What music/video streaming service should OCR use?

[Skrypnyk]

fyi, soundclick doesn't like remixes being uploaded. They removed one of my game remixes (yet my other remixes remain up... I think someone complained to the owners/mods that I had a remix up)

[Liontamer]

An official OCR youtube channel would be better served with a few "official" music videos rather than a slew of our tracks with a static image IMO.

As much as I'd rather not do static image videos on a mass scale, it's the easiest option, they get views and people don't really mind.

Example: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=7442470460B27C15

I'd much rather do a bunch of videos given the results there.

EDIT: Also, I believe there's a way to amend the embed code to use HQ as the default, but I need to look into that.

[Sole Signal]

The reference to last.fm embeds in the first post had me thinking that you're just looking for a service to offer streaming previews (i.e. in each song's writeup thread). Youtube will be okay for publicity's sake, but you're creating a lot of work for yourself. In order to "force" HQ with "&fmt=18", you have to upload a video that gives youtube enough to work with (for a 4-5 minute song, at least a 80mb file).

I bet that guy spent the better part of a week just creating, rendering, and uploading those SSF Turbo videos. I'm just speaking from experience, there may be a quicker means that I'm not aware of.

[SpanishFly]

Yeah, that SilvaGunner guy apparently spent somewhere around 8-10 months uploading all of those soundtracks. I can see the want for HQ on Youtube, but it would probably make the whole process go a good bit slower, would it not? And, if the base file that's being uploaded to Youtube has a better audio quality beforehand, then would that possibly make it carry over and come off a bit better on Youtube itself than if it wasn't put to a higher quality level before it was put up?

[prophetik music]

Actually, soundclick is a very good option for what we need, as it allows deep link embedding off the soundclick site even with the free account with no sign-up for listeners required. I think getting VIP for $10 a month allows you access to prettier players and maybe faster load times, not sure.

Here's what the free account embedding looks like:

http://www.audixmusic.com/documents/72.html

Youtube would be such a hassle for mass uploadings, since it introduces the variable of actually having to render out a video for each track. We'd want HD quality available, I assume, which just means large file sizes, long upload times, and frustration.

Unless soundclick has some sort of bandwidth cap for free or VIP accounts (something we could ask them), I say that's the way to go.

since when have they allowed embedded links? when i was a member (i still am but i rarely visit the site anymore) you had to actually get on-site to listen to songs and they didn't allow you to listen unless you signed in or something equally stupid.

[SoulinEther]

Youtube. s'il vous plaît.

[José the Bronx Rican]

As much as I'd rather not do static image videos on a mass scale, it's the easiest option, they get views and people don't really mind.

That's among other things I wanted to bring up earlier about going the video route. I personally mind statics because ever since "Dragon Ball Z in a Nutshell" on Newgrounds, I feel it's a waste of my time to sit and watch something I could have easily listened to while doing other things. However, although they don't have to be large-scale productions, there are: a) ways to make the videos at least interesting enough to stare at without a great deal of effort; ways to fix the embed code to display a video of any size, or to make only the play button and seek function visible, and not have to worry about video in the first place. The only debate I can see is with audio: the quality is serviceable enough for use on each remix page, but I don't believe you get stereo playback without signing up.

[The Pezman]

Why is it important to embed on OCR's site itself? Why not provide a link to Last.fm or wherever and let the users follow it? It'll still be faster than downloading the mix.

[Geeky Stoner]

I agree with what mustin said at the very beginning of this thread playlist.com is an awesome music streaming service.

i prefer it over the myspace playlist service anyday.

When it comes to the bandwith issue you would have to find some outside service to host your mp3s

and post them on playlist.com

(I've done some searches on there and people are already posting OCReMixes on their personal playlists)

So setting up an outside hosting service would be very beneficial to spreading awareness of the site Imho.

Also on a side note playlist.com is kinda how i found out about this site.

[DarkeSword]

Why is it important to embed on OCR's site itself? Why not provide a link to Last.fm or wherever and let the users follow it? It'll still be faster than downloading the mix.

It's important to embed on OCR itself because the web-player acts as a preview; people will be able to click play to listen to the song, then they can decide if they want to download it. From a user-interface point of view, it doesn't make sense to send someone to another site entirely just to get a preview of the song. We want to keep users here, not send them away.

