Program Council Content Distribution over IP: Options, Impacts, Opportunities Kathleen McMonigal Tim Lorang Gates Rhodes

Program Council Part 1 of The Zone series Producer: Tim Lorang Production Manager ResearchChannel Screening The Convergence Zone

Current Participants: Universities California State Univeristy, Sacramento Duke University George Mason University Johns Hopkins University Massachusetts Institute of Technology National University of Singapore New York University Oregon State University Rice University Stanford University Medical Center Texas A&M University Tufts University Universidad de Puerto Rico Universidade de Sao Paulo Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya University of Alaska Fairbanks University of Chicago University of Hawaii University of Houston University of Maryland - College Park University of Pennsylvania University of Southern California University of Texas - Austin University of Virginia University of Washington University of Wisconsin-Madison Virginia Tech Yale University

Current Participants Research Organizations Howard Hughes Medical Institute Internet2 National Academies National Academy of Engineering National Academy of Sciences National Institutes of Health National Institute of Nursing Research National Library of Medicine National Science Foundation National Sea Grant College Program Corporate Research Centers AJA Video Systems, Inc. CENIC IBM Corporation Intel Corporation Johnson & Johnson Microsoft Research Pacific Northwest Gigapop R1edu.org Vulcan Inc. Wisconsin Public Television

Program Council Goals for ResearchChannel To develop a recognized national and international media presence for research activity To maximize the distribution and accessibility of research resources from participating institutions to public audiences around the world

Program Council Goals for ResearchChannel To create accessible, high-quality video resources for scientific communities To lead and partner in technology experiments to develop new, high- speed methods of exchanging high- bandwidth research information on a global scale

Program Council Video On Demand Library hours of original programming

Program Council U.S. Television Distribution 19 Million DishNetwork satellite system –10.5 Million households Cable systems –9.4 Million households –32 States

Program Council Hours of Media Viewed per Month Combined Webcast and Video On Demand Programs Hours

Program Council Average Viewing Time Minutes Duration longer for VOD at higher bandwidths

Program Council Video Library Growth Average 23 Premieres Each Month Program Archive Cumulative Total Programs 270 New Programs per year

Program Council Program Subjects 27% 11% 8% 21% 17% 6% 10%

Program Council Internet Viewing: Live Webcast Hours viewed per month by bitrate Cable DSL Modem Audio

Program Council Internet Viewing: Video On Demand Hours viewed per month by bitrate Cable DSL Modem

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Program Council National Science Foundation Communicating Engineering and Technology to the General Public William S. Hammack Associate Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

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Program Council Objectives Integrate and automate traditional television and streaming internet distribution. Develop high-quality low latency interactive systems. Implement meta-data and underlying architecture to make programming easily findable. In general, support industry and ubiquitous vendor standards. Provide the highest quality viewing experience.

Program Council DigitalWell: Asset Management Infrastructure Middleware Access control Automated encoding Automated integration of on-line and television systems Storage and preservation

Program Council Our Viewers…

Program Council Audience demographics for televised ReseachChannel programs Source: Media Audit, Spring 2003 an age range of years the achievement of an advanced degree registered voters higher than average Internet use employed in a professional/technical/managerial career business travelers a regular reader of The New York Times annual household income of $100K plus consumers of news and information programming on television

Program Council Highest Quality Viewing Experience Factors that impact quality Production Techniques Encoding Computer environment

Program Council Content Distribution Over IP: Options, Impacts, Opportunities Internet 2 Fall 2004 Member Meeting September Austin, Texas Timothy Lorang ResearchChannel

Program Council Video Quality and Digital Files How does Video Quality Affect Digital Files? Why should we care? Production Techniques Is “technical” quality the only thing?

Program Council Frame Sample Rates for Uncompressed Video Full frame = 640 x 480 pixels 640 x 480 x 30 frames per second = 9,216,000 pixels Each pixel needs 24 bits for color 9,216,000 x 24 = 221,184,000 bits 221,184,000 bits/8 bits/byte=27,648,000 27,648,000bytes/1024bytes/KB=27000KB 27,000 KB/1024 KB/MB = 26.4 MB 26.4 MB per second of video 1.5GB per minute

Program Council High Bandwidth/Cheap Storage Who cares about big files? Last mile issues Low penetration of high bandwidth Network Traffic Pocket Video or Hand Held PC

Program Council Pocket Video=Small Files High Speed Example –259Kbps –20fps –208x160 Low Speed Example –46kbps –15fps –160x120

Program Council Standards are Evolving Examples of streaming to handheld devices at ResearchChannel web site: rd.asp

Program Council Key Frames Key frame is a reference frame that contains information about the whole frame. Difference Frame contains only information about the current frame that is different from the previous frame.

Program Council Key Frames and Movement Key frame is a reference frame that contains information about the whole frame. Difference Frame contains only information about the current frame that is different from the previous frame. More movement makes more difference frames.

Program Council What affects does movement have on the digitized video? All movement affects the encoding Encoders try to minimize movement –Inter-frame compression Small areas of movement, such as a mouth on a talking head, are digitized, static areas are not. –Motion Detection Moving objects are not digitized each frame, just moved, e.g. a boat moving across the frame.

Program Council Some movements cause more problems for encoders Busy backgrounds, such as crowds or moving leaves, adds to movement. Unsteady cameras adds to movement. Zooms, pans and tilts cause more movement. Dissolves, wipes and other special effects cause more movement. Animated graphics add movement.

Program Council Steps to minimize movement Use static backgrounds Use tripods Limit unnecessary camera movement Use cuts rather than fancy transition effects Static graphics

Program Council Noise is any artifact recorded in the video that was not part of the original scene. This often is seen as sparkles, black dots, graininess, blocky spots and fuzziness. Noise tends to be random and can last on the video for as little as one frame. The encoder sees noise as movement and encodes more frames Encoders and Noise

Program Council What adds noise to video? Video Cameras –Old tube cameras add a lot of noise –Digital cameras use light sensitive “chips.” Consumer cameras use a single chip, broadcast cameras use three chips. The quality and number of chips will determine how well the camera will record in “low light” settings. The Gain Control helps record in low light, but adds noise. –The lens has a big influence on light sensitivity and sharpness of the image.

Program Council What adds noise to video? Video Tape –Still most cost effective storage medium. –Quality varies between brands and formats. –Analogue formats (VHS, BetacamSP) are more susceptible to noise. –Digital formats (DVCam, BetacamSX) maintain the digital quality of the digital video signal. –Amount of information recorded on tape affects quality. DVCam records more digital information than MiniDV but less than BetacamSX. –Dropouts can affect any tape format.

Program Council How to reduce noise Use the best camera you can afford. –3 chips and a good lens Use a professional grade tape format –Use good quality brand video tape –Don’t over use the video tape –Don’t make multiple generation dubs of tape (more of a problem with analogue formats) Use proper lighting techniques to bring lighting level up to camera’s recommended levels.

Program Council Does improving the quality only have an effect on the encoding? Of course not, quality also affects the viewing experience for television as well as for streaming files!

Program Council Thank you for your time……. Copyright © 2004 ResearchChannel