Comparing streaming quality at BAM and BlipTV

[rhoboat.livejournal.com]

At morgandawn's suggestion, I'm posting this streaming quality comparison info here.

A few days ago, jagwriter78 asked the admin at BAM Vid Vault about an issue she had with the frame rate of one of her vids. It looked like during the conversion process, the resulting FLV file had dropped frames. I've seen a few complaints about this elsewhere on LJ.

Anyway, I wanted to confirm if this was true, that BAM's video player drops frames. Jag's "Owen Harper - Deceased" vid illustrates the dropped frames quite well with lots of fast intercutting. I poked around in my cached files and got the FLVs from several sites and used FLV Player to look up the info. By using the cached files versus using various downloaders, I know for sure that these FLVs are what's streamed from each site rather than FLVs that get converted.

Jag's self-encoded FLV:
368x207,
Audio: mp3 at 96 Kbps
Video: On2 VP6 at at 512 Kbps, 25 fps

BAM FLV
448x252
Audio: mp3 at 125.08 Kbps
Video On2 VP6 at 461.84 Kbps, 15 fps

BlipTV FLV
640x360
Audio: mp3, 80 Kbps
Video: On2 VP6 at 400 Kbps, 25 fps

Also on BlipTV is the option to view the original file version if you click on the dropdown menue below the video. In this case, Jag uploaded a WMV file (640x360, 25 fps).

For reference, though I can't do an exact comparison as Jag's vid is unavailable there, I also have a short clip I uploaded to YouTube. It's available in both standard and HD quality.

The standard FLV:
480x270
Audio: unknown codec, 61.11 Kbps
Video: unknown codec, 256.03 Kbps, 30.07 fps

HD
1280x720
Audio: AAC at 44,100 Hz Stereo, 119 Kbps
Video: H.264 (MP4), 29.97 fps

The only difference that I can see between YouTube's HD mp4 file and the one I originally uploaded is that mine had audio at 48,000 Hz.

Comments

[counteragent.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for this! Um, so what would you say the verdict is?

[rhoboat.livejournal.com]

Uhh, I like the community at BAM, and I hope that their video player can be improved. Otherwise, if streaming here on LJ, I'd go with the best quality you can find.

[rhoboat.livejournal.com]

On second thought, I'd say BAM has better image quality than Blip TV's regular streaming option. But the dropped frames is really unfortunate. I saw a vid streamed from Facebook that was really nice quality, but some people may not be comfortable associating their vidding lives with RL on that site. :\

I think I'll stick with streaming my own stuff for now. While it's not the best quality, I think it's pretty good considering the relatively small file sizes.

[vidderkidder.livejournal.com]

This reply is a long time away from this original conversation but Bam/Vidders.net is making some changes to it's hosting of vids. I figure it would be appropriate to the go to this original discussion. I would welcome your feedback about our new streaming option if you are interested.

If you have a particular video file you used for your testing I would be happy to use it and send you a link to the new player and see if it's up to snuff. One thing is for sure, we won't have to worry about comparing it to blip.tv again. :-)

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this.

I want to add that when uploading to Blip.tv, you have the option of selecting a variety of encode options, including Web High Resolution and HD. Weirdly, this is found in the "roles" drop-down that appears after you click "Add additional format/captioning". I have tried the Web High Resolution option on a couple of my vids, but I haven't noticed a definite improvement in quality, and I have no idea what the encode settings are for these various options.

[rhoboat.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't see that when I uploaded a test clip on Blip.tv. It's kinda confusing over there actually.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

The terminology is really weird. I think they are expecting the site to be used for episodes of amateur "TV" shows and fan films, but even within that framework, it's pretty hard to figure out.

[mresundance.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was one thing that stumped me about blip. They are not as accessible or user-friendly as Bam, just on a basic "where the hell are things?" level.

[rhoboat.livejournal.com]

Blip.tv is still in beta, so I wonder how many changes will be made. The layout from my perspective definitely needs tweaking. I really do keep asking where the hell things are over there. ^_^

[thedothatgirl.livejournal.com]

'it's kinda confusing over there actually.'

Thank goodness. I thought that it was only me. Thanks for posting the information btw, I like the community at BAM but I think I'll put my vids in other baskets too.

[rhoboat.livejournal.com]

Definitely not just you, and you're welcome for the info. :)

Blip.TV

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

thanks for the info on the Blip uploading options. I had used the default (which gave me 30fps) and never even saw these other options. I am doing a test right now with a new vid - one version using the default setting, one Web High Resolution and one with the TV setting. Will report back.

Re: Blip.TV

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'd be curious to see if others found a difference in the different settings.

Re: Blip.TV Test Results

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

I only had a 28MB divx avi file to upload to Blip.TV. The original file was encoded at 30fps.

The FLV playback rate was 30fps. The quality was visually worse than the original avi file - file size went down from 28MB to 13MB. (the same file uploaded to Viddler, re-encoded to FLV played at 30fps with a file size of 15MB).

There were no differences in any of the other encoding settings - source (default), Web HD or TV (other). In each case the file remained encoded as a divx file, 30fps at 28MB.

If I had a better/higher quality file, I wonder if there would be differences between Source (default), Web HD and TV (other)?

Blip File here
http://blip.tv/file/2308655

Re: Blip.TV Test Results

[rhoboat.livejournal.com]

The HD clip (http://blip.tv/file/2308189) I uploaded to Blip didn't look so good either with their default web setting. I'm looking into seeing what the other conversion settings offer now.

Re: Blip.TV Test Results

[rhoboat.livejournal.com]

Ah, near as I can tell, selecting the "Web High Resolution" option didn't change much. Although I could still be doing something wrong with uploading. It's still confusing.

Same results

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

using your methodology (downloading the flv file, playing it back with FLV player), I got the same results: 15fps BAM, 30fps Blip, and 29.44fps on Viddler.

The vids I tested were
http://bamvidvault.ning.com/video/supernatural-god-says-nothing
http://blip.tv/file/2289350

Re: Same results

[rhoboat.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks for posting your results. It's good to know these methods are repeatable on other machines. :D

Thanks for this

[vidderkidder.livejournal.com]

This is very useful information. So far it looks like BAM is the girl with a really great personality who stutters occasionally. Hopefully, in the future we can hope to look as good as blip.

Re: Thanks for this

[rhoboat.livejournal.com]

Happy to help! I do like it over at BAM. :)

[mranderson71.livejournal.com]

Excellent breakdown. The videos I saw at Blip.TV might not have had perfect source in the first place which is what led me to believe the encode might have been similar to BAM's.

Im sure this info will prove most helpful to many people!

[rhoboat.livejournal.com]

Aww, thanks!

[balistik94.livejournal.com]

Thanx for all the info it's very useful!

[rhoboat.livejournal.com]

You're welcome!

[aynohyeb.livejournal.com]

just a side note: I always had my vids at 48 Hz but I noticed there are strange clicks when playing them at youtube. I checked their recommendations and they say it's best to use 44,1. I haven't uploaded a new vid since then but I will definitely change the Audio rate before I'll be uploading the next time.

[rhoboat.livejournal.com]

That is odd. It'd be interesting to see if you hear any changes with uploading 44.1 vs. 48.

Update

[vidderkidder.livejournal.com]

Our network now supports SD and HD uploads that maintain the original frame rate of uploaded videos.

If anyone is interested I wrote an updated article that includes a video comparison between the Ning Player and our updated video player using the original video mentioned in the post at the following link. Click here (http://vidders.net/page/comparing-streaming-quality-at-bam-and-bliptv)