| What is live Internet streaming? |
Live Internet streaming is transmitting audio or video content over the Internet as it happens. Examples of this would be the programming from a conventional radio or television station, a sports event, a convention session, or a church service.
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| What is on-demand Internet streaming? |
On-demand streaming is transmitting pre-recorded audio or video content to viewers or listeners when they request it through their computer or other Internet appliance. As opposed to live streaming, which must be watched or listened to as it happens, on-demand content can be accessed on the schedule of the listener or viewer.
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| How can I use streaming audio or video? |
The uses for streaming audio or video can be as wide as your imagination. Web sites can be enhanced with television style commercials. A spare room in your house or apartment can be turned into a mini-television or radio studio and connected to the world through Internet streaming. Both live and on-demand church services can be made available to a worldwide congregation. The list is endless!
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| What do I need to stream audio or video over the Internet? |
There are basically four things needed to stream audio or video over the Internet:
1) Content. You need something to send whether it is audio, video, live, or on-demand, and a means to capture it. For audio this could be simply a microphone and a small mixer and for video, a home video camera would be a good beginning.
2) An encoder. This is what takes your audio or video content and turns it into a format that can be transmitted over the Internet. Typically this is a computer. For audio, this can be as simple as a typical PC with a sound card and some free software. Video requires a compatible video capture card, but the encoding software is still free.
3) An Internet connection. For live audio streaming this can be as simple as a dial-up Internet connection. For live video, a DSL, cable-modem, T-1, or other broadband connection would be required depending on the quality that you desire to be transmitted. For live streams, you will be sending a single stream to a server (see below) and the server then sends multiple streams of your content to the Internet. For on-demand streams, you would pre-encode the streams and then upload them to a server where they would be sent to listeners or viewers on-demand.
4) A server with adequate quality and quantity of bandwidth. This is what can make or break a streaming effort. Streaming servers must be connected to enough bandwidth to handle all of the potential viewers or listeners of your content. If viewer or listener demand exceeds the available bandwidth, everyone watching or listening can begin to experience quality problems. The bandwidth should also be of good quality, which means that it should be bandwidth that is provided by more than a single source. Single source, referred to as single-homed servers, will perform well for the viewers or listeners that are connected to the same Internet provider as the server. Typically the viewers or listeners to your content are connected to a wide variety of Internet Service Providers (ISP). These ISP's get their connectivity either directly or indirectly from what is referred to as Tier One Internet bandwidth providers. Tier One providers basically make up the Internet and there are less than a dozen of true Tier One providers. The best server bandwidth is what is called multi-homed bandwidth. That is it is provided by a number of Tier One providers. This gives the best chance of a successful listening or viewing experience to the end-user. See more about NetBroadcasting.tv's connectivity.
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| Who would be able to view or listen to my streaming media? |
Your potential audience is numerically massive and geographically expansive. While the technical limit of your audience will stagger your imagination, your actual audience size will depend upon you.
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| What if I wanted to offer downloads of audio and video podcasts or other media? |
NetBroadcasting.tv now provides the ability for you to offer your online audience downloads of media files. These can be the MP3 files used for audio podcasts, MP4 files used for video podcasts, Windows Media files, QuickTime files and just about any other media file you may need to offer. NetBroadcasting.tv servers provide streaming-quality bandwidth which surpasses the bandwidth quality needed for downloads.
When you offer downloads, there are two things you are after, continuous data flow with no disconnects and the highest possible download speed. Website providers often load their web servers with hundreds of websites. This can be acceptable for serving out web pages, which are small in nature, however using such a service to offer large download files can cause slowdowns and disconnects. In fact some web hosting companies restrict downloading offered through their web servers.
NetBroadcasting.tv servers do not serve web pages and they are connected to the Internet backbone with 1000 mbps connection as opposed to 100 mbps connections that are typical of web servers. In other words, this assures your downloads will proceed as quickly and trouble-free as possible.
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| How do podcasts work with your services? |
The NetBroadcasting.tv media servers offer excellent efficiency in hosting and delivering podcasts to your audience. Below is a short synopsis in the steps that are necessary to create podcasts as well as subscriptions to the podcasts in iTunes. This will allow automatic delivery of your audio and video podcasts to your iPod equipped audience.
For this discussion we are going to define the term "Podcast" as:
1) An audio file that is compatible with the Apple iPod line of audio or video players. These audio files can be .MP3 or .AAC formatted files in widely varying bitrates.
2) A video file that is compatible with the Apple iPod video players or AppleTV. These video files can be:
* H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 x 480, 30 frames per sec., Low-Complexity version of the Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
* H.264 video, up to 768 kbps, 320 x 240, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
* MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 x 480, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
* Apple TV can display H.264 video, up to 5mbps, 1280x720, 24 fps, Progressive Main Profile. Apple TV supports AAC-LC audio up to 320 Kbps.
STEP 1:
The first step in creating a audio or video podcast is to first convert your media to one of the above formats. The software needed for this process can vary depending on your video or audio's native format. For audio podcasts, there are many programs that can convert a .WAV audio file to either the .MP3 or .AAC iPod compatible format. Many of these programs are free and can be found by using a search engine. Video podcasts creation is a bit more limited but there are still a number of options available. Software selection mainly depends on the native file format of your video. One professional encoding option is Procoder 3 which will transcode one format to another format. Other options can be found by using a search engine. Once you have encoding or transcoding software, you can experiment with the quality (bitrate) and size of your audio or video files. Higher quality means larger files which take longer for your viewers or listeners to download. Creating test files will help you decide the best balance of quality vs. file size.
