WINDOWS MEDIA
This encoder is very intuitive to administer and operate on your PC. Windows Expression Encoder allows you to encode from various media sources on your PC like a the web cam or a microphone and even direct from a CD player. In the case of a web cam, Windows Media Encoder creates the streaming media (video and audio) by encoding images from the web cam and encoding sound from the microphone, and broadcasting the streaming media output on a designated port on your PC. A fairly resource hungry application so you should have a newer PC if you intend to do alternative things while broadcasting.

*Text above was approved by the writers at Live Streaming Hosting.

More Reading:

Flash and Windows Encoders
http://livestreaminghosting.com/setup-encoders

Flash Media
http://streamingmediaexperts.com/flash-media

Windows Media
http://streamingmediaexperts.com/windows

Broadcast a Live Event – Adobe Flash Media Encoder
http://www.live-webcasting-internet-broadcasting.com/broadcast-live-Flash-Encoder.html

Broadcast a Live Event With Expression Encoder 4
http://www.live-webcasting-internet-broadcasting.com/broadcast-live-event-Expression_Encoder_4.html

Inexpensive Hosting Provider
http://awcast.com/pricing-and-order/

Inexpensive Broadcasting Online
An inexpensive hosting company like AWcast.com is a good choice if you are looking to Broadcast Live Online. They are a high quality streaming media solution. AWcast is the least expensive and highest quality in the market today. There are no forced logos, banners or ads and they offer 24/7 technical support.

Try Video Converter Software – Sothink Free Video Converter ⇒

Useful Software

Host the video on your own site
If you don’t want your video to be watermarked by Youtube or other video hosting website, you should convert your video yourself, and host the converted FLV video yourself. And you can specify the conversion settings freely (such as bitrate, sample rate, frame rate), so that you can get the FLV video with better quality.

Youtube Flash video player:

Flash player provided by Video Encoder for Adobe Flash:

Convert video to FLV format step by step

• Step 2. Edit the video
  Click “Crop & Trim”, if you want to edit the source video. You can crop the video, if you want to remove blackbars, or just want a part of the picture. You can trim the video, if you just want to convert a certain duration of video.
   
• Step 3. Configure the conversion settings
  Select “User-defined” to enable yourself to customize the audio and video settings. And specify the audio setting and video settings properly. You can check the help file to find more detailed guidance.
   
• Step 4. Specify output settings
  Specify an output folder to save the created FLV and SWF files. Check both “Generate FLV” and “Generate SWF “.
  If you want to create a SWF player which can play different FLV files dynamically, you should choose “Get the FLV path from a URL variable and play progressively”. Then you need to specify a URL variable name (in the right blank), then the created SWF player can get the FLV path from HTML code using this variable name.
  Otherwise, you can simply choose “Play the created external FLV file progressively”.
   
• Step 5. Choose skin for Flash video player
  Select a color scheme and style you like. Choose “Classic (Black, Full)” for example. “Full” control panel provides all controls including Play, Pause, Fast forward/backward, Volume control, Mute, Elapsed Time and Duration.
   
• Step 6. Start conversion
  Click “Next” to start conversion. It will take a few minutes.
  After the conversion finishes, open the output folder, then you can see the created “.flv” and “.swf” files. You can also use free software FLV Player to play the .flv video directly to see if its quality is good enough. If not, you need to convert the video again, and try some different conversion settings.

Put the FLV video on Web page step by step.

