I launched videoRx.com over a year ago at Adobe MAX 2009, and in September 2010, I started to develop hosting services using Wowza Media Server on EC2. videoRx.com is built around a simple principle that no other video encoding product has: encode your video content based on its subject matter. I wrote a C++ server-side application that analyzes uploaded video for its complexity, and then uses that data to determine video bitrates with encoded output for future jobs.
The encoding servers are all non-cloud based machines that I operate at my own location, but when a user wants to host an encoded job, the job is transferred to Amazon S3 for either RTMP/HTTP adaptive streaming on the Wowza EC2 instance(s) I’m running, or just straight up progressive download for S3 directly. Another feature of videoRx.com is automatic adaptive streaming output geared to your content, using the analysis information I mentioned earlier. The OmniRx presets at videoRx.com automatically generate 33 video files (16 mobile-optimized H.264 streams, 16 desktop-optimized H.264 stream, and 1 high-quality WebM file for progress download), along with all the manifests necessary to play the streams in an OSMF-based Flash Player or with Apple HTTP Live Streaming (aka cupertino streaming) from Wowza EC2. You can watch a sample that I ran through the system here:
I’m adding new features to the service every week, and I’m excited to have this offering to fill a gap that other encoding services do not offer. Anyone can sign up for a free account with 5GB of storage for source files, and 10 credits to apply to encoded output. You only pay for jobs you want to download or host. Encoding fees are waived for hosted output.
I’d appreciate any feedback from other Wowza/Flash developers on this forum.
Best,
Robert
