NewTek TriCaster 855 - Manual (Page 263)

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LIVE STREAMING
Live streaming is a growing international market, and one you may well wish to serve. This form
of streaming is a somewhat more demanding implementation. Rather than record a file and deal
with it later, live video is transmitted over the network (effectively in realtime, give or take a little
‘time in the pipe’ as it were.)
Delivering a good quality stream requires that you consider both your network connection
capabilities and that of your viewers. As well, to ensure reliable delivery, you will ideally have
some idea of the size of your audience. Nevertheless, for all cases, TriCaster gives you the tools
to do the job. Naturally, streaming video is highly compressed to reduce bandwidth demands and
make it available to a wider group. TriCaster supports two popular and prolific encoding
systems, Microsoft’s Windows Media® and Adobe Flash Media®.
The decision as to which encoding format to use for your live stream is up to you or – in some
cases – your client. Here are some things to consider:
 Some corporate and institutional network administrators opt to support one or another
format exclusively. (Check with your IT department to find out if this affects your
decision).
 Flash has a very wide installed user base, and seems poised to increase in proliferation
in the foreseeable future.
 Flash works well across multiple platforms (PCs, Macs, Linux, etc.). Windows Media is
well represented, but perhaps not quite to the same degree.
 Some sources report that the Flash movies will have a larger file size and use greater
bandwidth than Windows Media for a given stream quality. (This is hard to assess, and
changes constantly as developers update their products).
 Codecs for both types are updated with fair regularity, and when you choose the ‘latest,
greatest’ encoding, your viewers may not all have the current player, requiring them to
download and install updates.