• Step 1. Upload the created “.swf” file and the “.flv” video file to the same folder on your server. For example, if you want to show the video on http://www.myhomepage.com/index.htm, then upload the “.swf” and “.flv” files together to the path http://www.myhomepage.com.
• Step 2. Add the following html code to your page and customize the relating parameters.If you have chosen “Get the FLV path from a URL variable and play progressively” , then
  add code:

  <object classid=”clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000″ codebase=”http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/ cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,0,0″ width=”400″ height=”300″ id=”flashvideoplayer.swf” align=”middle”>          <param name=”allowScriptAccess” value=”sameDomain”>          <param name=”movie”                   value=”http://www.myhomepage.com/flashvideoplayer.swf?                   flv=http://www.myhomepage.com/myvideofile.flv”>          <param name=”quality” value=”high”>          <param name=”bgcolor” value=”#ffffff”> <embed src=”http://www.myhomepage.com/flashvideoplayer.swf?                   flv=http://www.myhomepage.com/myvideofile.flv” quality=”high” bgcolor=”#ffffff” width=”400″ height=”300″ name=”flashvideoplayer.swf” align=”middle” allowScriptAccess=”sameDomain” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” pluginspage=”http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer”> </object>

  And customize the parameters:
  Replace “myvideofile.flv” with your FLV filename;
  Replace “flashvideoplayer.swf” with your SWF filename;
  Replace “http://www.myhomepage.com/” with your own address;
  Replace the “width” and “height” with your flv file’s width and height. Specify the “quality” and “bgcolor” as you want.
  In the code above, flv is just the URL variable name that you should have specified before conversion. The player can automatically get the URL variable’s value (http://www.myhomepage.com/myvideofile.flv), and play the Flash Video.

  If you have chosen “Play the created external FLV file progressively “, then
  add code:

  <object classid=”clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000″ codebase=”http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/ cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,0,0″ width=”400″ height=”300″ id=”flashvideoplayer.swf” align=”middle”>          <param name=”allowScriptAccess” value=”sameDomain”>          <param name=”movie”                   value=”http://www.myhomepage.com/flashvideoplayer.swf”>          <param name=”quality” value=”high”>          <param name=”bgcolor” value=”#ffffff”>          <embed src=”http://www.myhomepage.com/flashvideoplayer.swf” quality=”high” bgcolor=”#ffffff” width=”400″ height=”300″ name=”flashvideoplayer.swf” align=”middle” allowScriptAccess=”sameDomain” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” pluginspage=”http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer”> </object>

  And customize the parameters:
  Replace “flashvideoplayer.swf” with your SWF filename;
  Replace “http://www.myhomepage.com/” with your own address;
  And replace the “width” and “height” with your flv file’s width and height. Specify the “quality” and “bgcolor” as you want. The Flash video player has the “.flv” file’s URL when it is created. So you don’t need to specify it in the code.
   

Key steps summary
It is simple to put your video on your own site: Step 1, convert your video to FLV format, and create a Flash video player for it; Step 2, Upload the created files to your server, add the code to your webpage, and specify the right parameters.

 More Articles:

Set Up A Live Brodcast
http://streamingmediaexperts.com/setup-to-broadcast-live

Streaming Services Webcast Hosting Service
http://streamingmediaexperts.com/streaming-services

Inexpensive Hosting Provider
http://awcast.com/pricing-and-order/

How to Set Up a Webcast
http://hostingstreamingmedia.com/how-to-set-up-a-webcast

Sustain a High Degree of Protection for Your Media Link
http://livestreaminghosting.com/link-protection

If you want to do this right, I would suggest making a separate page just for these downloads. On this page you should include links for people downloading shareware versions of players that will play either the MP3 or VQF files. I would suggest the Microsoft Windows Media Player or the Adobe Flash Player . The Microsoft Media Player will probably become the most widely player, while sonique is a much more aesthetically pleasing and functional player. One of these functions include the unique ability to both play a stream and save the file, all at the same time.

The VQF player can be downloaded from Here. It is actually a browser plug-in; although, it can be operated without your browser.

Pseudo-Streaming Audio
Pseudo-Streaming Audio is a technique that lets someone listen to an audio file immediately without having to download the entire file. In this respect it is similar to Real Audio. Although this label is not technically correct because this technique does really stream audio, it is called pseudo-streaming to distinguish it from RealAudio’s dynamically compensated streaming, which is what many people think of as streaming.

