Tech Talk

We're proud to announce the release of an officially supported Zencoder integration library for Node.js. If you have used Zencoder with Node.js before, there's a good chance you've used Ryan Faerman's integration library, which was listed on our website as our recommended third-party Node package. Not only did he make and support the original Node library for a year, he was kind enough to transfer ownership of the NPM module to us when we decided to release our own.

The Brightcove team is excited to show off the Zencoder cloud transcoding service at Google's annual developer conference, Google I/O.

High fives are in order for Video.js creator  Steve Heffernan, and the Brightcove player team for the release of Video.js 4.0.  Since Brightcove acquired Zencoder, they've invested heavily in Video.js, and according to Steve, it's "the most solid, lightweight, and I dare say prettiest version" of the player yet. You can read the entire blog post here. 4.0 Major Feature Summary: Improved performance through an 18% size reduction using Google Closure Compiler in advanced mode Greater stability through an automated cross-browser/device test suite using TravisCI, Bunyip, and Browserstack. New plugin interface and plugin listing for extending Video.js New default skin design that uses font icons for greater customization Responsive design and retina display support Improved accessibility through better ARIA support Moved to Apache 2.0 license 100% JavaScript development tool set including Grunt

TVnext Hack came to an end last weekend after two awesome days of work by everyone involved.

It's going to be an exciting few days for the Zencoder team! TVnext Hack, a hackathon focused on the television industry, starts Saturday and is being held in Boston. We're teaming up with WatchWith to provide hackers with great television content from Psych and the Mindy Project.

The last two posts (Part 1, Part 2) by your intrepid compressionist were focused on dynamic concatenation and sensible rendition selection. This post continues to dive deeper towards the core of building a flexible video platform designed for growth.  You can download the series "Architecting a Video Encoding Strategy Designed for Growth" as a whitepaper here. A Quick Recap For years, there were two basic models of Internet streaming: server-based proprietary technology such as RTMP or progressive download.  Server-based streaming allows the delivery of multi-bitrate streams that can be switched on demand, but it requires licensing expensive software. Progressive download can be done over Apache, but switching bitrates requires playback to stop. The advent of HTTP-based streaming protocols such as HLS and Smooth Streaming meant that streaming delivery was possible over standard HTTP connections using commodity server technology such as Apache; seamless bitrate switching became commonplace and delivery over CDNs was simple as it was fundamentally the same as delivering any file over HTTP. HTTP streaming has resulted in nothing short of a revolution in the delivery of streaming media, vastly reducing the cost and complexity of high-quality streaming. When designing a video platform there are countless things to consider; however, one of the most important and oft-overlooked decisions is how to treat HTTP-based manifest files.

Yesterday we announced the general availability of our newest product, Live Cloud Transcoding, a cloud-based API for transcoding live video. Streaming high-quality, live video over the web is a difficult problem that generally requires expensive hardware and considerable skill to set up and operate. Recent years have shown an increase in the number of streaming formats available combined with an explosion in internet connected consumer devices, making the job of content providers even harder. Over the last three years, Zencoder has offered the fastest, most scalable, and highest quality file transcoding in the cloud. We're bringing the same approach to live video, with a focus on performance, features, and API usability. Our initial release is simple, straightforward, and powerful.