http://beta.kulabyte.com/index.php/site/index/ Kulabyte's Voice en jason@kulabyte.com Copyright 2008 2008-05-08T21:03:00-06:00 http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/chris_demos_for_kevin_shively_nab/ http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/chris_demos_for_kevin_shively_nab/#When:20:03:00Z 2008-05-08T20:03:00-06:00 http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/mogulus_kulabyte_partnership_explained_here/ http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/mogulus_kulabyte_partnership_explained_here/#When:19:32:00Z Here is a PDF you can download. 2008-05-08T19:32:00-06:00 http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/adobe_success_story_operation_myspace_powered_by_kulabyte/ http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/adobe_success_story_operation_myspace_powered_by_kulabyte/#When:19:34:00Z Just got an email, Adobe just published their success story on Operation MySpace, which you can read the full article here.  It was great to be a part of such a historical and unique event.  We look forward to many more to come 2008-04-28T19:34:00-06:00 http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/exciting_times_at_kulabyte/ http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/exciting_times_at_kulabyte/#When:13:02:00Z viewNode("3b721f5a3e8b9",{ width: 425,height: 274}); It has been some time since we posted last and I wish there was more time to do so but, we have been extremely busy since the Operation MySpace event and preparing for the NAB show.  Our team has been overwhelmed by the positive response and interest in our products since Operation MySpace.  We have been talking to as many customers as we possibly can and if we have not yet talked to you, believe me we are trying to get to you. Just after the MySpace event we had to finalize preparation for NAB, which our team has been out in Las Vegas since last Saturday talking with customers and doing product demos.  Some exciting partnership announcements were made earlier this week with Limelight Networks, Mogulus Partnership and Human Monitoring.  This past Monday Robert Scoble posted his interview with Blake Wenzel which you can watch above. Lastly, we are re-introducing our Express products Live and Lite, which are focused on Live SD Internet broadcasting, and we have introduced a 4-core turn-key encoding appliance called the Nomad.  The Nomad is available in both the XStream & Express series.  BTW, to make things easier for our customers and keeping with the creative spirit we will start to brand the Express series as XPress.  We think it just goes well with XStream.  So, recapping we’ll have two families of products XStream & XPress. Stay tuned.... Media 2008-04-17T13:02:00-06:00 http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/kulabyte_at_video_on_the_net/ http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/kulabyte_at_video_on_the_net/#When:15:21:00Z Tomorrow Blake & Terry will be out at the VON Show helping Kevin Shively and TV Worldwide webcast the show with Limelight.  Kevin is broadcasting Live from the tradeshow floor using a Tricaster Studio and Kulabyte XStream Shuttle to encode and publish to Flash Live.  Blake will be assisting Kevin and talking with him throughout the day while also providing Live demos there at the TV Worldwide stand. Terry will there providing information about Kulabyte’s new XStream Live products and answering questions.  Kevin will be covering many of the cool video technology companies and keeping everyone up-to-date on what’s happening at the show.  It should be fun and you can tune into the events at VONTV.net or visit us at Booth # 316. Events 2008-03-17T15:21:00-06:00 http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/operation_myspace_recap_qa/ http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/operation_myspace_recap_qa/#When:14:22:00Z Since the Operation MySpace event we have been getting many questions from many different folks. So, we prepared a little Q&A document to help answer things. Below are many of the questions we are getting with answers and if you don’t see yours let me know and we’ll get you an answer as soon as we can. Hope this helps! Q: Was the event a success? A: The event was an amazing success! It was by far a historical entertainment and technology event for live streaming media over the internet that was managed very well and provided a high quality user viewing experience. Q: Can the Kulabyte HD encoders transcode live streams AND record streams at the same time or do you spilt the feed into two boxes? A: Yes. One encoder can encode the live stream and record/archive the stream at the same time. Q: How many streams were served? A: Six (6) total streams. Three (3) primary and three (3) back-up streams. Q: How many of the users understood that they could toggle stream quality? A: The Low, Medium and High profiles were provided on the lower left hand corner of the player. Additionally, a viewing experience FAQ was provided on the right hand side of the player. Q: I experienced a couple glitches: When restarting the stream, the audio would lag (video displayed first for a few seconds, then came the sound). A: From time to time, this may happen when the user’s bandwidth is too slow to view the stream or the computer does not have the processing power to play back the video. In this case, the user should try a lower bit rate stream. Q: The video / audio got severely out of synch at one time. The host was talking, but the image showed “metal senaz"(or other talent?) interviewing people/performing. Was that a pre-production thing? A: We believe this was a production issue. Note: Kulabyte engineers verified the audio / video