Media streaming is viewing media (audio or video) at the same time the data is downloading from a server. The advantage of streaming is that it is possible to start viewing the audio or video clip almost immediately instead of waiting to download a large file. Those who are new to the subject may wish to read our article, Streaming Media With Digital Asset Management Systems, which will give you an overview of the basics.

Archived Media Streaming Hosting

Archived media streaming is the delivery of pre-existing digital content that has already been encoded for streaming delivery. Typically, a system such as a Digital or Media Asset Management system will be used to control the process from ingestion through to delivery. An effective media streaming hosting service relies on:

• A fast, robust and resilient network infrastructure
• A fully redundant and scalable streaming hosting environment
• Fast servers that can withstand high levels of demand
• Widespread support for all types of digital audio and video media formats
• Digital Right Management features to prevent unauthorised copying
• Fully featured application integration services to allow greater control over media
• A 100% up-time SLA and 24x7 support that can trusted and relied upon

Daydream’s archived media streaming hosting service offers all these benefits. Our core business is the delivery of advanced, high demand multimedia content for demanding global clients across multiple time-zones.

Live Media Streaming Hosting

Live media streaming is the broadcasting of a live event (e.g. presentation by a senior manager, product launches or the publication of annual results). Daydream’s live streaming service can assist with every step of the process:

• Surveying the location where the even will be broadcast from
• Advising about what internet connectivity will be needed
• Analysing the camera or capture device
• Providing suitable equipment
• Encoding the video in a streaming format
• Delivering the encoded media to a streaming server
• Re-broadcasting the streaming media to your end user
• Scaling the distribution to allow global broadcasting or large numbers of users

Encoding Media

Before media can be broadcast via a streaming server (whether live or archived) it must be encoded into a streaming format or transcoded if already in another digital format. Daydream has a powerful and sophisticated range of encoding tools available which allows us to support the majority of formats that will be required. These include:

Video

• FLV (Flash Video) using On2
• H.264
• MPEG-TS
• 3GP
• VC-1
• WMV
• QuickTime

Audio

• MP3
• HE-AAC
• OGG

We can transcode existing or legacy video or audio, including digitising any analogue footage – see our asset services section for more details on this. We can convert any of the following

Video
4X Movie, ASF, ASX, AVI, AVS, CIN, DivX, DPS, DV25, DVCPro, FLIC format, GXF, HDV, JPEG2000, Matroska, MPEG-2 PS (VOB), MPEG-2 TS (DVB Transport Stream), MPEG4, MXF, NSV, Playstation STR, Real Video, WC3 Movie, WMV

Audio
AU, AIF/AIFF, AMC, AMR-NB, Broadcast WAV, Creative VOC, DTS, MPEG audio, Raw AC3, Raw PCM8/16 bits, Real Audio, WAV, WMA

Streaming Server Software

Daydream’s streaming server software can support media streaming delivery in all the popular formats that are available on the market.

For clients requiring Windows format media (e.g. WMV and VC-1 for Silverlight), we offer and support Windows Media Streaming Server on both Windows 2003 and Windows 2008 servers.

For non-Windows based media, Daydream have partnered with Wowza Media Systems, developers of Wowza Media Server Pro. This is the most versatile streaming media server software currently available on the market and the only product we trust for non-Windows based enterprise class media streaming . Some of the features available include:

• Support for a wide range of formats, including FLV, H.264/AAC, MP3 and 3GP
• Interactive capabilities for video conferencing and database integration
• Secure anti-ripping protection to prevent your content being copied illegally
• Compatible with widely deployed Flash player clients

Streaming Server Hardware

Powerful and reliable server hardware is crucial to a successful media streaming facility. Our streaming server hardware is built upon the principles we use for our Digital Asset Management hosting facility:

• We use only brand new infrastructure grade Dell or HP hosts.
• Due to the high performance requirements of streaming servers, we heavily optimise all elements of the server hardware, including storage, memory and processors to ensure we can obtain the maximum performance.
• We make use if clustering and High Availability (HA) techniques to ensure that streaming servers remain on-line and can offer streaming media services clients a 100% up-time SLA.
• All streaming server hardware is monitored 24x7 for any sign of defects and if a failure in a component is predicted, it is exchanged before failure.
• A routine server health-check carried out by engineers rather than monitoring tools also ensures that anything that may have been missed is identified and rectified

Streaming Network Infrastructure

Our streaming network infrastructure is designed to enable the distribution of media across the globe. We have a flexible streaming infrastructure that can scale up or down to meet individual client requirements. We operate three key streaming facilities:

• Shared Streaming
• Dedicated Streaming
• Content Delivery Network

Each of these is suitable for specific scenarios and are described below.

Shared Streaming

A shared streaming facility suitable for low-level usage. This held on a clustered hosting facility and allows clients to benefit from our superior network infrastructure without incurring high costs.

Dedicated Streaming

This is for those who are expecting higher numbers of simultaneous users (whether live or archived) and also any interactive streaming solutions or more complex requirements. Each dedicated streaming facility offers:

• Hosting on a fully switched Tier 1 IP network with redundant routers and multiple ISP connections
• A 10gbit network architecture
• 1gbit network connections
• Failover and redundancy included as standard.

Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Clients that need to distribute a a high volume of streamed media, audio or static files are likely to benefit from our Enterprise Content Delivery Network (ECDN). This has the following features for enterprise clients: