Bit rates for streaming member's area videos?
 

Ok, I know there's not a black and white answer to this question due to the multitude of variables so I'm asking this more in general terms. I'm in the process of re-encoding Allie's entire video library and I want to offer the very highest quality streaming videos possible in her member's area without having everyone complain that the video is constantly buffering.

That being said, what would be the highest bit rate that could be used and still stream the video without buffering for the vast majority of surfers? Yes, as I mentioned I know there's not a black and white answer. Depends on end-user's connection speeds, end-user's hardware, CODECS, file types, DNS routing, yada, yada, yada. So, again I ask this question in more general terms considering the AVERAGE user. What would be the highest bit rate you would consider for a streaming member's area video without concerns of buffering for the majority of your users?

Any helpful insights would be greatly appreciated!

-Jake

There isn't a single silver bullet, if you want to give the users the best possible quality while also providing best experience you have to provide different quality sources and have a player that selects the best source based on the user speed as well as allow users to choose what quality they want.
If you have let's say 240p, 480p, 720p and 1080p sources for each video you will be quite well covered

Jake,

Short on time for all the details now, but you are welcome to contact me directly

I suggest using the Apple designed HLS option. HLS is "HTTP Live Streaming". It can be done very easy from a normal server - by HTTP, not fancy or costly streaming server stuff required.

The basics are this:

It encodes the videos using the H.264 codec in whatever resolutions you select.

I use:

360p at 512k
480p at 1024k
540p at 2048k
720p at 3072k
1080p at 6144k

The end result is one master folder for the video, and 5 sub-folders for the different resolutions / bitrates. The videos in the sub-folders are broken down into 9 second segments, so a 6 minute video may be 40 segments or more. Sounds odd, but read along...

The advantage is that is adopts itself on the fly to the viewers device, screen resolution and bandwidth.

The player doesn't connect directly to a video file. It connects to an index of all those resolutions and segments. When the viewer clicks to play the first two segments are sent from server to player in the highest resolution (1080p in my case) and the video starts, but if the viewer doesn't have 1080p screen size, or the bandwidth to play 6144k perfectly, the system automatically drops down to 720p. And is thats isn't best and smooth for his device / screen / bandwidth is drops to 540p, and on like that.

It can be adjusted - meaning you can tell it to start with 720p and then go up or down depending on what the user can handle. Its automatic to the viewer - he doesn't see the change or have to make any selections.

It also goes back up if his connection / bandwidth improve during the video. This gives the viewer the cleanest video experience for his situation. The HLS player checks his bandwidth every 9 seconds and sends the segments that are best for that particular viewer. It sound weird breaking the video into segments but it doesn't show on screen at all.

It covers all devices. iOS, Android, and all desktop browsers if using an HLS player.

Last month Elevated X upgraded their player to use HLS.

I use the player from JWPlayer. There are several options for players, but not all older Flash based players work.

HLS is HTML5 compliant. Safari (Mac) and Firefox browsers support it without any player - just using the HTML5 video tag.

You select the resolutions you wish to offer and it will go up to 4K (2160p), but not all players do 4K.

Its scalable - meaning you can encode in all resolutions now but not offer them all. Say you have Full HD 1080p originals. Encode in all those sizes, including 1080p, but only offer up to 720p for now but by editing the one index file. The index file is just plain text. Nothing tough at all. Later edit that text file again for each video and you can start streaming higher resolutions without any re-encoding

It can be streamed from devices to a TV if the customer has a Chromecast devices on the TV (max 1080p for this right now).

It works for both recorded videos like you are discussing and live streaming.

Because it is fully HTTP streaming it works on any CDN without extra charge.

KeyCDN, Amazon Cloudfront and CDN77 all offer it for LIVE chat streaming / Live event streaming.

It can be secured - as the format itself includes a root file that limits to certain domains if you wish, and it can serve secure tokens in the player URL so people can't hotlink to the video.

Encoding it a bit different. Not every product creates the segments.

On MAC it is built right into Compressor and there is also a App Store item called something like One-Click HLS.

On Windows I use HLS Encoder from VODOBOX - Votre solution de streaming . Its a frontend for Handbrake / H.264 which works great.

If you have many videos you may wish to consider an online service. Encoding.com does it. For big batches, Amazon is the way to go. Upload the high-res / lightly compressed originals to an S3 bucket, jump over to Amazon's "Elastic Encoder" and set up a job with the bitrates and sizes you want, point it at the S3 bucket containing the originals, click GO and away it flies. Fast, and if you are using Cloudfront it will put the completed files where you say, or if you are using another CDN that pulls from an S3 bucket it will put the files there so your CDN can pull to the network.

