SnapStream’s ‘TV Searcher’ Blog

SnapStream’s ShowSqueeze lets you separately recompress any standard-definition (SD) or high-definition (HD) recording to either Windows Media (.wmv) or H.264. These formats offer the same great recording quality as the other formats in a fraction of the space. And when you’re recording thousands of hours of television, this can be particularly useful.

So, let’s say you’re recording at Fair Quality (2 mbps), by automatically ShowSqueezing all programs as they’re recorded to a Windows Media file (667 kb/s), a server that once could hold 2000 hours of television can now hold over 6000 hours of television.

It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3!

1. In the SnapStream Web interface home page, go to settings. Choose ShowSqueeze from the list of options.

2. In the ShowSqueeze settings menu, you’ll see the option to Automatically ShowSqueeze all recordings (either all SD shows, all HD shows or all shows (SD and HD)). In this example, we’ve chosen to compress the files to the default Windows Media setting at Fair Quality (667 kb/s).

3. Your program will immediately be compressed (or if you choose, can be scheduled for a later time). Once the compression is done, you’ll see it in your list of recorded programs again.

That’s it. The ShowSqueezed clip is now ready to download, email or burn to DVD. This particular program went from 3.27GB (it was originally recorded in Best quality at 8mbps) to .7GB, compressing it to about 25% of its original size (the Windows Media file setting in that example is 667 kb/s).

So, Automatic ShowSqueeze is especially useful if you are recording a number of channels 24/7, as many SnapStream TV Server customers do. In that case, you can even set your SnapStream Server to automatically compress programs:

• At a global level (i.e., everything you record)
• Just certain channels (i.e., channels you record 24/7) or
• Just certain programs (i.e., one particular episode of CNN, as in the example above)

To maximize bandwidth usage, you can also schedule the compression to take place after business hours, for example, from 2-4 am. Keep in mind, ShowSqueezing takes server processing power, so you have to strike the right balance between space and processing power to get the best use of the server’s processor in the quest for more space.  For questions or more details, please contact your Sales Rep or Enterprise Technical support.

The SnapStream development team is happy to announce availability of the 4.9.1 release for SnapStream Server customers. Much of the work was performed “under the hood,” but there are a few big new features as well, among them:

• Clear QAM support
• StreamSnip
• PlaceShifting

Clear QAM Support (plus StreamSnip)*

We did a complete overhaul of our HD recording system to include the ability to capture Clear QAM cable broadcasts. This part gets a little technical, but stay with me.

The demultiplexer (the part that splits the video from the audio so they can be displayed), was only written to support ATSC formatted transport streams in previous versions. QAM is a close cousin to ATSC, but instead of simply tacking it on, we completely re-wrote the demux, making it faster and better at handling bad signals. Additionally, we added the ability to play the secondary audio streams that could be stored in the digital streams.

While we were at it, we implemented StreamSnip, to pull the 38mbit/s bitrate of QAM down to only the size of the stream that you wanted to capture (5-16mbit/s depending on the content).

To allow the feature to be used, we added a number of pages to the Setup Wizard, implementing what we think is the best QAM setup procedure in the market. This setup shows you the QAM channel side by side with program guide data, helping ease the mapping process.

*Please note that QAM is only available to the Digital 5 tuner version of the SnapStream Server. The tuner cards in analog capture systems aren’t able to grab the digital data. So, the Digital 5 Tuner version now allows you to search and then clip QAM and ATSC broadcasts:

PlaceShifting

The second large feature added is the limited availability of PlaceShifting. For the uninitiated, PlaceShifting is a way to stream any recorded content to any computer on the internet. The bandwidth of the remote computer is checked and then the video is streamed in the appropriate format and bitrate.

Other Stuff

As always, we added tweaks here and there to improve functionality of the Server. Some highlights:

• Auto-Expiration is now available for individual programs (rather than at a system-level)
• Recordings can now be tagged with the name of the user that scheduled them
• iPhone and iPod Touch 2.0 video recompression is now supported
• Startup speed of the Scheduler and Library is improved

Enterprise TV release 4.9.1 is available immediately to all SnapStream Server customers.

Educators use television in the classroom to reinforce and expand on material being taught, increase student interest in learning and better address a variety of learning styles. The SnapStream Server puts TV in every classroom without having to wire each room with cable or supply each classroom with DVRs, VCRs and TVs. SnapStream TV search technology gives teachers the ability to search within TV recordings and pinpoint content of interest; then clip that content and download, burn to DVD or stream it right to the classroom, quickly and easily. Most importantly, teachers do not have to wait and rely on other people to do it for them.

As an example, let’s say you’re doing a lesson plan on Obama. You can simply type in “Obama” and SnapStream will bring up a list of TV programs where his name was mentioned. You can even have an email alert sent to you notifying you of mentions of whatever it is you’re looking for. Read more about SnapStream email alerts.

With SnapStream, administrators can easily control who can access the server and what features they have access to. For example, administrators can manage permissions based on user groups – e.g., teachers might have permission to schedule and record, but not delete, programming – eliminating the possibility of accidentally deleting another teacher’s programs. SnapStream makes it easy to bring TV into the classroom.

Recently, Forsyth County School district incorporated SnapStream into their classrooms. Director of Technology Services for Forsyth, Mark Klingler noted, “Its simple easy-to-use interface gives teachers the ability to record and search straight from their desks.” Read more about how Forsyth County K-12 schools are using SnapStream .

I was deep in marketing-land on Thursday (also known as “writing a case study”), when I heard about the US Airways plane that crash-landed in the Hudson. I grew up in Houston, but lived in NYC for 5 years and moved back last year. I still have lots of friends there…so when I hear news like that coming out of NY I still feel like it’s My News and it feels personal. Within minutes, my boss showed me that rescue picture that Janis Krums took from the ferry and posted to Twitter. I was really amazed by how quickly that picture got out. I watched as the number of “views” went from the dozens to the thousands. It was posted and cross-posted on lots of different blogs as the page views overloaded the Twitter server. Twitter is an amazing thing. I posted it to my Facebook page; I had friends in NY who learned of the plane crash from my Facebook post. Incredible.

A few minutes later, I ran across an article on Silicon Alley Insider, “U.S. Airways Crash Rescue Picture: Citizen Journalism, Twitter At Work.” I was astonished at how quickly that all happened. I know that sounds cliche…but not just the news of the plane crash – but also how quickly the photo some random guy took from his iPhone got thousands upon thousands of views within minutes; according to Dan Frommer, he was interviewed live on MSNBC just 34 minutes after he posted that photo to Twitter. Pretty cool. It got me thinking about how much technology has changed the way journalists cover the news.

Which got me wondering over the weekend, if I were a video blogger, how quickly could I get up a story about that plane crash? Here in the SnapStream office, we record most of the National news programs for our own interest and example purposes, and we’ve got alerts that are set up for “breaking news” (read more about that here). I went to my email alerts, did a quick search through Gmail for “Plane Crash” and got several results. I clicked right through to the program through the link in my alert:

In the end, though, I was just fascinated by how quickly that news spread, and how new technologies like Twitter and SnapStream can help journalists keep track of an unfolding event. Pretty cool.

Here’s the clip of the TV broadcast my “breaking news” alert linked me to.

In this half-hour podcast, Rakesh talks with Matt about how different industries – including entertainment programs like “The Soup” – are using SnapStream TV search servers, and why.  Check out the podcast here:

FreshDV Podcast – Snapstream Media’s DVR on Steroids