPEG-2 infrastructure.
- Government / Defense -- Transmit one, some, or all existing live MPEG-2 video feeds to remote locations over virtually any network, including cellular.
- Commercial Broadcasters -- Use your existing MPEG-2 Transport Stream infrastructure to deliver simultaneous webcasting for commercial linear broadcasting over the web, or for monitoring you feeds. Customers that use VC-1/Windows Media (e.g. U-Verse) can instantly deliver the video in Flash format.
- Satellite Receivers -- Receive direct broadcasts from satellite and use IP receivers (e.g. Exterity) which will send each channel as a MPEG-2 stream. Rather than multicasting high bandwidth (e.g. 5 Mbps) streams, deliver using H.264 multicast directly from the DVT, and/or deliver over the public Internet via Flash player.
High Quality
Organizations typically selected MPEG-2 video to achieve broadcast quality video distribution. MPEG-2 requires 3 to 8 Mbps to achieve this quality, which is not an issue in multicast-enabled local area networks. H.264 provides an order of magnitude improvement in compression efficiency and can deliver the same quality at about half the bandwidth. Stunning live transcoded video delivery can be achieved at 500 Kbps, very good quality at bit rates as low as 200 Kbps, and applications such as video monitoring are supported at rates as low as 40 Kbps. Of course, you can also maintain existing broadcast quality and even send H.264 via multicast at substantially reduced streaming rates. |
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Save Money
If you have existing MPEG-2 encoders, the Live Transcoder can be much more cost effective than replacing the MPEG-2 encoder with a H.264 encoder. The Live Transcoder can cost under $400 per transcoded stream vs. many thousands of dollars for a new encoder appliance.
Moreover, any organization that could not deliver their live MPEG-2 video to a remote location because they did not have sufficient bandwidth can now deliver it with ease.
Send your new or existing live MPEG-2 or WM video via multicast within your LAN, and use the Live Transcoder to deliver your live video virtually anywhere via your private network or via the public Internet.
Windows Media users can now stream in their native WM format, but also in Flash or QuickTime format. The alternative is typically to run two encoders which often requires more bandwidth than may be available and adds complexity.
Flash, QuickTime or Windows Media
The output of the Live Transcoder is H.264 or WM at user-definable video rate, frame rate, resolution, and audio rate. Per industry standards and conventions, each output stream may be standard RTP or Adobe RTMP. For RTP, the Live Transcoder automatically creates a SDP file that you may use on a compatible streaming server such as Darwin, Helix, Wowza, etc. and view via H.264 players such as Apple QuickTime player. For Adobe RTMP, the Live Transcoder does a live "push" to a compatible Flash server such as Adobe, Wowza, etc. and you can view your live video using Flash player. If the output is set to Windows Media, then either push or pull is available for each stream. |
Mobile -- iPhone/iPad/iTouch, Blackberry, Android
DVT allows you to stream to virtually any mobile device when coupled with the optional Media Server. DVT overcomes the common issue of needing to provide high quality / high rate stream for desktops yet lower rate streams for 3G mobile devices.
Integration
The Live Transcoder behavior can be configured with simple XML files. This makes it very easy to integrate with 3rd party and custom system. No "SDK" is required.
Reliability
Live Transcoder runs as a Windows Service that automatically starts when Windows starts. The system automatically recovers if the source MPEG-2 multicast stops and starts, allowing you to control your stream by simply starting or stopping the source multicast. The system has been designed to run 7 x 24.
Simultaneous Capacity
Depending on the host platform, up to 30 simultaneous live transcodes are possible. Discover Video offers the transcoder in several platforms, and as a software system for your own computer. The actual capacity depends on the input and output settings (fewer live transcodes are possible at higher resolutions and rates).
Optional Media Server
The DVT can come with an optional custom Wowza Media Sever. The server will automatically detect your live transcoded video and deliver directly to iPhone / iPad / iTouch devices, to Flash Players, and to Silverlight players.
