The IT Plan

Most of the responsibility for planning and implementing streaming media at the Coho Winery falls on the IT department. The IT department has full control over the winery’s computers, Web site, and network. In the previous chapter, the IT department was given responsibility for calculating current usage patterns, evaluating existing systems, and making recommendations for streaming media integration.

Network and Hardware

The winery currently uses frame relay to connect to the Internet, and has 1.5 Mbps of total bandwidth available. Analysis of the current IIS logs showed an average of 120 connections during any given one-hour period. Using this average, IT estimated that 50 percent of those hitting the Web site might choose to watch the videos. If 60 users watch a video during the course of one hour, and each video is five minutes long, then the server would experience approximately 10 concurrent connections. Assuming that all 10 concurrent connections are over a 56 Kbps modem, IT calculated that users would consume a maximum of 560 Kbps (10 x 56,000) of bandwidth. Realistically, that number would be about 30 percent lower, or approximately 400 Kbps, because of network overhead. IT then considered that half the connections might be 56 Kbps and the other half might be 100 Kbps broadband lines. This bumped the total throughput to a maximum of 780 Kbps.

Based on these figures, IT is aware that increased traffic could eventually saturate the existing connection. Upgrading to a fractional T3 connection could buy them extra bandwidth and enable them to stream higher-bit-rate content, but at a considerable cost. IT recommends monitoring actual traffic patterns over several months after the on-demand videos are in place to determine whether an upgrade to a fractional T3 connection is necessary and financially feasible.

The winery decided to host its Web site on the Windows Server 2003 platform, but had to do some research to decide which version of Windows Server was right for them. Because the winery was primarily interested in hosting a small Web site and then streaming from it, IT recommended Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition. This choice meant that they had to forego certain streaming features such as multicast distribution, cache/proxy support, digest authentication, and custom plug-in support. But because they are a small company with only one server, they found that IIS 6.0, Active Directory, and the Windows Media Services features in Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition, to be a comfortable fit.

Because the winery has only the one server, they choose to use it for hosting their Web site and streaming on-demand content. The server has a 1.2 GHz processor, 1 GB of memory, and uses a RAID 5 array for content storage. The server also contains a 100-Mbps Ethernet card. IT recommends adding a second 100-Mbps Ethernet card for the server to handle back-end connections to the encoder and internal network.

The encoder will run on a 900 MHz single-processor computer running Windows XP Professional. Because the winery intends to do on-demand streaming exclusively, the 900-MHz computer will be adequate for the job. The computer does not have an audio or video capture card currently, so IT recommends purchasing an inexpensive one for capturing the audio and video from DVD.

The server is connected to the encoding computer using a crossover cable. The crossover cable connects the network cards of the two computers and is used in lieu of a hub. A crossover cable is necessary because the send and receive lines in an Ethernet cable are crossed, and the cable ensures that the send wires are matched up with the receive wires on the other end.

Based on the existing equipment and additional recommendations, IT produces the site topology shown in figure 6.1 for streaming audio and video from the Coho Winery Web site:

Figure 6.1: Planned network topology for Coho Winery.

Content Creation

The content creation process fits into four categories: planning, pre-production, post production, and encoding. We’ve already talked about planning. In production, you shoot the scene on film or videotape and record the audio. In post-production, you mix the audio, edit the video, add special effects, and so on. Because the production tasks are being handled by the production company that originally produced the videos for the Coho Winery, we do not describe them here. Rather, we focus on the encoding tasks, where the Coho Winery Webmaster captures the audio and video and encodes them into Windows Media Format.

The Coho Winery Webmaster will encode all content that is provided by the production company. The encoding task will be relatively small because the current plan calls for a total of three videos to be produced. Depending on the response, additional videos might be added to the site, but those plans are at least a year away.

While awaiting the new content from the production company and a capture card for the encoding workstation, the Webmaster downloads and experiments with Windows Media Encoder 9 Series by encoding AVI files that she’s acquired from various sources. She knows that she wants to use multiple-bit-rate (MBR) encoding in order to adequately deliver video to customers with high- and low-bandwidth connections. And she wants to understand the encoding settings in order to create an appropriate encoding profile for all streamed content on the Web site. A profile is a collection of settings tailored to the type of content being encoded, the audience, and the intended distribution (file or broadcast). The properties stored in a profile include: the audio and video quality, connection speed for the intended audience, available bandwidth, and appropriate codecs. Using profiles enables you to standardize the encoding settings that you use thus ensuring that encoding results are always the same.

Playback

The Webmaster’s other action item was to investigate whether to embed Windows Media Player in the winery Web site or to launch a separate Player window when users click the video link. Benefits to embedding the Player include:

• The ability to wrap winery branding around the Player.

• The ability to control the user’s video playback.

Winery management is in favor of putting branding on their site, and they want to keep their customers focused on the winery Web page rather than sending them out to a separate window to watch the videos because they know that any time you send users away from your site you run the risk of losing them. They also like being able to control the size of the Player so it blends effectively with their site design.

The main drawback of embedding the Player is that some older browsers might not support it. As you might recall from chapter 4, the core functionality of Windows Media Player has been included in an ActiveX control that can be embedded in Web pages. ActiveX controls are programs that cannot run by themselves, but must be used by another program, such as a browser. In the winery case, if a customer’s browser does not support ActiveX controls, then that customer will not be able to watch any of the winery videos. The winery has no information about which browsers their customers are using and must decide whether the benefits of embedding the Player outweigh the risk of some users not being able to view the content.

The Webmaster determines that the problem can be solved by adding some code to the winery Web page that will check for ActiveX compatibility and, if necessary, then point users to a Web site where they can download the Player control. She can also create an announcement file with an .asx extension that launches a stand-alone Player, if necessary. This solution tips the scale, and winery management agrees to embed the Player in the winery Web page.