Chapter 4
Streaming Video Basics
Topics in this chapter
Video Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Getting the Best Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Network Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Typical Applications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
VBrick Accessories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Serial Port Passthrough . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
MPEG Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
WM Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Video Basics
It is important that the source of the video to be encoded and networked be of the highest possible quality in order to avoid using unnecessary bandwidth to transport source video artifacts, distortion, etc. If using a camera, exercise common sense; good lighting and a steady camera will improve overall performance. Cameras, VCR tape players, DVD players, and live television broadcast feeds from a TV tuner can all be used as video sources. VBrick supports standard video via BNC connectors, or
Note Where possible VBrick recommends using
MPEG-2
MPEG-2 Encoder Compression
Understanding I, B, P Frames, Delay, and Synchronization
In compressed video, each frame is compressed using a "lossy" compression scheme that takes advantage of the fact that the human eye does not detect certain types of visual information loss. MPEG compresses files based on I, B, P frames, which contain information from previous pictures and predictions about future pictures in a Group of Pictures (GOP). An
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