Learn how to use IIS Media Services to jump-start your video experience without writing a single line of code, and use Expression Encoder to create and seamlessly publish IIS Smooth Streaming content for consumption by viewers across a wide range of user bandwidths and clients including Silverlight and iPhone. This seminar will provide a hands-on walkthrough of how to set up common scenarios such as delivering a Live Webcast, video sharing and digital marketing, and how to manage your media, protect your content, and monetize with advertising by using features built into IIS Media Services.

Producing top-quality Web video involves multiple skills, including setting the scene (choosing your backgrounds, clothing, and positioning); lighting; shooting the video; scaling and preprocessing the video to the target resolution; and finally, encoding. This seminar illustrates each step with real-world examples and checklists for encoding into Flash and Windows Media formats. It will outline procedures for beginners and describe how producing for the Web differs from producing for broadcast, DVD, and other more traditional distribution outlets.

This seminar will explain how to deliver optimized, high quality content to audiences large and small with the Flash Platform's flexible delivery protocols. In addition to covering the powerful new features in Flash Media Server, you will learn the specifics about HTTP Dynamic Streaming - Adobe's adaptive streaming solution - including technical format details, content preparation tools and overall workflow for both live and on demand delivery. Then, find out how you can use Flash Access to protect your valuable content. Finally, you'll learn how easy it is to develop custom players that utilize all of these new features rapidly and efficiently using Open Source Media Framework (OSMF).

This seminar focuses on producing H.264 video for streaming or progressive download. It will start with a deep look at key H.264 encoding parameters like B-frames, profiles, and levels, and how to customize encoding parameters for distributing via QuickTime and Flash. After detailing how to operate the H.264-related encoding parameters in tools from Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, Sorenson, and Telestream, it will then provide a brief overview of the respective quality output of these tools. You'll learn how your encoding tool compares in terms of quality and configurability, as well as how to configure your encoding tool for maximum H.264 quality.

You've got the video production basics down pat, but you're still concerned that somehow your streaming quality just doesn't measure up. From camera selection to choosing an encoding tool and encoding parameters, streaming consultant Jan Ozer details the most common production pitfalls that unnecessarily degrade streaming quality. Come learn at least three or four ways to make your video look better.

Hear a panel of NBC Universal executives and industry experts discuss the execution of the network's cross-platform Olympic strategy. What were the final audience numbers across devices for the Winter 2010 games? What worked and what didn't? Who were the technology partners that helped make it all happen? How did sponsors assess the cross-platform experience? Bring your questions and enjoy a lively conversation around one of the largest cross-platform initiatives of 2010.

While the rest of the online video world was paying attention to ad formats, the death of pre-roll, YouTube's ineffectiveness, and video content monetization, a quiet revolution was brewing in the commerce industry. Using video as a tool to help generate sales enhances conversion rates and redefines the way we shop for and interact with products over the Internet. This panel will explore why video is the next logical step in redefining the way we buy products and services online and showcase what the future holds for the online consumer shopping experience.

Streaming sites like Hulu, CBS, ABC, and others have proven that savvy audiences are turning to their computers for entertainment, and in a way that's profitable. How are traditional and cutting-edge companies capitalizing on this trend? In addition to providing the content, how are they taking advantage of this "connected" platform as they deliver content? And finally, how might online video based subscription offerings affect cable companies to this new content source?

How will the economic downturn impact streaming adoption in the corporate sector? Years of conclusive statistics show that streaming can offset travel costs, outsourced services and production costs, and the opportunity costs of removing employees from the office for meetings. This session will feature firsthand examples from Fortune 500 organizations of how corporations save money by using streaming to support core communications, training, and educational programs.

This panel will discuss the new ways content owners and site developers are aggregating content and distributing it on the web. See examples of ways to develop niche vertical sites without significantly expanding staffing, and discuss how to reach audiences on social networking sites like Facebook. Learn about some of the new emerging platforms for niche video distribution and best practices for increasing your chances of making money with your content.

A number of vendors offer video publishing platforms, the features and functionality-not to mention cost-vary widely. Some vendors focus their solutions on content management and monetization, while others are geared towards enabling syndication and interactive advertising campaigns. Adding to the confusion is the fact that different platform vendors have different metrics for billing, and costs rise as content owners become more successful. This session will lay the groundwork for content owners to better understand what type of publishing platform they need and what they should expect to pay for managing content.

Adaptive bitrate encoding methods are gaining traction in the industry as Apple, Adobe and Microsoft have all recently started offering new ways to encode and deliver video, including via HTTP. But what does that mean for the average content owner who is trying to figure out the best way to improve the viewing experience? In this session, you'll hear directly from some of the platform providers and content owners themselves to see how this technology is impacting their content offerings and plans. We'll also get their guidance on best practices, cost and overhead considerations, and real impact to their users - and the bottom line.

News organizations want the additional ad revenue from video but often find they can't create high enough quality to keep advertisers happy, and outlets including the Washington Post, Newsweek and others have been forced to cut back on their staff of video journalists. So how does a news organization create a niche and build an audience with limited resources? Come hear from these news outlets on how they're using video now and how they plan to use it in the future.

Hear an introduction to peer-to-peer (P2P) communication and the Real Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP), and how they are used to create real-time social media applications that leverage the Adobe Flash Platform. Learn how to leverage RTMFP built in to Flash Player 10.1 to create social and educational applications including real-time video, voice, and data flow that increase participation times while dramatically reducing the costs of delivery.

