Webcasting, Videoconferencing, and FFmpeg in the Spotlight at Streaming Media East
Wow, has it been two years already? I can't believe that our industry will finally be able to reconvene again to talk about streaming tech and business in less than a month—this time in Boston for Streaming Media East! I'm excited to be teaching two technical production workshops, presenting two business and technical oriented sessions, and moderating a panel session. For full details of the conference program, check out:
First, the Workshops: FFmpeg and Managing Inputs and Outputs in Videoconferencing
The first day of the conference is aptly named Streaming Media University, where Jan Ozer and I will be teaching hands-on workshops for serious attendees who want to dive into technical content much deeper than a regular conference session allows. Each workshop is three hours long and includes a short break for refreshments.
My morning workshop, "Integrating High-Quality Inputs/Outputs with Conferencing Platforms," covers the essentials of NDI workflows with Microsoft Teams and Zoom products. I'm excited to be delivering this content for the first time in-person! My most recent article for Streaming Media Magazine provides an overview of the steps, but we'll go deeper into the process during the workshop, covering different aspects of remote contribution. I'll also talk about RTMP and SRT output from these services.
In the afternoon, I'll be teaching my updated workshop, "FFmpeg 5.0 Advanced: Working With Multiple Sources, Inputs, & Outputs." If you haven't done much with FFmpeg beyond basic video encoding and want to learn more about parameters that can enable compositing and filters, then this workshop is for you. My favorite topic in this workshop is the tee muxer, a specific output process that takes the same encoding processes and outputs in parallel to multiple destinations or formats. I'll cover much more with device inputs, audio remuxing, seeking, trimming, and other parameters that will help you create more customized output. While we won't be integrating FFmpeg with middleware processes for automation, topics you learn in this workshop can be applied to custom video services that you may want to build into your own offerings.
Next Stop: Sessions on Webcasting and Enterprise/Education Streaming
After the in-depth workshops have finished and the early birds have had a chance to network with colleagues at the Monday mixer, it's time to get ready for session after session of expert talks on various streaming topics. I'll present my first session, "Moving Beyond DIY Live Streaming," in the Live Streaming Summit just before lunch on Tuesday. This new session was inspired by true events during COVID downtime from live event streaming—many of my clients wanted to update video streaming services. Learn from my experiences on how to best evaluate your costs for homegrown streaming backends against the latest video services offered on the cloud.
Tuesday afternoon brings my second session, a moderated panel discussion on the topic of "Using Cloud-Based Video Services for the Enterprise & Education." The panel will review deployment options for cloud-based services, with a focus on encoding and media management services. I'm planning to emphasize themes that I talk about in my first session, such as improvements in quality of service and high availability, on a broader scale with this group of experts.
On Wednesday morning after the keynote, I present another session in the Live Streaming Summit track: "Webcasters Unite: Avoiding the Rush to the Bottom". I'll continue my exploration of themes presented in the first session, and dive into overall pricing of live streaming services for the small to medium sized live event broadcaster. If you feel you're being taken advantage of by your clients with respect to quality of service versus the cost of that service, this session will inspire you to educate your clients on how and why you're pricing your services.
As I implied at the beginning of this post, it's been too long since all of us in the streaming industry have had face to face discussions. It will sure be nice to see colleagues in person! I hope you can plan a trip to Boston this May to reconnect with us as well. Register by April 29 to save!
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