SMEast 2007: What makes online video look great
Steve Safran May 16th, 2007
In a post below, I wondered if the quality of presentation software is passing by the local TV stations. You asked for some examples. There are products here I definitely like. Some are presentation layers, others encode. Others are just plain cool. Check ‘em out and tell me what you think: Vividas (which looks gorgeous), Maven (intuitive, great looking), PermissionTV (why don’t video sites look like this?), Silverlight (Yes, the Microsoft product - the ease of production is impressive) and VectorMax (multiplatform, makes you wonder why locals don’t stream live more). I note Cory’s comment that locals need to create better content first. I completely agree. But if you start with high-quality video, why not put it out in high quality? And yes - I realize I am violating the first rule of blogging here: never praise anything. I haven’t tested any of these products - I just know they look great.
4 Comments Add your own
1. Anonymous | May 16th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Why must we be forced to download more proprietary software to watch video? Ugh.
Well, I guess “forced” is the wrong word. Requested. I just deny the request and get video from sites that aren’t so grabby with my machine.
2. JoeMo | May 16th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
I agree with Anonymous on the Vividas plugin deal, just plain crazy. I’ve taken a look at pretty much everything that was listed above and here are my thoughts:
@Vividas - full screen flash, not exactly revolutionary plus the plugin deal just plain stinks.
@Maven - Sure, the player looks nice and the configurator deal is kinda cool but who really changes players often enough to think that would be useful?
@SilverLight - Some promise I guess but nothing too get excited about, yet anyways
@PermissionTV - Player tech is kinda cool with the chapters features and all but other than not nothing special really, nothing ground breaking if you ask me.
@VectorMax - New to me but looked over the site and couldn’t really gather what they could actually do for me; a lot of “marketing” hype but show me what you can do.
There are a lot of companies out there that can offer some pretty slick stuff but I am not sure that I would want several vendors for each part of the end-to-end solution; just seems that it would get too complicated working with several different vendors.
If you have any particular insight into any of the above companies listed above or any other video solution / multimedia management solutions why don’t you share your thoughts?
Anyways, just my ideas, not really an “expert” so flame me as Mr. Negative if you wish just because none of that really impressed me all that much.
3. Dan | May 16th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Vividas doesn’t work with Intel Macs.
To answer the question in your headline, just use a
decent bit rate for the audio and video. Just use a
decent codec like h.264. Just make it a reasonable
size. We in the production business do it on a
daily basis. It’s not rocket science.
You don’t need to spend a gazillion dollars with the
companies you have URLs for, unless it’s a fancy
interface you are looking for. But who needs that?
We just need clean audio and video, encoded well,
then upload it to your site.
It’s not hard to do.
Dan
4. Rob | May 18th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Vividas to me is the best. Think it is going to be Mac compatible in next 2 months.
Also needs lower bandwidth.
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