The Official Light Cast Media Blog

Embed Code

2007-08-26T19:57:00.000-05:00

Today we launched the ability to embed Light Cast MediaSTREAM video in blogs. It is currently in beta, and we plan on launching more functionality to it in the near future.

To learn more visit the Support Wiki here.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-25T07:47:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas from the Light Cast Media team. May your day be wonderful and your new year be blessed!

The Top 20 Web Sites for Church Communicators

2006-12-23T08:15:00.000-06:00

Recently Light Cast Media was selected as one of the top 20 killer sites that can inspire you by Outreach Magazine! Wow, what an honor. For us to be listed with Seth Godin, Mark Batterson, 37signals, as well as many others is off the chain.

Thank you Outreach and Kevin D. Hendricks for writing the article. You can view the article and read about all 20 web sites here.

From the developers desk this week.

2006-11-24T20:02:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving week has never been known as a "productive" week... However, our team was working like crazy before the Tryptophan kicked in and everyone slipped into a Thanksgiving Day food coma.

New Feature Added - Audio Only Streaming

Several of you have been asking about audio only streaming. We now fully support audio only streaming using two different methods. The first method requires no real work on your part. Simply create a console and set the console type to "Single Audio Stream". Select the stream by title as before. When you send someone to the new console, it will separate the audio from the video, and only send the video to them.

We have also added full indexing support for flv files with no video track. Encode your audio-only track with your favorite FLV encoder and upload it. (Our favorite is MediaCoder.) The indexing system will detect your track is audio only and act appropriately.

As you have come to expect with Light Cast MediaSTREAM, streamLOCK is available. You can see what part of the file someone is listening to on the live viewers screen and the server sends the stream based on timecode, saving bandwidth.

Enjoy!

Happy Thanksgiving

2006-11-23T06:00:00.000-06:00

From all of us here at Light Cast Media, we sincerely hope that you have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Video @ National Community Church

2006-11-16T11:05:00.000-06:00

On a weekly basis I get many inquiries about how NCC's (www.theaterchurch.com) streaming video looks so good. So, I asked Dave Clark from NCC to take a moment and tell us about there process. Thanks Dave for taking the time to do this!

Video Procedure: National Community Church

Camera
Currently, we use the Canon XL-H1 to record our weekly messages. The HD-SDI output from the camera sends an uncompressed HD signal. That is very important for our process. We will probably never actually use a tape in this camera. In my opinion, the HDV codec is subpar.

Production Machine
The HD-SDI output from the camera is sent to a Macintosh G5 Quad with a Blackmagic Design Decklink HD Extreme capture card. We then capture the live 1080i video signal into Final Cut Pro 5 and compress using the DVCPRO HD codec. DVCPRO HD is a very nice codec. It looks great and helps keep files to a reasonable size.

The Canon XL-H1 can be managed with Console, an application that allows a producer to remotely adjust all of the settings on the camera via a firewire connection. You can modify parameters like zoom, focus, iris, and color.

Post-Production
Once the raw video is captured, we'll trim the ends to include just the message, add some fades, and then splice in any video clips that happen during the message. This process helps the production teams at our weekend services manage less during the live re-play.

Once everything is just right, we export a QuickTime movie in DVCPRO HD 1080i. The final file takes about 15 to 20 minutes to render out. The resulting file size is approximately 35 to 40 gigabytes. The file is then loaded onto external hard drives that are dispatched to all "video locations” for playback. We use ProPresenter for presentation. Our ProPresenter source has been customized specifically for us to achieve 1080i playback.

Post-Post-Production
Once the weekend process is complete, we encode a version of the message to MPEG4 for delivery via video podcast. We also encode a Flash version for on-demand delivery at theaterchurch.com. We use Light Cast Media to stream that Flash video to congregants and site visitors.

Currently, the Flash video is encoded using On2 Flix Pro with the recommended settings from Light Cast. We hope to find something on the Mac platform that will support batch encoding of DVCPRO HD files. Getting all five possible versions (HD, high, medium, low quality and audio) prepared for Light Cast in one move would be far more productive.

Also, for those of you who may be interested, we are using two Panasonic AG-HVX200 cameras for all of our field work and off-site videos. I love these cameras. They record directly to hard disk (Firestore FS-100) via a firewire cable. Once a video shoot is complete, you can import your clips directly into Final Cut Pro. No more real-time capturing. It’s an excellent advantage in productivity.

From the developers desk this week

2006-11-10T08:33:00.000-06:00

This week we focused on adding features to the console and squashing some newly discovered bugs. We are getting close to offering a video library system in the console management system. Stay tuned for more information on this. We also rolled out two new integration features. 1) Mark a video public and link it into your console. 2) Data-only integration.

Bug Fixes

We added a workaround for a bug in some VP6 encoding solutions. This wasn't really our bug, but we do everything we can to make the service run smoothly for our customers.

