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kathleen3
Participant
August 4, 2008
Question

NEWBIE QUESTION - do you need different versions to accomodate for users connections

  • August 4, 2008
  • 2 replies
  • 384 views
I've seen conflicting information on this. We compress our videos using Sorenson Squeeze, and the on2VP6 codec - using either the 384Kbps or 512. I am trying to determine if we need to have more than one version, depending on the varying bandwidths of our users. My understanding from Adobe's site is that this is not necessary - per their site:

"Bandwidth detection
Detect the client connection speed and serve up video at the appropriate bit rate —no "choose size of video" messages to your end users.
"

But I also see references many places that you do need to offer the same file configured at various rates. If you don't need to do this, why wouldn't you just configure at the highest bit rate possible, and assume the server would adjust it's delivery accordingly?

Can anyone clarify this for me?

Thanks,
kathleen
    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    A
    AlaskaDave
    Participant
    December 12, 2009

    Any progress made on this question by anyone? I too am trying to figure out how to set up multi-bitrate detection. I see w/in FMS how to encode three seperate files but how does one point to these files? I used a previous streaming service (off site) that after uploading your three seperate video files it would produce a URL that included reference to these three files and would deliver the appropriate file depenpending on the users connection speeed.

    Any clues....

    Asa_-_FMS
    Adobe Employee
    Asa_-_FMS
    Adobe Employee
    December 14, 2009

    FMS does not multiplex content into a single file.  If your intention is to use FMS dynamic streaming then yes you'll want to encode seperate files at chosen bitrates, name those as you desire, and switch between them as needed.

    M
    mangelski
    Participant
    August 11, 2008
    I've looked over the web with the same question.

    The way I see this is that the FMS is capable of detecting the bandwidth (also on the server side) and you are able to choose accordingly to that bandwidth which file you want to stream.

    That means that you need to encode one video with different bitrates.

    Image you have only one file with one big bitrate. If you want the server to encode the video on the fly for each user it would take way to much CPU - almost implossible (with simple hardware) if you want to stream 100 users at the same time!

    I've played with Helix a couple of years ago and it was the same thing. I had to encode the video for different bitrates. But I got one file at the end. That file contained the videos with different bitrates. The good thing with Helix is that it was able to change the bitrate numerous times between the playback and not only at the beginning.

    Hope it helps...
    K
    kathleen3Author
    Participant
    August 12, 2008
    I know this is also the way it worked with our Windows Media Streaming Server. You would encode multiple bit rates into a single large WMV file, and the server would deliver the video correctly based on the end user's connection. I did not see how to do this with flash, or withing Squeeze, but will look around to see if I can find it.

    thanks!
    kathleen
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