From Real Networks
“CBS is increasing the quality of the image and sound for the entire show, from the live feeds and CBS broadcast to After Dark. As long as you have enough bandwidth you should see a noticeable increase on your home computer. This high level of realtime compression can only be achieved using Reals Helix system, Microsoft Media Services, Adobes flash streaming and Apples QuickTime solutions.” From Real Networks
“We will be rolling out our new HD capable Helix streaming servers early next year and what better way to showcase and test our premiere product than on the Big Brother Feeds.” Some feature we will employing using Reals new helix servers
- Unicast broadcasting to external audiences
- Archiving broadcasts
- multi bit rate real time encoding
- Time shifting
- multi camera real-time viewing”
Real networks is offering time-shifting on the Big Brother feeds, what does that mean?
Real captures the live feeds onto their main server straight from the 4 cameras supplied by CBS, these 4 streams are pushed off to Reals edge servers located throughout the continent of North America. From these edge servers the video is uni-casted to your home computer at a bit rate based on your download throughput. When real wants to stream the stored feeds to you each one of these edge servers will have archived the big brother 10 and big brother 11 feeds in their entirety. Their solution is to give you access to a given slot of time where you have free movement forwards and backwards with the option to pause your stream. No data will be stored on your home computer if you request a one hour time slot and want to start 23 minutes the stream will start 23 minutes in, than if you find out some house guest said something crazy 13 minutes in than you can rewind to that point and the stream will begin again. Each individual stream will be delivered to home computers using a variable bit rate
From Real Networks
“The live feed client has also been given an overhaul, We have noticed a sharp increase in broadband usage so are able to stream out all four cammera views in a thumbnail format. This way you see what’s going on all 4 cameras and can pick which on you would like to view in full resolution.”