Video profiling. There was a bug in our profiling system causing it to not store the profiling information if the sample rate of the audio track was about 32khz. These videos would play in fail safe mode, but the initial size of the video area would be incorrect.

Admin

The stream details page that you see after uploading a video is now available at any time by clicking the video name in the video manager. We will continue to add new features to this.

Live video

We continue to make progress on our live video solution. It should be available to our regular customers in Q1 2007.

From the developers desk this week

2006-10-26T14:38:00.000-05:00

This week most of the Light Cast Media developers were working on the Content Distribution Network. Uptime is important to us, because we know it is important to you!

Content Distribution and System Monitoring
This week we finalized core CDN code to monitor where the media files are routed. Example: You are a customer located in Atlanta. You log in and upload your files to the LCM network. Our system will know where you are, and route your files to our Atlanta data-center. Also this week, we improved our Edge caching system. Example: Your media is being watched by someone in California, and you are located in Florida. Our system knows that it is coming from California, and copies your file into cache to our Edge Server in our San Jose, CA data-center. We made the updates this week to give us a lot of flexibility as we scale out and to ensure high uptime and unmatchable quality.

Live Streaming
As much as I hesitate to publish this, here we go. This week we ran another test of our live streaming solution. We are working with one of our large churches and original "alpha" clients to tweak and hone in on an amazing live streaming solution for you. The initial testing is going great, and we have a nice solution mapped out. As it stands today, we look to roll out Live Streaming Q1 of 2007.

Stay tuned... Next week we plan on announcing a huge new piece of functionality. Yes, I did say huge!

From the developers desk this week

2006-10-20T13:35:00.000-05:00

This week was a very productive week for the Light Cast Media developers. The goal of this weekly blog post is to bring you all up to speed on all the additions and changes to the Light Cast Media system.

Auto Player Positioning/Sizing
When a video is uploaded, the server automatically detects the uploaded video size. Now the player will always start out at the actual video size, which should mean no resizing, and fast video start times.

New Video Controls
Two new video players were launched this week. First, a "Thin-White" video player and and additional "No-Controls" player. You might be asking yourself, why a No-Controls player? Simple, we had a customer who requested it, so we added it.

Bug fix
We noticed that there was a minor bug where 10px were being cut off vertically from all videos. We would be shocked if you guys ever noticed this. However, it is important to us to strive for excellence, so we fixed it this week.

Data Center Added in San Jose

2006-10-12T08:08:00.000-05:00

Today, Light Cast Media added a new data center in San Jose, California. This new addition now totals 7 data centers in 6 geographical locations. Dallas, Atlanta, New York, San Jose, Amsterdam and Australia.

Why San Jose? Simple, many of our customers are streaming major amounts of content to Hawaii, and Asia. San Jose, California provides amazing low latency connections to those areas as well as Mexico and North American western states.

For the tech heads and security conscious out there, this additional data center is equipped with redundant UPS power and a diesel generator, advanced environmental controls including HVAC, gas fire suppression, biometric access control systems and a multi-homed network for 100 percent uptime. At Light Cast Media, we are fully committed to excellence, and meeting your every need. So enjoy San Jose, its a beautiful city...

A few minutes with Seacoast Church

2006-10-09T19:44:00.000-05:00

Seacoast Church, lead by Sr. Pastor Greg Surratt, has been an active Light Cast Media customer for over 6 months. Five of those months were during an exclusive "alpha" testing and development phase where Light Cast Media worked with Seacoast and a few other clients to improve our core technology, build out tools and develop a complete understanding of what the mediaSTREAM product should look like. During this process, Shawn Wood, Creative Communications Pastor has been at the forefront of this relationship, and I wanted to spend a few minutes sharing a conversation with him.

Light Cast Media.
Shawn, what did your streaming media efforts look like before Light Cast Media?

Shawn:
"We were hosting our own streams and using Windows Media player. The buffering time and quality were something that our IT director and myself were not happy with. We were looking at some in-house fixes when the alpha opportunity with Light Cast Media came. After looking at the product and the pricing structure we had an immediate...yes."

Light Cast Media.
Explain some of the challenges or problems that you were having.

Shawn:
"Slow load times, stalls and buffering when multiple people were watching. We also just did not like the look of the interface and were planning on a flash solution to help with that as well."

Light Cast Media:
How has Light Cast Media helped or improved those problems?

Shawn:
"I think that we have one of the best streaming experiences on the web today - church and and business sector."

Light Cast Media:
Shawn, when it comes to Streaming or any technology Seacoast looks at, what is important to you guys, and has Light Cast met your expectations or not?

Shawn:
"Met and surpassed with both product and service. During the alpha test our IT director has been able to help play a role in what Light Cast will look like and you guys have been awesome!"

