So, You Want To Stream Inside Your Firewall? Good Luck.

"We have to host and stream this stuff inside our firewall". I hear that statement frequently from prospects in the educational and corporate spaces. Usually the requirement stems from paranoia that their streaming content would fall into the wrong hands and compromise their integrity as an institution or business...or give their competitor an upper hand. From the way they describe the importance of securing their streams, you'd think there were an unruly band of "stream pirates" floating just outside their firewall...waiting to pounce on any and all accessible content and use it against the content creator. While I personally believe that those pirates more interested in the next "Iron Man" movie than they are in this month's "Accountability In The Workplace" pesentation, I can't completely dismiss their fears. After all, it's not MY content.

Yes, it's possible to host and stream your content within your own network...but you better have one heck of a network!

Streaming is a bandwidth-intensive process. Unless your corporate network is "multicast enabled" from end to end (which creates entirely different security risks), you'll have to propagate your content using Unicast, or "point to point" distribution. This means that everyone wanting to watch a live webcast on your network will compound the bandwidth utilized for the event. Say you have a 10 Megabit LAN, or even a Gigabit LAN. In either case, it's a simple mathematical reality that at some point...you run the risk of bringing your network to it's knees with your DIY streaming efforts. Simply put: There are only so many concurrent unicast viewers that your network can support. This weakness becomes more obvious during live webcasting of course, but also holds true for on-demand webcasting.

Just because you CAN host your streams internally, doesn't mean you SHOULD. By employing an external CDN (Content Delivery Network), you remove the above mentioned burden from your own network and place it on the shoulders of one that is designed specifically for bandwidth-intensive content like streaming media.

There are ways to make your streams more secure even if you host and distribute your content on a CDN. Unfortunately, the business leaders in your organization often have a picture in their minds-it's a picture of a walled fortress. Inside the walls is where they want their streaming to happen. Outside are the bad guys-those "streampirates" mentioned earlier. Overcoming this limited view requires education, and lots of questions. I like to start with these:

-What is the reason for your desire to stream on your own network? It may be purely financial or it may be due to a senior manager seeing a video-driven quarterly report show up on YouTube.
-What LEVEL of security would make decision makers feel....well, secure? Are they most concerned with your content being pirated, with your network being compromised or just with unauthorized viewership of your content?
-What is the technical ability of your network when it comes to streaming? If you have a satellite office with 100 folks on a shared T1 and you want them to tune in to a quarterly live webcast from the home office...ugh, we should talk. If it's a 500K stream, your T1 is only going to handle 3 or 4 concurrent viewers before it fails.

There are ways to enlist the power of a CDN without exposing the soft white underbelly of your organizations network. Domain level security, IP "allow/deny" lists and even Token Security can be used to dramatically limit unauthorized access to your streaming content.

Ultimately, this boils down to a necessary "cost/benefit" analysis. While you may gain a sense of security from internal hosting and distribution of streaming content, you may lose control, quality and oodles of network capacity. Another thing to consider is that those "streampirates" may actually be figments of your imagination anyway!

So, Why Not Just Use YouTube?

This is a YouTube video. It was uploaded and published for free. But as my father used to say "Nothing's free boy". Let me echo his sentiments for you: Nothing...is free!

YouTube is great. Don't get me wrong. If you're an indie band wanting to upload and share your latest home-grown music video, there is not a better (read cheaper) approach. But if you're a professional organization hoping to use YouTube or similar free services to effectively convert, distribute and track your online media assets...there are several reasons to look elsewhere. Here are just three:

First-a free service doesn't allow you to protect your brand. It's said you're known by the company you keep, and with free services, you don't dictate who your company is. After viewing one of your corporate training or best practices videos...the viewer could be fed suggestions to view inappropriate content. Do you really want to risk the viability of your brand to save a few bucks on streaming?

Second-a free service offers you sub standard video and audio quality. They are going to provide your streaming files in as low a bit-rate as they can get by with. After all, you're not paying for it!

Third-a free service isn't going to pick up the phone at 3 a.m. on Sunday when you're having a serious problem with one of your streaming video assets.

I've always believed there is a measurable difference between up front price and the true cost of just about anything. If price is your ONLY consideration...well, it makes sense to try a free service. But if you're using online video as part of your business...I would urge you to remember that you get what you pay for.

Latency! Delayed Gratification In Live Webcasting.

I've produced literally thousands of hours of live television for various networks in my life. No matter where it's done, "live" always comes with a whole new set of concerns...even today. Because your signal is being exposed to the audience in real time, the margin for error is removed. We used to call it "Live....without a net!"

The same is unfortunately true and even magnified when it comes to live web casting. And it is the distribution method itself that injects one frustrating symptom: latency.

Now with Satelite distribution there may be a quarter-second latency inherent in the broadcast. This means that a viewer on the west coast of the U.S., watching a "live" broadcast from the east coast...will suffer a delay of about one fourth of one second. The delay is fairly consist ant for any viewer watching from a similar distance.

Enter live webcasting. Now, the signal is propagated over a distributed network of servers, routers and various other connections. There are weak links in the distribution chain...often in the last mile, or even in the last few feet (the home network). There are also technological speed bumps like a substandard PC. At any rate...with live webcasting there are MANY things that can impact how much delay is injected into the experience. As a result, someone watching a webcast in Los Angeles that is originating from New York may actually have a better viewing experience and suffer less delay...thank someone in Richmond, Virginia.

Ultimately, my question for clients who say they need "live" webcasting is this: "How LIVE do you need it to be?!"

No, I'm Not At NAB

For only the second time in my professional career...I'm skipping NAB. Know what? It feels good. For some 13 years I made the annual sojourn to Sin City to either hawk the latest gadget or find it. In the late 90's, it got really fun, as I joined thousands of other "Business Development" gurus in a partnering frenzy. One of my partners was a little company called Enron. Yep. I rode in the jets, attended the catered lunches...even watched Earnhardt qualify at Daytona from the air conditioned comfort of the Enron bus. Those were the days. For the first half of this decade, I saw NAB solely as a selling opportunity. THE selling opportunity, contributing to fully one third of my annual revenue. We would swoop in, stake our claim and return worse for the wear due to too many late night "negotiating" sessions around a craps table.

If you ever want to witness the application of the actual lubricant that enables the wheels of commerce to turn within the media technology world...you simply must attend NAB.

Best NAB survival tip: Before falling to sleep at night (or in the morning)...take that little ice bucket they put in every hotel room...fill it with cold water...and pour it directly on the carpet surrounding your bed. You see, Vegas is in the dessert. And unless you're keen on waking with a nose bleed every morning...you need humidity. Problem is: There isn't any! So this trick works all through the night to keep you comfy. In the morning, the carpet will be as dry as...well, the dessert!