VX30 Streaming Video Tutorial

By Dr. Edgar Huang and Clifford Marsiglio

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
School of Informatics

In this tutorial, the terms "movie" and "video" are equivalent.

VX30 streaming video technology is not well known among the streaming video community, let alone the general public, but it has some unique features that other streaming technologies don't have. Here is an overall picture of the VX30 streaming technology.

VX30 streams off a regular HTTP server using the HTTP protocol. In other words, the cost on a streaming server is $0 because a streaming server is not needed.
VX30 can do all other streaming technologies do on a streaming server, such as detecting bandwidths, collecting live statistics regarding streaming, and doing live Webcast.
VX30 is a playerless streaming technology. A Java applet it sent to the user's computer when a video is called. After the streaming is over, the applet is gone.
VX30 uses its proprietary Zentu Encoder to encode VX30 streaming videos. Zentu encoder supports batch processing. Encoding with the Zentu Encoder is enjoyably fast. In fact, encoding and Web authoring are done together. After the streaming files are created by Zentu Encoder, the only thing left to do is to FTP all the files to your HTTP server.

VX30.com offers a trivial version of its Zentu Encode with no expiration date. The only difference is that the trial version has a VX30 header at the beginning of the encoded video. Zentu Encoder is PC-based.

ENCODING

Link To Wiki

Link To Zentu VX30 Screencast

1. Importing

The original video to be added can be in many popular formats, such as AVI, MOV or MP4, even DVD if the DVD is not protected by Macrovision or CSS. In order to achieve the best encoding result, always try to encode the original video output in AVI or MOV format with a large file size. Launch Zentu Encoder on a PC. Click Expert Mode in the lower left. Go File menu > Add File(s). Add the video you want to encode once only. The Add File(s) window will stay open just in case you have other videos you want to add to batch process. In our case, we don't need it any more. So, click Cancel to close the Add File(s) window.

2. Configuring

In the upper right corner under the Simple tab, assign an output folder. For fast and uninterrupted processing, we don't recommend using direct FTP. Check the three specified Internet connection speeds: 768, 384 and 128. Assigning a background, video title or video credits is optional.

Click the Player tab. You probably don't need to change any default values, but make sure Enable auto playback is True, Loop forever is False, and Enable control panel is True. Click the arrow on the right to pick a control panel skin you like. Otherwise, leave that skin alone. You can even export a Flash video by checking Flash output here, but we suggest you use the Flash 8 Video Encoder to do that job. Click the Expert tab. You will see all the output configurations. You can change them all. For our purpose, they are perfect. So there is no need to change any number. Check Deinterlace. Click the Encode button on the bottom. To expedite the encoding, uncheck Show input video. Unfortunately, Zentu Encoder does not maintain an encoding log. The amount of time used to encode a video only shows while the encoding is going on.

All three versions of the encoded streaming video will appear in the designated folder along with the meta files and the main HTML file. You can double-click the HTML file to view the video immediately on your local computer. FTP all the output files to your HTTP server to begin multi-data-rate streaming of your encoded video.

SCREENCAST

To view the screencast for this tutorial, you must have the Adobe Flash Player plug-in. This screencast will walk you through the tutorial above.

WEB AUTHORING

Link To Wiki

As mentioned, VX30 will actually do the entire web portion for you and save it along side the video.

Open up the file and you will see something that looks similar to this:

 <applet name="ztmPlayer" archive="ztmPlayer.jar" code="ztmPlayer.class" 
     width="496" height="352" mayscript>
   <param name="MetaURL" value="documentary_final.meta.zentu">
   <param name="VideoTitle" value="documentary_final">
   <param name="UrlBase" value="documentbase">
   <param name="OnClickUrl" value="http://www.zentu.com/">
   <param name="OnClickUrlTarget" value="_blank">
   <param name="AutoPlay" value="true">
   <param name="RepeatForever" value="false">
   <param name="RewindWhenDonePlaying" value="true">
   <param name="MuteAudio" value="false">
   <param name="BackgroundColor" value="000000">
   <param name="VideoAlphaValue" value="255">
   <param name="DisableZoomButton" value="false">
   <param name="AsceticPopup" value="false">
   <param name="ShowStatusMessages" value="true">
   <param name="StatusMessagesColor" value="00FF00">
   <param name="EnablePanel" value="true">
   <param name="PanelImagesURL" value="buttons.gif">
   <param name="PanelButtonsWidths" value="15,15,15,7,6,1,6,15">
   <param name="ControlsLayout" value="bc:psbm">
   <param name="MaxReplayTimes" value="0">
   <param name="PanelAlwaysOn" value="true">
   <param name="PanelShowDelay" value="3000">

   <a href="http://jdl.sun.com/webapps/getjava/BrowserRedirect?locale=en&amp;host=www.java.com:80" 
     alt="Java Download" target="_blank">
   <img src="http://movies.mxsinc.com/images/nojava.gif" border="0" 
     width="320" height="240"></a>
 </applet>

The greatest part of this application, is that you could almost cut the code and paste it into your page and go if not for that Eolas patent.

Note: In order to play this correctly on newer browsers seamlessly due to the Eolas ruling, please see our javascript embedding tutorial.

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