Hit me up by email if you have questions. [email protected]

I also did the HLS streaming with JW player, worked great :thumbsup Pain in the ass to setup in the beginning though.

Can u post some instructions here in your free time.

Hey Jimmy, thanks so much for the detailed response. Your solution sounds like the perfect option for the end-user. Unfortunately, for us webmasters the days of throwing up a single .wmv file and expecting all users to "work with it" are long gone causing us to come up with complicated set-ups and multiple encodes to keep everyone happy.

On a side note I see you're just up the road from Allie and I, we should make some time to grab lunch and talk shop one day soon. Not many of us from adult in the area.

Anyone else interested in sharing their video delivery solutions? What's the highest bit rate you're using for streaming 1080 videos?

Bump for you Jake! Hope all is well with you and Allie.

It seems like I read before on here that people are using as high as 5000kbps -7000kbps for the 1080p streaming videos. But 5000kbps is hard to stream for most people.

What are bit rates are you all using for your member pay sites?

Not entirely definitive but still some VERY good information to be had:

https://app.zencoder.com/docs/guides/encoding-settings

Thanks for the bump Chris! Thinks are going great here, hope all is well with you.

Nice informative thread.


Just Dave

We introduced HLS to Elevated X CMS users in 2013 - AVN - Elevated X CMS Adds Streaming Video Support

At that time and until very recently we licensed JW player but the same adaptive streaming is possible via other means including Flowplayer and MediaElement which is open source and the player we now include with the CMS by default.

With this setup, the bitrate you upload as your source or your highest quality viewable or downloadable file matters less because most users will watch the video that loads for them automatically based on their bandwidth.

Most of the video players that support HLS allow for the user to choose a higher quality file and bypass the automatic detection but the result is video buffering.

The standard MediaElement player doesn't have format selection but we added that so on Elevated X powered sites the basic HLS functionality is very similar to that of JW or Flowplayer.

You can upload really high bitrate files and ultra-HD video and take advantage of the best of every scenario assuming the amount of large file storage needed isn't a concern.

This is definitely the way to go Jake :thumbsup

AJ

Thanks AJ. Yeah, Jimmy schooled me up on HLS yesterday and it definitely looks like the way to go for sure. Are must of your clients who use the HLS solution streaming videos from their ElevatedX server or do they have the videos themselves residing on a CDN?

Some use a cdn but most are just using their own server.

Good discussion

Hello Jake,

For mobile streaming - HLS is for sure the way to go to go for now.
For mp4 encoding we still use - AAC audio, h.264 video

Audio: (AAC)

720p 192 kbps AAC
480p 128 kbps AAC
360p 128 kbps AAC

Video: (mp4) - h.264

320x240 pixels 400 kbps 3MB / minute
720x480 pixels 700 kbps 5MB / minute
1024 x 576 pixels 1500 kbps 11MB / minute
1280x720 pixels 2500 kbps 19MB / minute
1920x1080 pixels 4000 kbps 30MB / minute

If you want to dig deeper:

- Checkout the new Mpeg-dash codec we are starting to use it now.
MPEG-DASH - Encoding.com

- We use a script to recognize the user's speed and show the right video so there will be no buffering
JavaScript Bandwidth Tester - JavaScript | CodeCanyon

- IF you want to use a CDN - Highwinds is good.
We also partnered with this company to allow CDN real time switching:
Home | Cedexis - Real time data for real time decisions

Hope that helps.

Hit me up on Skype if you have more questions - Skype: vod.support.

Sincerely,

Claude Lai
ClickcastX
ClickcastX 4.0 - Adult Site CMS Adult Content Management Software Solution

Thanks for taking the time to share your settings, etc. It looks like HLS is the way to go in order to satisfy the greatest number of users for sure.

Hi,

where can I find the VODOBOX HLS Encoder? On their website its gone.

Wow - strange. I see the Facebook and Twitter not active in 2 months. No idea what happened.

If on a MAC, it can be done in Compressor.

If on Windows, Sorenson does it, I think Premier does it, and Google just gave me this newer product

Best M3U8 Video Encoder for Windows Review

[QUOTE=JimmyStephans;20727797]Wow - strange. I see the Facebook and Twitter not active in 2 months. No idea what happened.

If on a MAC, it can be done in Compressor.

If on Windows, Sorenson does it, I think Premier does it, and Google just gave me this newer product


Thx for your fast response, gonna try these apps. The HLS Encoderfrom Vodo seamed to be the easiest one. Maybe u still have the copy? Was it freeware?