With the number of new broadband-enabled TVs and Blu-ray players expected to be sold, along with devices such as the Xbox, Roku, TiVo, and PS3, consumers now have many ways to get their video fix. So what are the new business models that will be created from these new devices? What hurdles need to be overcome so that content can be monetized for multiple platforms? Explore with this panel the role of current consumer entertainment devices in this new convergent world and how these devices will play together to offer a superior video experience.

With more CDN players in the market than ever before, trying to figure out what you should pay for delivering video can still be quite complex. This presentation will offer real pricing numbers from large, global content delivery networks and show you the average going rate when you outsource delivery to a third party. The session will also cover some of the variables that determine the final price, how you can accurately compare the delivery services of one CDN to another, and give you a list of providers in the market today.

As video becomes increasingly important on the web, content providers, browser developers, and end users can no longer afford to have the primary video delivery mechanisms locked up in standards that cannot be adapted to new environments. This is especially true for emerging trends such as mobile video and cross-device video technologies. HTML5 Video might be the answer, and we'll discuss what it is, the challenges it's facing, and how it affects other formats such as Flash and Silverlight, as well as how leading platforms and web giants such as Google, Mozilla, and Apple are supporting it.

This session will focus on best practices from enterprise corporations who have adopted and implemented live video across their organization. See first hand how these companies are using video for internal and external communications and learn how you can better leverage assets already available inside your company. Hear first hand from those who have been successful with their deployments and learn what advice their have for others deploying live video in the enterprise today.

The annual $1B U.S. online video ad spend represents 1/60of the overall U.S. TV ad spend, yet online video represents 1/7 of U.S. audience viewing time, a number that will likely grow to 1/5 over the next few years. What will it take for online video advertising to become a truly effective medium, with spending that reflects viewing times? From these world-class practioners' points of view, hear what's right, what's wrong, and what will need to change if the industry hopes to make its 5-year forward growth projections.

From Hulu to Netflix, streaming video is having a powerful impact on the traditional television industry. But are consumers really cutting the cord and bypassing cable operators in favor of online video? With the broadcast networks facing some of the same threats as the newspaper industry, will services like TV Everywhere and over-the-top (OTT) content be the industry's savior? These topics and more will be addressed by this panel of content heavyweights.

With the arrival of "video everywhere" and increasing online video viewership, what role does search need to play to make it easier for consumers to find what they want to watch? Indexing and chapterizing video to make it easily searchable can make the content much more valuable and effective, but that alone won't increase consumption. With the recent upgrades of searchable video services by major social networks and the deals made with big media properties to index streaming and downloadable entertainment, video searching is quickly becoming crucial to today's content economy. Learn how some of today's search services work and what's being developed to make them even better.

The tools for making video are becoming increasingly accessible and easy to use, and the ways that Education, Corporate Training and E-learning use video are converging. But, when it comes to supporting learning, simply making video is not enough. To be truly useful, video must not detract from the content, and ideally should enhance it. In this panel experts in the field will discuss methods and tips for producing programs that make the most of online video's advantages in order to create a better learning experience.

How does HD video enhance the total interactive viewing experience? Learn from this panel of content creators how it changes the landscape by improving the efficiency, effectiveness, and ROI of online content delivery. See examples of how the HD video experience has created the "stickiness" necessary for longer engagement times and better user retention. Listen to real success stories and hear how HD has turned these top sites into a real online business.

With the latest iPad, iPhones, Blackberry's and Palm Pre's focusing on video applications, is portable streaming finally getting ready for prime time? How is the streaming industry developing and repurposing content for mobile streaming and what will the business models look like? What will drive the adoption of mobile internet usage, and what are consumers willing to pay? Come hear what opportunities exist today for content owners and operators, as well as how the business of mobile video will change in the future.

This session will cover new Silverlight frameworks and tools that enable you to easily create players, integrate with data streams and third party providers, and manage video assets in a production environment. We'll also be showcasing two brand new as yet unannounced frameworks that enable new immersive experiences not previously seen for online media.

Learn how companies in the enterprise and education markets are adding familiar social media capabilities to video communication programs including user-generated content, ratings, tagging, comments and search. Come learn if your organization is ready to take the plunge into social video; why your employees may be posting confidential videos on YouTube and other public social networking sites; how to integrate into your existing infrastructure for live video, VOD or videoconferencing; and how to overcome the challenges of securing and controlling this powerful communication tool in a way that is consistent with company policies and culture.

While video consumption and distribution has grown exponentially in the past few years, converting and preparing this content for the digital realm was largely a 'black art' until recently, when several enterprise-grade solutions came onto the market. In this session, we'll identify those solutions, talk to some organizations that are utilizing them, and discuss the cost and benefits to content owners large and small. From high definition to mobile, this session will talk through the hardware and SaaS based services in the market today and the cost associated with using these products.

For all the buzz about online video advertising, most content owners have yet to be able to turn their online video from cost center to profit center. Still, strong signals suggest that video monetization is around the corner, provided content owners don't pull back in today's tight economy. What will it take to reach that tipping point, and what direct cost and revenue impact will it have on content owners? With all the different ads formats on the web today, which ones have the greatest ability to help content owners monetize content and why?

This session will discuss how converging media technologies are redefining traditional distribution methods; how interactive and on-demand services are changing; and how entertainment and news video is being consumed. Come hear from some of the leading publishers, broadcasters, and advertisers about the impact that video and new media is having upon their business models.