This page deals with tips and basic tools for shooting, encoding and playing video that is destined to be streamed. It's not always possible to employ all of these techniques, but using at least some of them will greatly improve the quality of your video. Many of these tips are designed to increase the chances that the encoder will accurately reproduce the parts of the image that are important. This is necessary because of the basic nature of streaming.


Video Tips For Streaming
Minimize camera movement.
When the camera changes positions, either by zooming, panning, or some other move, every pixel in the stream must be examined and compressed. The encoder (software used to digitize the video) has no way of telling what part of the picture is important and will faithfully try to reproduce the background as well as the main subject.

Use adequate lighting.
Poorly lit scenes generate a great deal of video noise. What looks to be a pure black background is really hundreds of shades of dark gray. Again, the encoder must deal with each of these individually, leaving less bandwidth for what you are really interested in.

Shoot against a plain background.
A busy background with lots of detail will cause the encoder to devote a larger portion of the available bandwidth to it. Plain backgrounds compress faster and cleaner.

Over-design any graphic elements.
Graphics for video need to be specially designed to be effective. Large fonts, limited lines per screen, and thick lines are required. This is even more important for streaming video since the quality of the image will be significantly degraded.



Streaming Tools  
All of the major streaming format suppliers make a variety of tools available to potential streaming media designers. Many of them are free or low cost. Depending on your needs, a free tool may be perfectly adequate.

Real Networks provides an admirable selection of programs at various costs, ranging from free to thousands of dollars. Real has servers, players, plug-ins, encoders, and synchronizers that let you experiment with the technology without spending much (or any money). Real also has the most extensive documentation available on-line, a boon to designers who want to dig a bit deeper.

Apple has an extensive QuickTime site where you can download tools and documentation, but to create streaming QuickTime movies you do need to upgrade to QuickTime Pro, a cost of about $30. Their documentation is not as extensive as that provide by Real, but it is adequate for most users.

Microsoft's streaming creation tools only work o n Windows-based computers, but they are free, and cross-platform players are available. Documentation is scattered throughout the site and can be difficult to find. However, there is no doubt that a great deal more information will become available quickly from third parties, both in print and on the Web. The links below will take you to the Web sites for each of the streaming formats mentioned here:

• Real Networks (http://www.real.com)
• Apple Quicktime (http://quicktime.apple.com)
• Microsoft Windows Media (http://www.microsoft.com/ windowsmedia)

(Content for this page was derived from a Web site created by Mike Wilson, Iowa State University.)



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