STEP 2:
Once you have encoded your audio or video podcasts, you should use the FTP account that was supplied with your NetBroadcasting.tv streaming and download service to upload them to the "Download" folder. When your NetBroadcasting.tv account was created you should have received HTTP download links to media placed in the "Download" folder. You will need these links to access the media and to create the .XML files that are needed for your viewers or listeners to subscribe to your podcasts. There are a number of good Podcast-friendly XML generator programs available. We like feedForAll the best. We will be glad to re-send your download link information to you if necessary. Simply contact NetBroadcasting.tv Support for assistance.
STEP 3:
Now that your media is encoded and uploaded to your "Download" folder, you will need to create an .XML file that lists the media and where it is located. For more information on creating .XML files, including sample files, please see the iTunes Technical Specifications Page . The .XML file is typically hosted on your company's public website, although if needed it can be hosted in the "Downloads" portion of your account with NetBroadcasting.tv. It should be hosted where the appropriate people can edit the .XML file. Each time you upload new podcast episodes the .XML file will need to be updated appropriately.
STEP 4:
Next you will need to test your .XML feed and then submit it to the iTunes store. There is good information on this process in the iTunes Technical Specifications Page mentioned above. Usually within a few days to a week, your podcast will appear in the iTunes search and listing areas. This will allow your audience to subscribe to your podcast from within iTunes.
STEP 5:
You should also consider placing subscription links on your website so your website visitors can easily subscribe to your podcasts. There are two ways to accomplish that process and they are included in the iTunes Technical Specifications Page as well.
STEP 6 (Optional):
Some users do not prefer to use iTunes for various reasons. You can still offer your podcast subscription to them by giving them a pasteable direct link to your .XML file. This will allow them to paste the .XML address directly into one of the many RSS (Real Simple Syndication) readers that are available for purchase or free download.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact NetBroadcasting.tv Support .
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| So you offer live streaming, on-demand streaming, and downloads too. If I want all three, how expensive is it? |
You automatically get both live and on-demand streaming as well as the ability to offer downloads such as podcasts with our standard "No Bandwidth Commitment" plan at $200 per month which includes unlimited media storage on our servers. Unlike many streaming companies, NetBroadcasting.tv has a NO SET-UP FEE policy for our streaming plans AND we do not require any long-term contracts. NetBroadcasting.tv's streaming rates.
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| What formats are available to stream audio or video and what format is the best? |
The two predominant streaming formats today are Windows Media and Flash. With NetBroadcasting.tv streaming services you can choose one or both of these formats. Windows Media is somewhat easier to implement because simple links can be placed on your website for live and on-demand streams which will open your users' Windows Media Player and begin playing your streams. Flash can be embedded in most any browser and operating system. Flash streaming requires website knowledge in embedding a Flash player on a web page. Normally Flash is not played in an external player in the way that Windows Media plays. There is a new interface for Windows Media streaming called Silverlight. Silverlight provides better compatibility for Windows Media streaming to non-windows computers and can be embedded very easily into web pages.
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| How do I know how many people are watching or listening to my streams or downloading my media? |
We not only can tell you how many people have watched, listened, or downloaded, but when they did so and even where in the world they are. We use a web-based application called Sawmill to report this information to our customers. To find out more, visit our statistics information and demonstration page.
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| Do you have any tools that will help me calculate bandwidth used and costs? |
Yes. The amount of bandwidth that you use is dependent on three factors: 1) The bitrate that you choose to encode your media, 2) your audience size and 3) the length of time that your streams are viewed or listened to. To help you calculate the resulting bandwidth used, you can use our . To see how different bitrates and costs per gigabyte affect the cost for one viewer watching for one hour, see our Viewer-hour Chart.
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| Many streaming companies limit or charge extra for media content storage. What is your policy on this? |
NetBroadcasting.tv gives every customer, from our lowest to our highest plans, UN-LIMITED STREAMING FILE AND DOWNLOAD FILE STORAGE at NO ADDITIONAL COST.
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| My church wants to get started streaming. Do you have a startup plan for a church? |
NetBroadcasting.tv has granted free audio-only streaming accounts to many churches since 2002. If your church does not currently support video or streaming is not in your budget, we invite you to apply for an absolutely free live and on-demand audio streaming account. MORE DETAILS
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| If I sign up with NetBroadcasting.tv, will I have to commit to a long-term agreement? |
We at NetBroadcasting.tv believe that we need to earn your business every month. Therefore, we have little use for long-term contracts. When you sign up, we ask that you commit to two months. If you decide to leave us, we only ask for a 30-day notice. Although you do not have to commit to us, we will commit to you that we will never raise the price of your streaming plan as long as you remain a continuous customer.
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| A lot of streaming companies handle "adult content". What is your "adult content" policy? |
NetBroadcasting.tv does not accept "adult content". Any customer who places such content on any NetBroadcasting.tv, LLC server or hosted server will have their streaming account immediately terminated.
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