[Moguta]

That's among other things I wanted to bring up earlier about going the video route. I personally mind statics because ever since "Dragon Ball Z in a Nutshell" on Newgrounds, I feel it's a waste of my time to sit and watch something I could have easily listened to while doing other things. However, although they don't have to be large-scale productions, there are: a) ways to make the videos at least interesting enough to stare at without a great deal of effort; ways to fix the embed code to display a video of any size, or to make only the play button and seek function visible, and not have to worry about video in the first place. The only debate I can see is with audio: the quality is serviceable enough for use on each remix page, but I don't believe you get stereo playback without signing up.

a) Considering how many remixes this site has, the video encoding needs a way to be automated. Is there a way to make the videos interesting that is also automated?

That's good. I was worried that each remix page would end up with a sizeable YouTube embed that takes up space for a still video.

As far as stereo audio goes, though, you don't have to sign up with YouTube. (I was without an account for the longest time.) But, you *would* have to make the embed play the High Quality version of the video (the MP4 encode rather than the FLV encode, see the "&fmt=18" mentioned before). Is that possible?

[Liontamer]

That's among other things I wanted to bring up earlier about going the video route. I personally mind statics because ever since "Dragon Ball Z in a Nutshell" on Newgrounds, I feel it's a waste of my time to sit and watch something I could have easily listened to while doing other things. However, although they don't have to be large-scale productions, there are: a) ways to make the videos at least interesting enough to stare at without a great deal of effort; ways to fix the embed code to display a video of any size, or to make only the play button and seek function visible, and not have to worry about video in the first place. The only debate I can see is with audio: the quality is serviceable enough for use on each remix page, but I don't believe you get stereo playback without signing up.

As far as automating video and embed codes, that's cool. I'd love to get educated on that. Audio quality is not a huge issue, because we can always put a disclaimer and/or encourage people to download the full quality version.

[SpanishFly]

I'm not sure the MP4 over FLV encoding thing is actually possible, Moguta, but if anybody knows a simple way to do it, then it could be tried.

[Moguta]

Did some searching, and evidently you can indeed embed the "high quality" (stereo) version of any YouTube video:

http://kottke.org/08/11/high-quality-youtube-video-hack

Embedding high quality YouTube videos:

The &fmt=18 trick doesn't work here, but a similar trick does. For each of the URLs in the embeddable code that you get from YouTube, add &ap=%2526fmt%3D18 onto the end, like so:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuqiGrWBRqE&hl=en&fs=1&ap=%2526fmt%3D18"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuqiGrWBRqE&hl=en&fs=1&ap=%2526fmt%3D18" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

[SpanishFly]

I heard something similar to that when Youtube first started the HQ stuff, but I also heard it doesn't work, so you'll have to understand that I'm a bit skeptical about whether that'll actually do what it says or not.

[KyleJCrb]

I'm currently

, making the videos in Adobe Premiere and then exporting them as an FLV with the audio as a 128kbps MP3. The file sizes are minimal (10-20 megs, depending on song length) and the audio quality sounds fine with the HQ option on (especially in comparison to most other YouTube audio). Since YouTube uses FLV files, there doesn't seem to be any second-round of compression happening after the file upload, so quality is maintained through the rendering and uploading processes. And of course audio quality can be adjusted to your liking.

The drawback is the length of time it takes to render. I've done about 15 hours so far for only 40 songs, so it takes awhile.

[SpanishFly]

Hm, that saves me from doing that one. I know that it tends to take a while. But hey, I'll put up like Thieves of Fate/Chrono Symphonic/Voices of the Life Stream and whatever other ones I have to save people the trouble so that those who think Youtube could work won't have to worry about doing them. Just volunteering so that it's less work for the rest of you guys, if you don't mind.

[prophetik music]

if it comes down to rendering video, there's awesome CUDA and GPGPU tech out there that'd cut that time by around 80-90%. and i'm sure that there are people who've got the latest and greatest around here who could help out with making them, too, particularly if they use either a graphics-accelerated program or a quad-enabled program.