Light Cast Media:
What significant "ministry" impact have you seen Light Cast Media offer?

Shawn:
"I am not getting the calls from people about the experience anymore. Also, we have been able to offer more video streams (i.e. ministry promos) in addition to the weekend messaged and not have to worry about the experience suffering."

Light Cast Media:
Lets talk money! I know that people look at your church, and the amount of campuses that you have and think your budget is huge for this type of stuff. Bottom line, are you happy with the cost of Light Cast Media's offering?

Shawn:
"Video streaming was costing us zero tangible dollars prior to Light Cast Media, but money is not the only true measure of costs. It was costing us in other areas that we could not afford to pay - our experience. However, that sounds good on paper, but there are still budget constraints and Light Cast Media has made it affordable to churches to get the best streaming that is available. There is no other company that even comes close to competing with the quality for this price."

Light Cast Media:
What's next for Seacoast? Maybe something technology related or anything that you can think of.

Shawn:
"We have some digital discipleship areas that are certainly going to be innovative and we think pretty monumental in the next 12 months or so...you can look for more info on Shawnsblogspot.com"

Granger Film Festival

2006-09-30T12:24:00.000-05:00

Day 1 of the Innovative Church Conference (ICC) included the Granger Film Festival (GFF). This is where churches from all across the country came to show off there stuff! The GFF was looking for original films created by church volunteers or staff to further their mission, illustrate a point, or promote or highlight an event.

Light Cast Media was selected as the official streaming media provider and we are happy to say the videos are now available to view. Thank you to the ICC folks for letting us be a part of the conference, and we hope to see your videos next year hosted by Light Cast Media.

Check out the "Best in Show" videos, as well as the other 16 final contestants.

tags technorati : ICC Granger Streaming

National Community Church launches new site

2006-09-27T11:25:00.000-05:00

Today National Community Church (NCC) launched a brand new web site at www.theaterchurch.com. David Russell and team did a wonderful job integrating mediaSTREAM into the site beautifully.

The Light Cast Media Team welcomes NCC as a customer, and we look forward to them pushing the envelope, and making us even better!

tags technorati : NCC Streaming TheaterChurch

A journey to the past...

2006-09-24T09:04:00.000-05:00

Many great things have happened in the past few months at Light Cast Media that we wanted to share with you. Since we did not blog at the time, I figured we would just lump the top 5 into this post.

1) We deployed our multi-node content distribution network. In simple terms, we added four new data centers overnight. Our content distribution network now includes 2 nodes in Dallas, Atlanta, New York, Australia, and Amsterdam.

2) Added some great new reporting features in the "basic" reporting section. Now you can sort by multiple options, view stream requests, and see where your videos are being viewed by country, and more granular.

3) Deployed "Live" active stream reporting. With Active Stream Reporting you can view all your videos being streamed throughout the world. It shows you what server it is streaming from, what location it is being streamed to, where the viewer started in the video, where they are currently in the video, as well as how long they have been watching.

4) Intelligent video display. Let me remind you that Light Cast Media's desires to make your life simpler when it comes to streaming media. A simple way we do that is by you not having to think! Intelligent video display simply delivers the best video possible to your viewers based on their connection speed. In other words, if you have 1 video, with 5 different quality settings we will serve up the best quality possible every-time without you doing a thing! Streaming made simple.

5) Flash8/vp6 support. mediaSTREAM fully supports new newest Flash codec.

We are so excited about some of the upcoming releases. Currently the Light Cast Media development team has a full plate of upgrades, new features, etc. Stay tuned into this blog to learn more.

tags technorati : Flash8 vp6 Streaming

Advanced Reporting Image

2006-09-22T16:07:00.000-05:00

Hey, have you noticed that the Advanced Reporting page is missing an image? I bet you have, we receive a lot of emails about it.

So why is it missing? Simple, we need your input as a customer. To many times software companies built out functionality that they "think" customers want. Not here brotha, we build out tools and technology that you need! Take a moment and tell us what is important to you in your advanced reports and we will build it to your liking! That is just the kind of company that we strive to be.

Jump over to the Contact Us page and dream away.

Light Cast Media goes live!

2006-09-21T23:12:00.000-05:00

Today, Thursday September 21st Light Cast Media officially launched as a company. Many great customers have been with us for the last 6 months using the system in “alpha” mode helping us build out our tool sets, offering great recommendations, and allowing us to create an tailored solution.

The future of Light Cast Media is very bright. By offering the highest quality video available we are confident that you will love our product offering and great prices. Take a moment to visit www.lightcastmedia.com to learn all about our mediaSTREAM offerings. Also, take a moment and let us know what your needs are as well. We are committed to offering the best solutions and the best technology, and we lean on our customers to drive us in those areas. Visit our Contact Us page and give us your thoughts and ideas.