Technical specs (for nerds only)

[skymouse]

For anyone who is interested, here are the technical details of the streaming, starting in Juy 2010. Please note that we will adjust and tweak some of these settings and this just happens to be our first effort with the new system:

Video
Format: H.264 (Main profile, Level 3.1, 5 second keyframe frequency)
Frame rate: 25.00 fps
Bit rate: 720 Kbps
Image size: 640x480 pixels

Audio
Format: MP3
Channels: Mono
Sample rate: 44.1 kHz
Bit rate: 96 Kbps

The system doesn't currently use multiple bit rates. We plan to start using multiple bit rates (with adaptive stream switching at the user's end) in the future.

[nicko]

I watched the last cam with Mae and I was sad to see the horrible quality!
It is not even close to the specification in your post!
The specified bit rate and frame rate sounds quite good, but the bit rate in Mae's stream was really bad... Please increase it a lot, if you insist on still using this format.
Do something in time for Lotta's cam, please! :nod:

Here are some of the disappointing things:

Bit rate : 184 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Original frame rate : 15.000 fps
I'll include the full specs of Mae's stream as reference (as reported by MediaInfo (http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net))


Format : Flash Video
File size : 331 MiB
Duration : 2h 53mn
Overall bit rate : 268 Kbps
_presetname : Custom
_creationdate : Sun Aug 8 20:00:01 2010
_videodevice : DV-VCR
_framerate : 15.000
_width : 720.000
_height : 576.000
_videocodecid : avc1
_videodatarate : 200.000
_avclevel : 31.000
_avcprofile : 66.000
_videokeyframe_frequency : 5.000
_audiodevice : First 2 channels
_audiosamplerate : 44100.000
_audiochannels : 1.000
_audioinputvolume : 92.000
_audiocodecid : .mp3
_audiodatarate : 64.000
_duration : 10382.363

Video
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Baseline@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame
Muxing mode : Container profile=Unknown@3.1
Duration : 2h 53mn
Bit rate : 184 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 5:4
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 15.045 fps
Original frame rate : 15.000 fps
Standard : NTSC
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.030
Stream size : 228 MiB (69%)

Audio
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Duration : 2h 53mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 64.0 Kbps
Channel(s) : 1 channel
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 79.2 MiB (24%)

[skymouse]

Hi Nicko,

Mae's webcam was videoed and encoded from her own house, and she was using a bit rate (and other settings) which she selected to suit her internet connection. It's quite possible that she could have used a faster bit rate (which would have increased the quality). In the event, nobody commented adversely on the quality at the time (in fact, there were some positive comments about the quality), so I didn't ask her to adjust any of the settings. Next time she does a webcam at her house, I will see if she is able to reliably use a higher bit rate.

This saturday's webcam with Lotta is at my studio, and it will be using my usual settings.

[nicko]

I did not watch the live feed, I only watched my recorded stream, so I could not comment about the quality while it aired.
I can understand that cams broadcast from the models homes may be limited in bandwidth and bitrate (quality).

However, I do hope the quality will be better next time :)

And I'm looking forward to seeing Lotta in much higher quality! :nod:
I've missed her shows a lot!

[skymouse]

Yup, it's a learning curve for sure. The main thing is to make sure it's an upward curve and not a downward one :)

We'll be at the higher video bit rate again for Lotta's show, so it'll be interesting to compare the results. I would think most likely your recorded version will have matched what went out live, if you're using a tool like Jaksta or similar.

[nicko]

I'm using NetTransport to record the stream, it can record both the wmv and flv streams, so I haven't tried any other programs (like Jaksta).

Speed test against the New York server:
Last Result:
Download Speed: 9048 kbps (1131 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 4247 kbps (530.9 KB/sec transfer rate)

So I'm hoping that what I recorded is as close as possible to what it actually was :)

[skymouse]

Current specs for webcams originating from the Skymouse studio, as of Wed, 29 Dec 2010 (starting with Nicki's show):

Video
Format: H.264 (Main profile, Level 3.1, 10 second keyframe frequency)
Frame rate: 25.00 fps
Bit rate: 712 Kbps
Image size as broadcast: 694x570 pixels (resized to desired size at 4:3 by your Flash player).

In case of local transmission problems, the video data rate is permitted to degrade to a minimum of 200 kbps to preserve frame rate.

Audio
Format: MP3
Channels: Mono
Sample rate: 44.1 kHz
Bit rate: 56 Kbps

Total data rate: 768 kbps

Please note that when the webcam is filmed at the model's house. the settings will be different, and will depend on our assessment of both their computer hardware and their Internet capabilities.