[Moguta]

I'm currently

, making the videos in Adobe Premiere and then exporting them as an FLV with the audio as a 128kbps MP3. The file sizes are minimal (10-20 megs, depending on song length) and the audio quality sounds fine with the HQ option on (especially in comparison to most other YouTube audio). Since YouTube uses FLV files, there doesn't seem to be any second-round of compression happening after the file upload, so quality is maintained through the rendering and uploading processes. And of course audio quality can be adjusted to your liking.

The drawback is the length of time it takes to render. I've done about 15 hours so far for only 40 songs, so it takes awhile.

Just so you know, YouTube uses FLV for its standard-quality videos. For the high-quality videos, YouTube uses MP4 H.264 video with 128Kbps AAC audio. By uploading MP4 w/AAC, you might be able to achieve even better audio quality.

Interesting thing, is that YouTube does not seem at all optimized to handle still-picture videos. I've uploaded MP4s that only consume ~30Kbps video bitrate (and the still picture never degrades). But then YouTube converts the video to ~200Kbps, more than doubling the size of the source file. LOL?

[FireSlash]

I could probably set something up through my server, but I'd need an idea of how much space and bandwidth you're looking at.

There are also some services like BlueHost which claim to offer unlimited transfer and space at something like $5/mo. This would be an ideal service for such a host. I could easily cover the scripting and automation for such a set up if you'd be exceeding the limits of my current server.

[José the Bronx Rican]

All that transcoding on youtube is too much of a crapshoot for anyone to guarantee consistent quality. Thankfully, video quality is probably not at all near the top of the priority list for this venture, and neither is file size, because uploads can be done simultaneously. And if you have a video that just needs the audio replaced for every song, the rendering for each file can be done in seconds. One piece of footage is all that's needed: I already tested something with apparent success; all Larry and Dave would need is good ol' VirtualDub and the XviD codec. Another thing that would help - and I like this a lot about youtube - is the annotations, something that can be used in lieu of the description area, and can offer all kinds of info including artist, title, and so on without having to render that in the video itself, wasting more time. See below, and tell me if you get stereo playback.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU2aW2bXAZc

[Arrow]

It was hard to pick out at first, but I think that's just an issue with my headphones, as they're starting to break. I'm definitely getting working stereo on that.

[Moguta]

All that transcoding on youtube is too much of a crapshoot for anyone to guarantee consistent quality. Thankfully, video quality is probably not at all near the top of the priority list for this venture, and neither is file size, because uploads can be done simultaneously. And if you have a video that just needs the audio replaced for every song, the rendering for each file can be done in seconds. One piece of footage is all that's needed: I already tested something with apparent success; all Larry and Dave would need is good ol' VirtualDub and the XviD codec. Another thing that would help - and I like this a lot about youtube - is the annotations, something that can be used in lieu of the description area, and can offer all kinds of info including artist, title, and so on without having to render that in the video itself, wasting more time. See below, and tell me if you get stereo playback.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU2aW2bXAZc

Nice graphics.

And you're right, I had totally not thought of that. Once you have a video file long enough to fit the longest remix, it's only a matter of copying (muxing) the audio file into the stream, then cutting the video down to the audio length. Encoding a new video for each audio track is indeed just a waste of time.

And I did get stereo on your test video, but only after I appended &fmt=18 to the end of the URL. There's no "HD" button on the player for someone to reach it without manually editing the URL. For the "HD" button to appear, the video's resolution must be at least 480 pixels wide or 360 pixels tall. (Yours is 320x240) I hope the source video on your computer is at least that large, because I'd hate to redo all that. o.o

[Liontamer]

Awesome stuff, José! I know Dave has some ideas on doing more the current OCR color scheme so that the vids look more like the homepage's style. I like the color change techniques to keep the video interesting. I'd love to see the text says OCREMIX.ORG to further pimp the URL, and I think one of the annotations needs to be a credit for you doing the graphics.

Dave has his own comments, which I egg him on about so he posts that soon.

Thanks Chris for the help on the technical specs we need to use to properly take advantage of HQ!

[SpanishFly]

How the resolution of the videos is based partly depends on what video editor you're using. You can use the most basic of things and just use Windows Movie Maker to do things without trouble, or you can do the much more time consuming method with Adobe Premiere. Of course, it should be pointed out that encoding the actual video/mp3 combination with an actual clip as opposed to a still image is a much slower process since you could say, get anywhere from 3-5 with a still image done by the time a video clip one is done depending on the specs of your pc.