Hands-On Guide to Webcasting

CHAPTER 9

Webcast Encoding

The encoding stage is where webcasting production separates from traditional broadcasting. Encoding is where the broadcast quality we have worked so hard to produce thus far is compromised. Unfortunately this comes with the territory: there simply is not enough bandwidth available on the Internet to stream broadcast quality video. Yet.

This may not always be the case. There are a number of initiatives in the works to deliver fiber connectivity to the home, which would offer upwards of 30 Megabytes per second downstream capacity. Also, webcasts destined for use on internal networks can take advantage of multicast, and deliver much higher bit rate streams. Regardless of the bit rate you are streaming, you have to use ...