Preface

Ten years ago, when the previous edition of this book was written, it was already established that video was a major part of our lives. Nothing has stopped this from being true, and in fact we are continually finding ways to make it an integral part of our daily lives. Digital video, compressed or otherwise, is all about bits. It seems like it should be easy to move those bits from one place to another, and yet it isn’t. A myriad of little settings, tweaks, steps, and reasons make the process of moving video from one medium to another a frustration. If you mess it up, the results are unwatchable at best and unplayable at worst. With so many possibilities as to what can go wrong, troubleshooting becomes a prolonged guessing game, punctuated by panic-inducing deadline checks.

Sorry, we didn’t mean to make you hyperventilate.

It’s truly amazing how much video compression occurs now. The phones in our pockets are basically portable film studios, allowing us to capture, edit, compress, and publish video while we’re on the move. Traditional broadcasters have capitulated and started making their shows available online, and IP video has become the infrastructure for modern studios. Oh, and did we mention Twitch and its army of broadcasters delivering game content to millions of viewers daily?

Now we’re the ones hyperventilating.

What This Book Is Not

This book is decidedly not a technical tome on the nature of video compression and streaming media. We will not get into the science of encoding (well, maybe just a tiny bit), and we won’t explain how committees of smart people came up with the standards we use to make this all work. Yes, we will discuss some fairly complex topics, but believe us, this is just the beginning. There is a world of math and science associated with this technology, but for the most part it doesn’t mean a lick if you’re in the last hour of your production, trying to figure out why your encodes are failing.

Though we’ll discuss some aspects of video production, this book is not about shooting the best video possible. We have been on our fair share of shoots, but don’t feel qualified to try to tell you the best way to shoot video. Plenty of other books do that. Also, we will not explain how to do visual effects, how to edit video better, or how to troubleshoot hardware and software.

What Is This Book About, Then?

This book focuses on the essential information you need to get your video online, on disc, in theaters, or onto some other device. Sometimes discussions in compression get bogged down in all the options available. What we’ll try to do in this book is present you with some fundamentals and some best practices.

We’ll start by covering the fundamentals of video and video compression, giving you the most essential background information you’ll need to know. Next, we’ll explore the current applications and web services you’ll most likely run across while encoding your video. We’ll discuss their merits and explain the most common workflows for each. Finally, we’ll discuss the most common delivery media for your compressed video and use those same applications to create some specific content for various delivery media.

Our hope is that by combining the fundamental information, practical knowledge about the tools of the trade, and insight into the delivery platforms, we’ll leave you well armed to tackle the variety of content that’s thrown your way.

But we didn’t want you to hear this just from us, so we asked a variety of friends and co-workers to contribute their own insight into the world of video compression. Their profiles are intermingled with the chapters, and although they all are involved in video compression, their professions are incredibly varied.

Who Should Read This Book

If you have ever suddenly had to add video compression to your regular work responsibilities, willingly or otherwise, then this book is for you. But if you have also been doing this for a few years and are suddenly learning about new topics such as HDR or DASH, then this book is also for you.

Video compression, encoding, and transcoding (they are all more or less the same) used to be the exclusive province of engineers who specialized in these tasks and were worried about meeting transmission specs or addressing other technical issues. Today, pretty much anyone involved in the Web, traditional film and video production, and other interactive media realms will need to know at least a little bit about compression. In addition, the Web has created a new wave of individual publishers who stream their gameplay, publish video podcasts, or have created whole shows on YouTube.

So, if you were ever disappointed (or perhaps even shocked) by the results of your video compression, then read on, and we hope to provide some help.

That’s not to say this book is just for newbies. Although this book lays out the fundamentals of video and video encoding, it contains a variety of workflow suggestions and deliverable-specific information that can help even the most seasoned compressionists improve their games. If there is one thing we have learned in this profession, it’s that you will always be learning new things because the industry is ever evolving.

About the Authors

Andy Beach was a video geek who got into this business after starting in the postproduction world. He quickly realized that making video look good was hard and was worth spending time to learn to do better and to pass that knowledge on to others. His career took him to the startup world, where he built encoders and live streaming tools for a living, and eventually to his role at Microsoft, where he works with a large-scale commercial media infrastructure.

Aaron Owen got his start in live television and then continued his career in commercial postproduction, playing a key role in transforming Phoenix Editorial (now Bonfire Labs) from a three-suite boutique editorial company into a full-fledged facility. Leveraging his vast advertising and high-end corporate experience, he founded Cinematiq in 2012 with the goal of bringing high-end postproduction techniques to filmmakers everywhere.

Acknowledgments

We’ve had the privilege of meeting and working with a number of talented people in both the production and software development worlds, including each other!

In the combined 20 or so years of work in this industry, we have met and worked with a lot of very smart (often scary-smart) people.

In addition to the people profiled in the book, a variety of other real-world compressionists we know deserve heartfelt thanks. Thanks to Jem Scholfield, of Buttons Production and theC47, for mulling over new announcements and prognosticating their meaning (and for not being afraid to split a bucket of mussels and a few pints of beer). Thanks to Colleen Henry at Facebook, who is never afraid to offer an opinion or tell you why you are wrong about live streaming. Steve LLamb at Deluxe kept us honest when it comes to all things digital cinema. John Simmons of Microsoft is working to ensure there are standards for the video world so that the new technologies we create work everywhere we want them to (and best of all, he’ll take our calls anytime we ask).

We also sorely need to thank the nice folks at Pearson who have patiently waited for us to complete this book. Karyn Johnson, who helped make the first edition a reality, patiently listened to all of our excuses and then held our feet to the fire to get things done. Likewise, Laura Norman helped keep us on track throughout the process. Production editor Tracey Croom worked with us on the layout and turned the text and images into a well-crafted book. Kim Wimpsett did an amazing job of copyediting and often turned around feedback to us so quickly it made our heads turn. Last, but certainly not least, Patricia Pane continually removed all the poor grammar, odd hyphens, and other elements we kept putting in.

Andy would also like to thank his work colleagues, who listened to him talk about the process and complain about changes to the industry and the late nights involved in writing this book. Every time he yawned in a meeting, they knew it was because he’d been up working on this book. For that, thank you, Greg Oliver, Jit Ghosh, LaBrina Loving, Luis Guerrero Guirado, Robert Eichenseer, Tiago Andrade e Silva, and Tobias Weisserth.

And, of course, none of this would have been possible at all without the love and support of our families. For Andy, his wife, Lisa Weisman, and Davy Beach couldn’t care less about an inverse telecine error but are always happy when he can figure out why Hulu stopped working on the television. For Aaron, his soon-to-be wife, Dr. Katie Bean, and business partner, Paul Scolieri, deserve great thanks for allowing him the time to put the headphones in and the head down.