New Media

Web streaming provides the ability to play video and music over the internet or intranet. And because the complete file is never handed over to the user only ’streamed’, it gives you control over distribution through password protection.

Any video or sound file can be encoded for streaming, into a number of different formats and for a range of different bandwidths.

Bandwidth is a trade off between quality of picture and start up time. The better the quality that you want to deliver, the longer the delay before the video or soundtrack can start playing.

Naturally, you don’t want your audience to disappear while waiting for a video to play, so depending on your programme context, your servers and traffic flow we recommend appropriate solutions for each instance.

If you prefer, we can use our own servers for hosting video files to keep your servers free to concentrate on their existing traffic requirements. A link from your home page invisibly calls up the file from our server without your visitor ever leaving your website.

There are certain considerations that need to be taken into account when producing video for internet use. These include programme duration, programme formats for 1 to 1 communication and bandwidth, and all of these affect the way we script and shoot programmes.

Technology is moving fast in this area. There are a number of media player options available, and we currently recommend the following for streaming media:

Flash – 95% of windows users now have a flash player embedded within their browser application. Flash has now caught up with the competition to provide highly flexible delivery of moving images and video over the internet.

Media files can be held on our own servers or third party servers, whichever is the most appropriate.

Windows Media Player 10 – every PC operating Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP will be able to handle these files - a good choice if you are looking for optimum compatability.

This media player is shortly to be replaced with the new Windows Media Player 11, expected to provide increased picture quality of video for even smaller file sizes and the ability to encode video for 3G phones.

QuickTime – Primarily developed for the Apple Mac platform though as PCs are able to play QuickTime files once the software has been downloaded.
Various upgrades are available for the player for a modest cost allowing play back of a huge range of files including QuickTime VR.

Apple's new H.264 codec provides very high quality video with tiny file sizes and is compatible with High Definition television - watch out for future developments.

Real Player - a downloadable player offering high quality playback for music and video. Real Player has been in the market for a long time now and was ahead of the game for a long time while others played catch up. All PCs and Macs need to download the player which is free in basic form.