The Guest House Live Rocks, ViewCast Streams (www.TheGuestHouseLive.com)

When Steve Kirschner decided to turn a home into a state-of-the-art recording studio and make The Guest House Live "the first recording studio and jam space on the Internet that gives the world a 24/7 backstage pass," he knew it was going to need streaming technology of exacting specifications. Specifications, as it turned out, that only hardware and software from ViewCast - in combination with six custom programs developed by LiveStreamWorks - could provide.

To offer viewers a unique look at new artists and a bird's-eye view of the music and artistic process, the innovative Web site would require not only high-quality streaming video, but audiophile-quality streaming audio as well. And with seven live cameras scattered about the house-turned-recording studio (expanding eventually to 16 cameras), some type of streaming/encoding management software tool would be needed as well.

"The first question," said Kirschner, "was how do we get this out to the world sounding as good as possible?"

Kirschner had ambitious plans for The Guest House Live. He planned to broadcast live shows, rehearsals, recording sessions and jam sessions by up-and-coming bands and well-known musical acts. He wanted both live and archived content available on the site at all times.

"We decided on streaming media, and then the question became what technology do we use," said Kirschner. "Our technical team, led by Patrick Arkins, did much of their research online and kept coming across ViewCast's Osprey cards. They were a logical choice in light of their flexibility and cost."

Working with ViewCast, Arkins was able to settle largely on Osprey Video capture cards due to their pro-geared audio breakout box for video and audio inputs - including adding XLR connectors which provides balanced stereo audio inputs.

Delivering the content to users at a variety of bandwidths presented additional challenges for the Guest House.

"The thing about multi-bit rate streams is that, while you can specify the rates for video and deliver video appropriate to dial-up or faster connection speeds, you can't specify different audio rates for each stream," said Kirschner. We were already treating the audio with specialized hardware so listeners had the best possible experience, but we wanted to provide that to both dial-up and broadband users."

To accomplish this, Kirschner said they were looking at doubling their hardware investment - and then some.

"We were frustrated that we were going to have to double the number of cards, PCs and number of racks. We were looking at tens of thousands of additional dollars. In order to fit all that additional equipment into the house, we were also going to have to knock out a wall. Basically, we were looking at multiplying our technical issues by two," said Kirschner.

And then ViewCast released its SimulStream software. The cost comparison was easy.

"Now we're back to using six computers and I don't have to knock out a wall," said Kirschner. "We purchased SimulStream, put in the key, and it ran with no problems."

Content creators of streaming media typically encode several different streams of the same media in order to provide the best possible viewing experience over both modems and broadband connections. Different formats (e.g. RealMedia, Windows Media) and bitrates (dial-up, broadband) are often provided to address user's preferences. With existing capabilities, content creators repeat the encoding task for each file, or use multiple cards in parallel to speed up the process. With SimulStream, multiple encoding tasks can be launched simultaneously. By taking what used to be four-to-six separate encoding tasks and making it a single session, SimulStream reduces encoding time up to 83 percent while greatly improving the video and audio on the resulting streams.

In addition to solving their immediate audio challenges, SimulStream solved some unforeseen problems. Some rooms had multiple cameras with multiple audio feeds. "The audio had to be able to handle everything from acoustic to wailing electric guitars. When you have that kind of range, it's going to need some tweaking. SimulStream simplifies this by allowing us to run one audio source for three cameras," said Arkins.

Osprey SimulStream also increases the physical density of encoding tasks for web broadcasters. Other companies provide systems-only offerings limited to four streams per system, while the ViewCast Osprey SimulStream with a single Osprey Video card allows an infinite number of streams - limited only by the size of the system's CPU capabilities and specific encoding tasks. This allows previously unattainable encoder density for professional and large-scale webcasting applications

"We couldn't achieve the audio experience we're currently achieving for broadband through dial-up without SimulStream - or additional computers. It's meant half the hardware investment, half the management headaches and half the supplemental software investment," said Kirschner.

For more information about SimulStream, click here.

SimulStream is also part of the Niagara Streaming Systems. Click here to read more about our turnkey video capture and streaming systems.

Copyright � 2004, ViewCast Corporation. This information is accurate at time of publishing and is subject to change without notice. Product names mention herein are used for identification purposes only and may be registered trademarks. All trademarks are property of their respective holders.