Nigel Parker's Outside Line : media

NZsynth – How It Was Done

nparker — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:10:26 GMT

Previously I wrote and demoed the NZsynth application that was built for the WEB09 keynote. This post is detailing how it was made and introducing version two (Zoom all the way in using mouse wheel then double-click for popup image).

WATCH THE VIDEO that goes end-to-end on the development of the application (mainly building the mosaic and the extension that Tim Tate created to make the tiles clickable).

The video is also downloadable from Channel9

The Code

It goes without saying that this code is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights it is demo ware and should be treated as such.

Flickr Image Download Code

Mosaic WCF REST Service (Including Flickr Database File)

NZsynth

Demo at http://possi.bility.co.nz/ Hot keys in previous post

Tim’s Silverlight 3 Code and Demo

There is no “go live” for Silverlight 3 yet so what I’m going to do next is for “informational/ testing purposes only”. If you are a developer and happen to have either the Silverlight 3 Beta - Windows Developer Runtime or the Silverlight 3 Beta - Mac Developer Runtime installed pop over to http://possi.bility.co.nz/timtate/ to look at a running version of Tim’s solution.

NZsynth V2 Source (excluding image tiles)

Demo at http://possi.bility.co.nz/nzsynth (Zoom right in using mouse wheel then double-click for popup image)

Key tools

WEBPI to install Visual Studio Silverlight Development Tools & SQL Server 2008 Express
AndreaMosaic
HD Make
Deep Zoom Composer
WCF REST Starter Kit
FlickrNet

Other Resources/ Examples

Jellyfish Deep Zoom
Deep Zoom Image Generation with DeepZoomTools.DLL
My post DeepZoom-Tastic
http://tr.im/photosEFAS (DeepZoom Pix Photos from Expression for Art’s Sake)
Miss March and Other Distractions (Parental Advisory)
Deep Zoom++ : Build Dynamic Deep Zoom Applications with Open Source

All this got me thinking how this idea could be extended further?

National Geographic have been doing some interesting work with photosynth recently. Check out the Sphinx below.

This is why I was intrigued to see they too have developed a mosaic experience called Infinite Photograph. It is not as smooth or free flowing as the nzsynth mosaic demo but it has a great touch that it repeats on itself after a few layers giving you a “feeling” that you can zoom forever. Also double-clicking images brings up more details like in Tim and my examples.

I guess beyond this we then need to think about video and using dynamic frames in a form of “massive” stop motion animation. If you haven’t seen it yet the YouTube Mosaic Music Video may give you some insight into where my mind is heading.

IIS Smooth Streaming Available Now

nparker — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 03:47:23 GMT

Smooth Streaming dynamically detects current network and local PC conditions, and seamlessly switches the video quality of a media file that a Silverlight player receives. Consumers with high-bandwidth connections and newer hardware can experience HD quality streaming, and others with lower bandwidth speeds or older hardware receive an appropriate stream for their conditions, allowing the audience to enjoy an uninterrupted streaming experience with the highest quality possible.

I first wrote about IIS Smooth Streaming back in October 2008.

Last week we reached our next milestone by releasing a beta of the smooth streaming IIS extension http://www.iis.net/extensions/smoothstreaming

There will be a number of talks on all aspects of Smooth Streaming at MIX.

James Clarke has blogged a bunch of additional links on the technology:

John Bocharov

I’ve seen the future and the future is… Smooth!

Smooth Streaming Questions- We’ve Got Answers!

Chris Knowlton

Smooth Streaming – What, Why, When, Where, and How

Alex Zambelli

Smooth Streaming Architecture

The Birth of Smooth Streaming

A Brief History of Multi-Bitrate Streaming

SmoothMBRCalc

Ben Waggoner

Behind the Scenes at SmoothHD.com- Encoding Big Buck Bunny

Expression Encoder 2 Service Pack 1 – Intro and Multibitrate Encoding

James Clarke

Inside Expression Encoder’s MediaPlayer control part 2: Debugging IIS Smooth Streaming client code

Inside Expression Encoder’s MediaPlayer control part 1

IIS Smooth Streaming - Akamai AdaptiveEdge Streaming

nparker — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 05:16:00 GMT

PDC isn’t the only conference in LA this week also taking place is Digital Hollywood (yes that is their website!).

This morning in the US at Digital Hollywood Microsoft introduced “IIS Smooth Streaming”, an extension of IIS Media Pack for up to HD-quality adaptive streaming video delivery.