Streaming works by downloading the file as normal, but decoding and playing the file on the fly. As long as the file info is downloaded faster than it can be played, then the listener can detect no difference whatsoever between pseudo-streaming and dynamic streaming (Real Audio). This requires a modem connection to be greater than the bit rate which was set during encoding. However, if the listener has a slower connection, then their computer does not play until it has downloaded enough information to begin playing with a buffer to spare. This may result in some pauses during playing. But, the tests that I have run show that this never occurs with a 28.8 kbps modem if the stream’s bit rate is equal to or less than 20 kbps.

Real Audio is different in that the files are posted on a special server that adjusts the audio quality (lower quality means less information must be transmitted) to accommodate slower connections. However, for a given rate, the MP3 and VQF sound much better than Real Audio! The true difference between Real Audio and MP3 streams is that a Real Audio file actually contains information for multiple bit rates. This redundancy makes the file huge; however, it allows a single file to support multiple connection speeds. This is the only true drawback to this MP3 pseudo-streaming technique – high bandwidth listeners must listen to the same quality as used by listeners with the slowest connection speeds. But, for voice and speech audio, a quality can be chosen that sounds pleasant at even low connection speeds.

Both VQF and MP3 can accommodate pseudo-streaming. In both cases, the key to this magic is a small file called a “locator file”. This file contains nothing more than the http address of the audio file. However, this special locator file directs a listener’s player to the audio files location and instructs the media player to play the audio stream as it is downloading.

All locator files for the MP3 format have the extension M3U. Files with this extension typically contain a “play-list” of files in a given location. If only a single file is included, then only that file will be played, but if multiple files are included, then the player will continue and play the additional “tracks” after the first one is completed. Using the “track seek” buttons, a listener can jump from one track to the next.

Server Configuration?
A good ISP server will probably have the server configured properly, but if you have any trouble, then you may have to contact your ISP provider or web-master. A typical problem with server configurations would be clicking on a link and a browser window popping up, filled with garbage text.

The server configuration revolve around one issue – application association. Before a server directs ANY file to your computer through the web, it first tells your computer what kind of file it is and if any specific program should be used to open the file. For example, your server tells your computer that all files with extension HTML or HTM should be opened using your web-browser. A few low-budget ISP’s may not have configured their server to recognize files of extension MP3, M3U, VQF, etc.

If you have trouble with either one, be sure to contact your ISP provider or webmaster. They may ask you to post an additional file labeled “.htaccess”. The period in front is important. (You could try posting this on your own.) This file tells the server how to handle files with specific extensions and whether or not to associate a browser plug-in or application with them. The file must be posted in the same directory, or higher, as the audio files. Any subdirectories within the same directory as the .htaccess file, will “inherit” the same settings. My .htaccess file looks like this:

AddType application/octet-stream mp3
AddType audio/x-mpegurl m3u
AddType audio/x-twinvq vqf
AddType audio/x-twinvq vql
AddType audio/x-twinvq vqe

The first line tells the server that files with the extension MP3 are applications that must be downloaded in binary form – they are not ASCII text or HTML code. The second line associates files with the extension M3U with the default audio player. The last 3 lines tell the browser that the files of those extensions are associated with file type “audio” and to use the plugin “twinvq” to play them.

Although, you may not have to do this, I have included it for the few who may need it. Again, first ask your webmaster and ISP if you have any problems. It won’t hurt to add the above “.htaccess” file, even if the server doesn’t recognize it.

Concluding Thoughts
The bottom line is that the MP3/VQF setup is less complicated, less sophisticated, and less expensive. Moreover, it works almost as well as Real Audio; and for some performance parameters, it is even better, such as smaller file size for the same quality. The MP3 format is already extremely popular with those who trade and share music over the Internet, and its popularity is continuing to grow. Eventually, as modem speeds increase, formats like MP3 and VQf will topple the entire Real Audio regime because of the complexity of setting up Real Audio files, thereby removing the only advantage that Real Audio has over MP3 and VQF.

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Digital Recording
Part 3: Reducing Noise
Part 4: Encoding
Part 5: Web Pages