Clipstream Questions
 

Keith Loh,

Saw a post that said you worked for ClipStream. Can you provide more info about Clipstream?

My son and I work on and for http://insidecarolina.com.

We like our video big (640x426), clear, and clean. Windows Media Player 9 fits that bill for us.

We shoot with two GL1s at high schooland college games. On average, we do 20 to 40 clips per month.

We'd look for Clipstream to do the same for us.

Here is a sample of what we do:

http://insidecarolina.org/commits/03/cangelosi/cangtd3.wmv

http://insidecarolina.org/commits/03/cangelosi/cangtd4.wmv

http://insidecarolina.org/commits/03/kedra/kedtack1.wmv

http://insidecarolina.org/archive02/Texas/durantTD.wmv - our failed attempt at a 16:9 format

http://perrone.us/clemson/icmeetsreid.wmv - that's my son Trey taking the hit on the sidelines, but give him credit, he never drops the camera!

You can e-mail me at tomperrone@insidecarolina.com or use the board here. I look forward to hearing from you.

Hi Tom. I've noted your contact information and will be contacting you shortly. In the meantime I'll download your clips and take a look at them. When I get back to work on Monday I can show you some of your own clips but in Clipstream format.

In the meantime, this is the technology in a nutshell.

Clipstream is a proprietary Java streaming format that replaces (or, I suppose, can work alongside) player-based solutions with an video playing applet that can be embedded right in the page. It autodetects the page visitor's bandwidth and provides an appropriate version stream. Another bonus besides embedding that our technology provides is the ability to play in advertising and email. Also, as a streaming technology you can stream out any length of clip as the visitor's browser is fed video at the same time they are watching it.

We also have audio-only and a Live component. You can check out our products here:
http://www.clipstream.com/products/

Our product is already in use by the Globe and Mail.com (advertising) and on MyTelus.net (movie trailers updated weekly) as a comparison to your news portal site.

I'll save this thread as an email to remind myself to get back to you. I'm not a sales person but I'm happy to talk to you from a development angle.

Thanks Keith
 

I have visited the ClipStream page and downloaded the demo program.

What I'm trying to figure out is how we would pay ClipStream. Is it by the clip? By clip and duration?

We do a lot of volume clip wise and I'm trying to figure out if it is economical for us to make this move. While wanting to use a playerless stream, I want to keep the quality and size we use. I hate these little 320x240 boxes. As someone who is pushing 50, my eyes are not what they use to be. I am probably close to the average age of our viewers. The bigger size offers something others don’t have out there.

I use WMP 9, encoding with DVD quality for a progressive download. This way our dial-up users can also view with great quality.

So even if you are dial-up, you should be able to download any clip in less than 20 minutes.

//What I'm trying to figure out is how we would pay ClipStream. Is it by the clip? By clip and duration?//

The licensing is flexible. Because we deal with a large variety of clients this is something that is negotiated. Typically, the licensing for a site such as yours that is using a number of clips regularly, is a term license determined by # of clips (no limit on duration). To make it simple it would probably be an annual term. So for example it would be $X for X # of clips per year. Some larger volume sites will negotiate an unlimited license per year. Also, our sales department has been known to give breaks for customers who want to resell. For example, if your site is going to go into advertising and sees a market for video in advertising, that is more business for us so we would give a break on the initial license in exchange for signing up more customers through a reseller arrangement.

That's probably all I can get into here as far as licensing issues goes. Let's continue that conversation in email.

//While wanting to use a playerless stream, I want to keep the quality and size we use. I hate these little 320x240 boxes. As someone who is pushing 50, my eyes are not what they use to be. I am probably close to the average age of our viewers. The bigger size offers something others don’t have out there. ... So even if you are dial-up, you should be able to download any clip in less than 20 minutes.//

Well, going for very large video is a decision that we would probably try and convince you not to make. It's not something that is beyond our technology but it is something that we believe statistics will show isn't the best option for providing video on the web for the vast majority of viewers. Our experience is that very rarely will anyone want to wait 20 minutes to download video. Especially for a news site we think visitors are interested in getting quick clips on-demand. For example, they may be browsing on their lunch hour when time is limited. We would be extremely interested to learn if your visitors behave otherwise.

In cases where you are certain that your market is willing to wait longer for large format video then it is fairly easy using Clipstream to provide several bit rate versions / options for both the visitor who wants a quick on-demand clip and someone who wants the high quality, fatter version. Since our encoder can do batch jobs, doing this regularly is not a big deal especially if you are just replacing clips withthe same settings every week or so.

We do have clients who do create very large format Clipstream videos for specific markets who are willing to wait for video to begin downloading through a buffering scheme that works like progressive (but better, in my opinion). When I get into work Monday I'll find the most recent demo that shows this and send you the link.

Keith,

Have you had a chance to check out our work?

While I agree that most sites would want very small file sizes to stream or download quickly, we don't have that problem at Inside Carolina. Our fan are fanatics when it comes to video and will wait until Sunday if needed.

I do try and keep the video file size small, generally runnning somewhere between 1.5MB to 3.5MB. Cable/DSL have no problem with this and usually download in less than a minute. The dail-up audience deals with the time factor, but they're a happy crowd since WMP9 arrived. Prior to that we only catered to the high speed crowd, due to server space limitations.

Clipstream would solve a problem I have with the small percentage of MAC users. I also have a handful that don't want to support Mr. Gates and his life style, thus they won't download WMP9 based on that principle.

We've had numerous kudos reference the size of the picture (640x426) and the clarity. This allows our viewers a great clip on recruits and college game footage. You'll see what I'm talking about when you check out the clips.

I do want to thank you for everything so far. I started doing video three years ago and use to park .avi(s) on the web site for folks to download. It wasn't unusual to have 10 to 20MB files for downloading.

Today, we average about 30 to 40GB transfer per month on our video. The technology has make it better and easier for our audience. I'm still in the infant stages on this, but learning rapidly. This venue has been great for tips and tricks to help us improve our product.

Hi Tom. I just got into work after a week off so I'm wading through a week's worth of requests. But I shuffled my note about Inside Carolina to the top of the pile after the various emergencies I have to take care of.

I actually tried playing the video on my home ADSL connection yesterday but it seemed to buffer for more than an hour before I had to restart my computer (for other reasons). I'll try doing it now and follow this up.

Keith,

Are you running the latest WMP9?

It was released in early February, I believe. They did something with the code between the beta and the final. Microsoft make it very clear that the beta version codecs would not run the final version codecs.

It worked here on my office computer just now. Nice quality. It must be because my WM at home isn't up to date. Also I run Win2000 at home but WinXP at work.