The DVT is the only way to use conventional (legacy) WM streams with
Wowza.
With the optional Wowza server, you have one platform that allows you to stream your MPEG-2 and Windows Media streams to virtually all playback devices.
File Transcoding
User-configurable "watch"
folders empowers your media system with instant file transcoding.
When a .avi, .mpg, or .mp4 file appears in a designated folder, it will
be transcoded to high quality H.264 video (.mp4) or WM (.wmv) at your
configured bit rate, frame rate, and resolution. Optionally, DVT will
upload your just-transcoded video file to any conventional FTP
destination, and then optionally delete the files to preserve disk
space. DVT is ideal for both fixed and mobile VoD applications.
Windows Media / Reflecting
DVT supports the ubiquitous Windows Media format for both inputs and outputs. This allows you to deliver your existing MPEG-2 streams in WM format, eliminating the need to install a player on most enterprise desktops. It also allows you to do enhanced "reflecting" -- transmit your WM video at one high rate and deliver it via either push or pull to viewers at multiple rates.
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- Standard Live Transcoder -- supports up to 10 simultaneous transcodes in 1U of rack space. Single CPU server.
- High Density Live Transcoder -- supports up to 30 simultaneous transcodes in 1U of rack space. Dual, CPU server.
- Live Transcoder Software -- capacity depends on the host CPU performance (operates on most WinXP /Win7 / WinServer200X computers). The DVT software system is available in the following capacities:
- 1 Channel
- 5 Channels
- 10 Channels
- 30 Channels
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| Contact Discover Video for additional information and pricing. |
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FAQ |
| How do I control DVT? |
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DVT operates as a service and requires no user
interface.DVT has a service manager that you can open to view and manage DVT channels. Configuration of each channel is via conventional XML files. You can easily edit each XML file to set you channel values, and you can easily integrate with higher-level management systems that can modify these XML files as desired. Any change to an XML file is automatically detected on-the-fly. Some customers like to edit the XML manually; some elect to upload new XML definitions via FTP; some use server-side script. |
| Does DVT support 16x9 and other video sizes and resolutions? |
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Yes, you can set your output frame rate, video rate, audio rate, and of course width and height as desired. 16x9 HD resolutions are commonly used for commercial free-to-air satellite broadcasts, and increasingly for pure Internet streaming. |
| Does DVT support live transcoding? |
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Yes. DVT can receive a live MPEPG-2 stream, live
Windows Media stream, or live H.264 Flash stream and transcode it to
live H.264/RTP, H.264/RTMP/Flash, or live WM/Push/Pull. |
| Does DVT support file transcoding? |
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Yes. You can set any channel to be a file transcoder. A file transcoder will detect a video file (.mpg, .wmv, .avi, .mp4) in input folder "A" and transcode it to WM or H.264 and put it in output folder "B".
Transcoded files have excellent quality. |
| Can I add my watermark to the output? |
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Yes. You can specify a "watermark" image, overlay location, transparency, etc. This allows you to easily brand your output stream. You can even change this on-the-fly, making it useful for real-time banners, news, lower third's titles, etc. |
| Does DVT support snapshots? |
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Yes. You can configure DVT to create a jpeg image every N seconds for each input stream. You can have do snapshots-only if desired. |
| Do I need the Media Server Option? |
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Without the Media Server, you can stream directly to
CDN or other Media Server in Flash, WM, or RTP format. You can deliver
live multicast via RTP, or using WM pull.
With the Media Server, you can deliver H.264 web streams directly to
Flash player, Silverlight, iPhone/iPad, Blackberry, etc. |
| Is DVT appropriate for my desktop or
is it just for a server? |
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DVT is great for your desktop, and here is why: You
can easily define an "input" and an "output" folder on your Windows
desktop computer. Drag a video file to the "input" folder and it will
be transcoded and placed in the "output" folder. Every output
video will conform to your output settings, and DVT will even upload
it for you when the transcoding is complete.
