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Sustainable Subscriptions – Revenue Success and Churn Prevention in a Pandemic
Introductory note from Ben Morrell, Contributing Author, OTTVerse.com In this open-ended series, I will speak to key industry players, customers, and experts who have an influence on the outstandingly diverse…
latest articles
Calculate PSNR, VMAF, SSIM using FFmpeg
In this article, let’s learn to compute VMAF, PSNR, and SSIM using FFmpeg. While working on videos (compression or post-processing), it is common to compute objective metrics in addition to…
Stack Videos Horizontally, Vertically, in a Grid With FFmpeg
Often times, when you want to compare two videos side-by-side or you want to create an effect during post-processing, you might want to stack videos together. It can get expensive…
How does HLS Video Streaming Work?
HLS or HTTP Live Streaming is an HTTP-based adaptive bitrate video streaming protocol introduced by Apple in 2006 that describes a set of tools and procedures for streaming video and…
AVOD, SVOD, TVOD, PVOD – Video On Demand Monetization Demystified
Advertising VOD, Subscription VOD, Transactional VOD, Premium VOD are different monetization models in the Video On Demand (VOD) ecosystem and represent different ways of engaging and monetizing users on the…
Add, Remove, Extract, Replace Audio using FFmpeg
FFmpeg is a super-powerful tool to add, remove, extract, or replace the audio in your video files. If you have a copy of FFmpeg installed on your computer, then you…
picoNETS – Deep Edge Caching at Massive Scale
In this edition of the Industry Spotlight series, we take a look at picoNETS; a startup focused on building Deep Edge Content Delivery Networks or Deep Edge Caching for Telcos…
How to Rotate A Video using FFmpeg Easily
Sometimes when a video is captured wrong due to bad technique or simply bad luck, its useful to have a simple way to rotate it either clockwise or anti-clockwise. Lucky…
LCEVC vs. AVC – Incredible 28% Gain at 3x Speed
In this article, we compare the quality (objective & subjective) and speed of LCEVC with H.264/AVC as its base-codec vs. H.264/AVC using FFmpeg. Let’s take a look at the experiments…
Reverse a Video with FFmpeg made Ridiculously Easy
It’s very easy to reverse a video using FFmpeg because FFmpeg has a built-in reverse filter that can do this job for both audio and video! Let’s learn how in…
Thumbnails & Screenshots using FFmpeg – 3 Efficient Techniques
There are several easy ways to take screenshots/thumbnails of movies using FFmpeg. But why do this in the first place? You might want to generate thumbnails for your videos and…
x266 Open-Source Encoder for VVC by MulticoreWare
MulticoreWare is a software development company that works on video compression, ML, heterogeneous computing, and championed the open-source x265 encoder in the past. They are now driving the x266 project…
3 Easy Ways to Concatenate mp4 Files Using FFmpeg
You can use FFmpeg to concatenate mp4 files very easily! There are many ways to do this including variations such as (1) concatenating only the audio (2) concatenating only video…
Vadoo: P2P for Video Streaming and Multi-Player Gaming
In this edition of Industry Spotlight, let’s take a look at Vadoo, an early-stage video startup aimed at disrupting video streaming using P2P and AI. Video Streaming Can Get Expensive Video streaming…
Trim/Cut/Extract Video Using FFmpeg in 3 Easy Ways
In this tutorial, we’ll see how you can cut/trim/extract part of a video file using FFmpeg in 3 different ways. There are fast ways to achieve this using less-accurate seeking…
Glossary of DRM Terminologies
AES AES stands for Advanced Encryption Standard (also called Rijndael) and was established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2001 to encrypt electronic data. It’s…
Multi-DRM – Why is it critical to your infrastructure?
Having covered the fundamentals of DRM and looking into popular DRM systems such as FairPlay Streaming, Widevine, and PlayReady, let’s now take a look at the concept of multi-DRM. Specifically,…
Google Widevine DRM – How Does It Work?
In this edition of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to DRM, we take an in-depth look at Google’s Widevine DRM solution. Widevine is a popular DRM solution with extensive support over the…
Microsoft PlayReady DRM – How Does It Work?
Microsoft PlayReady is a popular DRM solution with extensive support for the Windows Operating System and other mobile & TV platforms. In this edition of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to DRM,…
Apple FairPlay Streaming DRM – How Does It Work?
In this edition of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to DRM, we take a look at the FairPlay Streaming DRM solution from Apple used for securely distributing content iOS, tvOS, and macOS…
EME, CDM, AES, CENC, and Keys – The Essential Building Blocks of DRM
Anyone trying to understand DRM (Digital Rights Management) will be confronted with acronyms such as AES, CDM, CENC, EME, etc. This can get very confusing for a newcomer, but understanding…
What is DRM or Digital Rights Management?
In the first of the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to DRM” series, we define what DRM (Digital Rights Management) is,and why it plays an important role in ensuring fair use of digital…
Discrete Cosine Transform in Video Compression – Explain Like I’m 5
In this article of the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to Video Compression” series, let’s understand what Transforms are with a simple and intuitive example. And, then let’s go on to understand the…
Video Pre-processing in Encoders – What and Why
In this article of the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to Video Compression”, let’s take a look at the video pre-processing block that is critical to every encoding / transcoding workflow.👋 This is…
What’s a Video Codec – Layman’s Explanation
In this article, we take a look at what a video codec is, what are video coding standards, and how video coding standards related to the process of compressing and…
FFmpeg drawtext filter to Insert Dynamic Overlays, Scrolling Text, and Timestamps
Learn FFmpeg’s drawtext filter to dynamically overlay text on video and display information such as timecode, frame resolution, watermarks, etc. Also, let’s learn how to configure the font, font-size, position,…
FFmpeg AVI to MP4 Conversion (Lossy and Lossless)
In this article, let’s learn how to use FFmpeg to convert videos from AVI to MP4 format – with and without re-encoding the AVI file. As a bonus, learn how…
VMAF in FFmpeg – Installation and Usage Guide for Ubuntu
In this tutorial, we will see how to compile and install FFmpeg with VMAF support using libvmaf and then we shall see how to compute or calculate the VMAF score…
Convert to YUV using FFmpeg and Playback Using ffplay
Learn how to convert any video into YUV raw video using ffmpeg, play back a YUV file using ffplay, and to calculate the size of a YUV file by hand.…
Comprehensive Guide to LCEVC (MPEG-5 Part 2) – Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding
The LCEVC Codec (MPEG-5 Part 2) or “Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding” is one of the three new codecs being introduced by MPEG (others being Versatile Video Coding (VVC) and…
Install FFmpeg on Windows, Mac, and Ubuntu the Easy Way
Let’s learn how to install FFmpeg on Ubuntu, MacOS, and Windows – the easy and painless way. Often times, people spend too much time installing FFmpeg and not using it.…