Initially this will be released as Akamai AdaptiveEdge Streaming for Microsoft Silverlight read more about this at http://www.akamai.com/smoothhd

You can try it out now for yourself by visting the "Proof of Concept" portal http://smoothhd.com but I warn you depending on which ISP you connect through in New Zealand your experience may vary!

New Zealand has an interesting peering ecosystem and although this system works flawlessly on my work connection it struggles on my home broadband connection.

This is caused by the point that Akamai has New Zealand based servers with only two of the large ISP's who leverage them exclusively for their customers.

Please let me know in the comments if you are connecting by a New Zealand based ISP and what sort of experience you are getting with the demo site?

In addition to the smooth streaming, we and others have joined with Akamai to build a best practices approach to online video player development I recommend that you download and take a look at the Silverlight 2 source code for the Open Video Player project.

Read the official press release Microsoft and Akamai Innovate on Consumer Video Experiences Using Silverlight

"The service is expected to be available to select Akamai customers in a beta release in early 2009. Akamai AdaptiveEdge Streaming for Silverlight will leverage IIS Smooth Streaming, which offers a simple-to-manage approach for adaptive streaming, and will be an upcoming feature of IIS7 Media Pack"

The timeline on media announcements and releases to date -

March 5th 2008 – Scott Guthrie announced:

1) “adaptive streaming” support in Silverlight 2

2) A strategic partnership with MOVE Networks.

3) DoubleClick In-Stream product for Silverlight 2

March 15th 2008 – IIS7 Bit Rate Throttling is released

April 17th 2008 - Silverlight DRM, Powered by Microsoft PlayReady is announced.

June 6th 2008 – Silverlight 2 Beta 2 is released

August 6th 2008 – Double Click announces the launch of DoubleClick In-Stream support for Microsoft's Silverlight 2 player framework as part of the NBC Olympic site.

August 7th 2008 - NBCOlympics.com on MSN went live with more than 3,500 hours of live and on-demand video. Leveraging adaptive streaming for on-demand video, DART for Silverlight 2 for advertising and Silverlight 2 Beta 2 as a player.

(The Silverlight player work and IIS7 Smooth Streaming heuristics (stream switching logic) represent Microsoft’s productisation of the work done for NBCOlympics.com.)

August 26th 2008 -

1) Announcement that Microsoft has taken an equity stake in Move Networks that builds on a strategic partnership announced in March of 2008.

2) The first demonstration of collaboration between MOVE and Silverlight 2 was shown as the Democratic National Committee delivered live HD video from its 2008 convention in Denver via http://demconvention.com/.

This site used Silverlight 2 for the player and MOVE’s own plug-in to support the VP7 codec. MOVE are evaluating Silverlight's codec options (VC-1 and H.264) for potential future versions.

September 11th 2008 – IIS7 URL Rewrite Module - Go Live release

September 12th 2008 – IIS7 Web Playlists Release Candidate (RC) Released

September 16th 2008 - International Broadcasting Conference 2008 in Amsterdam

1) Demonstration of H.264 video and AAC playback in Silverlight

September 23rd 2008 - Microsoft Announced Expression Encoder 2 SP1

October 14th 2008 – Silverlight 2 and Blend 2 SP1 are Released

October 27th 2008 - Netflix has just announced Silverlight 2 will power their streaming video service, which had been Windows-only until now. Silverlight 2 adds support for PlayReady DRM. The service will be available on Xbox 360 as well.

October 28th 2008 - IIS Smooth Streaming is announced and demonstrated.

UPDATE October 30th 2008 - Expression Encoder 2 SP1 is released

H.264 video support And Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) Coming in Silverlight!

nparker — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:56:23 GMT

Silverlight Shines at International Broadcasting Conference 2008 in Amsterdam

Later this week, at the International Broadcasting Conference (IBC) 2008 in Amsterdam, Microsoft Corp. will demonstrate an important new capability for Silverlight - playback of H.264-based video.

This is great news for content owners that are looking for greater flexibility and choice for their web delivery of video and audio.

TVNZ Ondemand Launches

nparker — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 02:58:00 GMT

During my presentation yesterday (watch it) I talked about the concept of media convergence...

"Media Convergence is not the reduction of devices but the expansion of channels to content combinations."

I used TVNZ as an example to demonstrate these changing times.

This morning I received an email from John Ferguson (Production Manager of Interactive) at TVNZ anouncing the launch of their ondemand service.

I worked with John and his team on the great Vista Sidebar gadget that they produced and I'm convinced that this team really gets it!

Now over to ondemand to try it out!

The Long Tail of TV in NZ is with us!

Great work!