synchronization was received in sync and delivered in sync to the CDN. Given the complexity of the workflow process a number of contributing factors could have caused such glitches for an end users viewing experience. Client side hardware performance capability. Client side machine maintenance. Bandwidth fluctuation. Q: I lost connection 2 times - any idea as to why this happened? A: There were instances when the primary commercial satellite feed was lost and/or the CDN publishing points experienced minor failures. However, contingency plans were executed well and streams were restored quickly for a quality user experience. The loss of connection could have also been a last mile issue. Other factors might include: Bandwidth fluctuation. ISP usage requests in geographic proximity. Usage of wireless routers and P2P networks Q: What were the exact profiles being streamed (resolution, video, audio, CBR/VBR, 1-Pass, 2-Pass)? A: The exact profiles confirmed by Chris Gottschalk, CTO of Kulabyte were: High: 848 x 480 - 2 Pass Variable Bit Rate - 1.3 Mbps (1200 Kbps Video / 96 Kbps Audio) w/ Full Screen option to view on LCD & Plasma Televisions. Medium: 848 x 480 - 1 Pass Variable Bit Rate - 750 Kbps (700 Kbps Video / 48 Kbps Audio) Low: 640 x 360 - 1 Pass Variable Bit Rate - 400 Kbps (350 Kbps Video / 48 Kbps Audio) Q: Can you explain the entire production workflow from capture to delivery? What was each technology pieces role in the broadcast? A: From Kuwait, two satellites delivered a high bit rate HD & SD MPEG-2 transport stream to the East Coast, which was then bounced to the El Segundo broadcast truck. There a Tanberg MPEG-2 took the stream and decoded to 1080i HD/SDI at 29.97 Frames Per Second and delivered to the video hub. At the hub, the HD/SDI stream was encoded into the three different profiles High, Medium and Low on a primary and back-up Kulabyte XL-800 encoders. Then the transoded primary streams were sent to the Flash Media Server 3 origin servers and then pushed to the Akamai entry point then out to the client side Flash Player. After being transcoded, the back-up streams were sent directly to the back-up Akamai entry points for client distribution to the Flash player. Q: Is this technology ready for Prime Time? A: At the encoding level, yes! While the remaining delivery and client-consumer side issues were reported as minimal for this production, there are several issues that must be worked on for a consistent high quality viewing experience that relate to capture, publishing, players and client side education as it relates to hardware requirements and end-user ISP bandwidth limitations. Most importantly, all partners involved in producing such events as Operation MySpace are currently improving technologies to create the best viewing experience possible. Live events from end-to-end always present challenges and experience periodic technical difficulties even in a traditional broadcast environment. Technology and production companies must have contingencies, which in the case of Operation MySpace were executed very well. Delivering HD Television viewing experiences over the internet is here today. There is also a very good article that was written by Tim Siglin over at Streaming Media that does a great job of recapping the event here.   Questions & Answers 2008-03-17T14:22:00-06:00 http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/operation_myspace_technical_event_recap_coming_soon/ http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/operation_myspace_technical_event_recap_coming_soon/#When:14:40:00Z Since we are getting questions from all over the world, we are preparing a technical recap of the event and will be posting it here soon.  We promise to answer your questions as soon as possible and want to thank you for your patience in advance.  Operation MySpace was a huge success for us and all our partners.  Believe me, we are working very hard to provide as much information about the event as quickly as we can so stay tuned. Cheers, Jason General 2008-03-11T14:40:00-06:00 http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/blake_wenzel_just_before_operation_myspace/ http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/blake_wenzel_just_before_operation_myspace/#When:17:37:00Z We are here at the Kulabyte lab just getting ready for Operation MySpace.  I shot a short video of Blake before the event just to see he what he was feeling.  Here it is (Note: Not using Kulabyte encoding). Kulabyte Gets Pumped For OMSAdd to My Profile | More Videos General 2008-03-10T17:37:00-06:00 http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/operation_myspace_powered_by_kulabyte/ http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/operation_myspace_powered_by_kulabyte/#When:15:11:00Z Please join us today as we help MySpace deliver their largest Live concert ever! Operation MySpace - LIVE March 10th - TrailerAdd to My Profile | More Videos Media 2008-03-10T15:11:00-06:00 http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/kulabyte_team_broadcast_live_london/ http://kulabyte.com/index.php/site/kulabyte_team_broadcast_live_london/#When:18:14:00Z Man! It’s been a long time since I posted. Well, we’ve been extremely busy here hacking away trying to get the LIVE product done. Christmas and the New Year have come, gone and it’s almost February 2008. While we continue to enhance and make our LIVE encoder ready for release soon, our team is out in London this week at the Broadcast Live Video Forum meeting with a few folks and doing some private demos. So, if you are interested to meet with the guys email Terry directly at terry at kulabyte.com and he can set something up with you. Stay tuned! Events 2008-01-28T18:14:00-06:00