More. |
| What can I set for the output video? |
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For each channel, you can set video and audio rates, resolutions, frame rate, snapshot size and frequency, and type (RTP, RTMP, WM). |
| Does DVT support iPhone and Blackberry mobile devices? |
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Yes. i-Devices support H.264 video. You must of course deliver it via a compatible Media Server or CDN (Discover Video can provide such CDN service if desired). |
| Does DVT support Flash? |
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Yes. DVT streams directly to compatible Media Server or CDN using RTMP. |
| Does DVT support Windows Media and
Silverlight? |
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Yes. DVT streams directly to compatible Media Server or CDN using Windows Media push or pull.
You can view using Silverlight or WMP. |
| Does DVT support satellite broadcasts? |
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Yes. Most Free-To-Air broadcasts are MPEG-2 Transport Streams. |
| What are the input types? |
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Live WM, Flash or live MPEG-2. |
| Why not stream in multiple formats to begin with? |
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You certainly could. But many locations simply do not have enough bandwidth to support multiple bit rates and multiple formats for the live uplink, especially from temporary venues. DVT allows you to stream at the highest rate possible and deliver your live stream in multiple formats, resolutions, and rates. |
| Can I stream directly to clients from
DVT? |
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Yes, using RTP, unicast or multicast, or WM Pull. |
| What is the difference between live
transcoding and file transcoding? |
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There is a big difference. File encoding need
not be real-time, and it can perform certain quality enhancements such
as multi-pass encoding. File transcoding needs to understand
file formats. Live transcoding must be real-time and there are
limits to what it can do to improve the quality of the source stream.
Live transcoders need to understand different input and output
streaming protocols and encapsulation methods. |
| How do I set a profile for WM
streaming? |
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For WM streaming and file transcoding, you must set
DVT to read a .prx file. Default .prx profiles are provided, and more
are available for download, or you can create your own. The
profile file sets all encoder values (rate, resolution, etc). |
| Does DVT support multiple bit rates? |
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Yes, but currently DVT does not support "adaptive
bit rate" live streaming. Because you can have multiple channels, you
may easily use the same source stream for as many output streams as
desired, each with a different bit rate, frame rate, resolution, etc.
You can then delivery lower rates to 3G mobile viewers and higher
rates to others, or you can use SMIL or similar to methods to provide
multiple rates. |
| Does DVT support playout servers such
as TelVue? |
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Yes. You can take a direct live MPEG-2 stream and
transcode it for instant delivery to the web. |
| Should I install DVT on my desktop
computer? |
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Yes, for powerful, automatic file transcoding.
Remember, DVT is not an application -- it is a service. This
means that you can set up multiple folders on your computer for
automatic file transcoding. Let's say you create a folder called
"input", and another one called "output". You set up one DVT
channel that looks for video files in the "input" folder that
transcodes them using your desired profile and outputs them in your
"output" folder. Now you can drag-and-drop a video file anytime
you want to your input folder and your converted video file
automatically appears in your output folder. Advantages: No
application to setup or launch; consistent results; fool proof
operation. Of course, your input or output folders can be
network drives (folders on other computers). |
| Is DVT available as a service? |
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Yes. We have DVT running on a Cloud.
You can use the service for your event for a low daily or monthly
charge. |
| Does DVT output multicast? |
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Yes. This is a great option for organizations
that wish to receive a live WM or Flash stream from the public
Internet and distribute it to an unlimited number of viewers in your
private network. For example, a University may with to receive a
live stream of an important event, but if everyone accessed the live
stream there would not be enough inbound bandwidth to support
thousands of viewers. DVT can receive the live Flash stream and
deliver it as a H264 multicast where viewers can access it via
QuickTime player, VLC, and similar. |
| Who uses DVT? |
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DVT is in use by the U.S. state transportation departments, Internet streaming service providers, educational institutions, and major corporations. |
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