Video content is currently the most promising facet of content. Its immense popularity is mainly due to the ease in consumption it allows. Consider your last binge. The only reason you could go all that long watching what you like is because you did not have to take efforts to imagine, visualize and then understand what’s happening.
It was all there, right in front of you.
But that’s the thing about popularity: with it comes responsibility.
When it comes to video content, you need it to reach as many a pair of eyeballs as you can. However, just because of a pair of eyeballs can see it, does not mean it is all that easily understood.
That is when video packaging comes into the picture.
What Is Video Packaging?
Usually, most of popular video content is created in the universal language: English. Though, it is not as universal a language as many would want it to be. There are places on this planet to which English is alien.
In such countries, English content would fail to hit the mark it intends to. English content, especially, English video content, therefore turns out being “incompatible”.
In simpler words, anyone growing up in Italy and not so very well-versed with English, would find English Video content incomprehensible. By extension, one could take it that a packager acts as a translator, when needed.
A packager converts the original compressed video content into different streaming languages, so that more people can consume content. Linguistic differences may obstruct content consumption. Proper packaging keeps that from happening.
What makes Video packaging so essential?
Video content needs to flow effortlessly. Packaging video content aids the flow of video content hitting a worldwide status. Packaging establishes a link between transcoding and encryption.
At this stage, video compression software reshapes and makes video content more suitable to reach customers and their devices.
Of course, standardizing parameters for video content would make matters simpler. And there seems to be hope on this frontier in the form of DASH. DASH promises to standardize packaging worldwide, and is therefore promoted by broadcasters and industry alike.
Considering Video Packaging commercially
The most important function of Video packaging is transmission. As discussed earlier, having video content reach more people in the most comprehensible manner is the ultimate goal. Video compression software makes sure that happens.
In the current era of digitization, transmission is not really that great a problem. Storage however is, in an increasingly shrinking world. A packager basically prepares content for transmission over Internet. Using existing infrastructure and protocols that internet-reliant devices already understand (HTTP, TCP-IP, UDP) is an added advantage.
Automotives have taught the video packaging industry a valuable thing or two. A priceless thing to have learned is the introduction of just-in-time packaging. It enhances the productivity of a linear workflow, much like in the case of video content transmission.
The greatest challenge video content constantly faces is its dynamic nature. Video content is constantly changing, and having somewhere to store it with all its changes and still be vary of space could borderline the impossible.
With just-in-time packaging, only a single copy of the most recent chunk of content needs to be stored on disk. This reduces costs and space magnificently well and also ends up being a long-lasting solution without disrupting the quality of service provided.
When the end user turns on a show (which is a fragment of video content on the net), an HTTP request comes in. The packager creates the video in the appropriate streaming format which would suit the end-user (based on geo-location). The video is then encrypted for security reasons.
The Current Take on Video Content Processing
Currently, the video market trend is to allow on-demand and live-video recorder facilities which allow users to not only watch shows and sporting events as per their convenience, but also be able to rewind or fast forward.
Transcoder provides high-quality video to broadcasters. This means that packagers can produce content on a consistent level. These days, all streaming formats make use of the concept of configuration file which is commonly known as a manifest or a playlist.
Video compression software allows the manifest or the playlist to describe the stream which the end-user can scroll through. This will give the end user an accurate idea of what they are delving into.
So, what can you take away from this?
The video compression software makes it easier for video content to be personalized and more comprehensible. If you intend to venture into this further, having a considerable mastery over this may help you go a long, long way.
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