Whether you're watching a movie, bingeing on a classic TV show, or listening to your favorite song, you're probably streaming it. Videotapes, DVDs, and CDs are mostly just memories now. Streaming puts a world of options at your fingertips when you're at home and, with a smartphone or tablet, when you're on the go. Find out how streaming was invented, how it works, and what the future might hold for this part of a high-tech life.

Streaming media has irreversibly revolutionised the ways in which media is transmitted and consumed. Most of us engage with streaming media on a daily basis via platforms that deliver our entertainment: Spotify, YouTube and Netflix are new brands which many of us engage with daily for our information and entertainment. It has created upheaval in the entire value chain and wiped out industries slow to adapt to it (like the video store rental chain). And it continues to evolve. Streaming media is transforming business communications in myriad ways, and it is becoming almost as crucial for project managers and marketers to understand streaming technology as it is for media professionals. The Streaming Media Guide demystifies the technology and features behind a successful streaming media service, especially in the context of how it is used by broadcasters and other media organisations. Common terms and systems being used in this space are presented and defined simply and clearly for non-technical readers. Best practice examples from Michael D'Oliveiro's experiences demonstrate how this technology can be successfully implemented. This book equips any media professional with the most basic of traditional media knowledge to enable confident conversations in the typical media organisation they work in. For technology-based graduates or dedicated broadcast professional seeking to refresh their understanding, this book provides enough information to form a solid foundation for day-to-day work. Finally, for leaders in cross-functional senior management matrices, information is provided to enable you to understand and exploit streaming media capabilities as a business. This will be the ultimate reference source, guaranteed to be bedside reading for anyone serious about using streaming media.

The Live-Streaming Handbook will teach you how to present live-video shows from your phone and stream them straight to Facebook and Twitter. With this book and your favourite social media apps, you will be able to run your own TV station for your home or work. Peter Stewart, an experienced TV and radio presenter, producer and author, now shares the training he’s given to professional broadcasters with you! From structuring and developing a show, to establishing an effective online persona and getting more people to watch you. The book includes dozens of tried and tested formats for your live-video show, alongside case studies highlighting how businesses and professionals are using live-streaming in their brand and marketing strategies. Also included are: a foreword by Al Roker (NBC's The Today Show); practical steps for using popular live-streaming apps, such as Facebook Live and Twitter; nearly 80 colour images of live-streaming events, screenshots and gadgets; a detailed walk-through of how to successfully present and produce your live-streaming show; advice on analysing and exploiting viewer metrics to increase followers; more than 130 quotes of real-world advice from expert producers of online media content; over 700 links to online case studies, articles, research and background reading. With this extensive manual you will gain a competitive edge in the world of online live-streaming. This book is invaluable to entrepreneurs, professionals and students working in journalism, public relations, marketing and digital media, as well as general readers interested in live-streaming at home.

How big data is transforming the creative industries, and how those industries can use lessons from Netflix, Amazon, and Apple to fight back. “[The authors explain] gently yet firmly exactly how the internet threatens established ways and what can and cannot be done about it. Their book should be required for anyone who wishes to believe that nothing much has changed.” —The Wall Street Journal “Packed with examples, from the nimble-footed who reacted quickly to adapt their businesses, to laggards who lost empires.” —Financial Times Traditional network television programming has always followed the same script: executives approve a pilot, order a trial number of episodes, and broadcast them, expecting viewers to watch a given show on their television sets at the same time every week. But then came Netflix's House of Cards. Netflix gauged the show's potential from data it had gathered about subscribers' preferences, ordered two seasons without seeing a pilot, and uploaded the first thirteen episodes all at once for viewers to watch whenever they wanted on the devices of their choice. In this book, Michael Smith and Rahul Telang, experts on entertainment analytics, show how the success of House of Cards upended the film and TV industries—and how companies like Amazon and Apple are changing the rules in other entertainment industries, notably publishing and music. We're living through a period of unprecedented technological disruption in the entertainment industries. Just about everything is affected: pricing, production, distribution, piracy. Smith and Telang discuss niche products and the long tail, product differentiation, price discrimination, and incentives for users not to steal content. To survive and succeed, businesses have to adapt rapidly and creatively. Smith and Telang explain how. How can companies discover who their customers are, what they want, and how much they are willing to pay for it? Data. The entertainment industries, must learn to play a little “moneyball.” The bottom line: follow the data.

Streaming data is a big deal in big data these days. As more and more businesses seek to tame the massive unbounded data sets that pervade our world, streaming systems have finally reached a level of maturity sufficient for mainstream adoption. With this practical guide, data engineers, data scientists, and developers will learn how to work with streaming data in a conceptual and platform-agnostic way. Expanded from Tyler Akidau’s popular blog posts "Streaming 101" and "Streaming 102", this book takes you from an introductory level to a nuanced understanding of the what, where, when, and how of processing real-time data streams. You’ll also dive deep into watermarks and exactly-once processing with co-authors Slava Chernyak and Reuven Lax. You’ll explore: How streaming and batch data processing patterns compare The core principles and concepts behind robust out-of-order data processing How watermarks track progress and completeness in infinite datasets How exactly-once data processing techniques ensure correctness How the concepts of streams and tables form the foundations of both batch and streaming data processing The practical motivations behind a powerful persistent state mechanism, driven by a real-world example How time-varying relations provide a link between stream processing and the world of SQL and relational algebra

Published in 2013, Producing Streaming Video for Multiple Screen Delivery the only compression-related textbook released after 2010, and it incorporates the latest technologies, including DASH and HTML5 and new devices such as 4G transmitters for mobile delivery. This book is written for producers seeking to distribute streaming video to the widest possible audience, including computers, smartphones and tablets, and Over the Top (OTT) devices. Written by Jan Ozer, this book delivers the lessons learned from years of producing and consulting on streaming, and serving as a contributing editor to the industry bible, Streaming Media Magazine. In this book, you will learn: The fundamentals of video streaming and compression, including adaptive streaming and H.264 encoding, and new technologies like DASH, HTML5 and HEVC. How to configure a single group of files to distribute to computers, mobile and OTT devices, and when it s better to customize files for different target platforms. How to most efficiently produce maximum quality video using tools like the Adobe Media Encoder, Apple Compressor, Sorenson Squeeze and Telestream Episode Pro. How to choose an enterprise class encoder, with extensive discussions of workflow tools like Telestream Vantage and the ProMedia Workflow System from Harmonic. How to choose between setting up your own streaming server or using an online video platform (OVP) and the most relevant questions to ask before choosing an OVP service provider. The best technology options for producing a live event, from choosing an encoding tool or 4G delivery platform, to choosing a streaming media server or Live Streaming Service Provider (LSSP) like Livestream or Ustream. When to consider using a rich media presentation system like Sonic Foundry MediaSite or MediaPlatform WebCaster and how to choose between the available systems. Which producers need to add closed captions to their streaming videos and how to do so. This book is the successor to Ozer s highly regarded Video Compression for Flash, Apple Devices and HTML5, which has earned a five-star rating on Amazon and is used as a textbook by many colleges and universities. Published over two years after Video Compression, however, Producing Streaming Video for Multiple Screen Delivery is almost a complete rewrite, and contains links to the dozens of product reviews and video tutorials published and produced by Ozer over the last 24 months.