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Working with video *

All about creating and processing videos

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Review of WCS 5.2 — WebRTC Server for Webcast and Webcam Developers

Reading time 13 min
Views 2.6K


Alice is an experienced full stack developer, who is capable of writing a SAAS project framework on her favorite framework using php in a week. As for frontend, she prefers Vue.js. 


A client contacts you via Telegram, asking you to develop website that will be the meeting place for the employer and the employee to conduct an in-person interview. In-person means face-to-face, a direct video contact in real time with video and voice. «Why not use Skype?» some may ask. It just so happened that serious projects – and each startup undoubtedly considers itself a serious project – are trying to offer an internal communications service for a variety of reasons, including:

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Total votes 3: ↑2 and ↓1 +1
Comments 0

WebRTC streaming in and around virtual reality

Reading time 6 min
Views 3.6K


Virtual reality is on the rise these days. The equipment that was previously the exclusive preserve of crazy scientists geeks with big money from the Ministry of Defense back in the The Lawnmower Man days, is currently affordable for ordinary people; those whose pockets are empty, can assemble a VR headset from cardboard and a smartphone according to many recipes.

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Total votes 5: ↑5 and ↓0 +5
Comments 0

The first viewer issue, or the difficulties of converting WebRTC video streams to HLS

Reading time 7 min
Views 2.1K


George shut his laptop and rubbed his sleep-deprived red eyes. "Customers continue to complain about stream freezing; the new fix package did not help at all! What do I do with this (censored) HLS?" he said.


The browser is not only hypertext, but also a streamer


Browsers have had players for a long time, but the story is different with the video encoder and streaming. Now, in almost any browser of the latest version, we can find modules for encoding, streaming, decoding, and playback. These functions are available through the JavaScript API, and the implementation is called Web Real Time Communications or WebRTC. This library built into browsers can do quite a lot: capture video from a built-in, virtual or USB camera, compress it with H.264, VP8, and VP9 codecs, and send it to the network via SRTP protocol; i.e., it functions as a software streamer video encoder. As a result, we see a browser that has something similar to ffmpeg or gstreamer, compresses video well, streams on RTP, and plays video streams.

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Total votes 1: ↑1 and ↓0 +1
Comments 0

How to cook RTSP on your website in 2020, or why the boars will not have a chance to run away

Reading time 8 min
Views 45K


RTSP is a simple signaling protocol which they cannot replace with anything for many years already, and it has to be admitted that they don't try really hard.


For example, we have an IP camera that supports RTSP. Anyone who has ever tested the traffic with a Sharkwire cable will tell you that first there comes DESCRIBE, then PLAY, and then the traffic begins to pour directly via RTP or wrapped in the TCP channel for instance.

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Total votes 4: ↑4 and ↓0 +4
Comments 1

Dynamic CDN for Low Latency WebRTC Streaming with Stream Access Control

Reading time 4 min
Views 1.3K


In the first part, we have deployed a simple dynamic CDN for broadcasting WebRTC streams to two continents and have proved on the example of a countdown timer that the latency in this type of CDN is actually low.


In the second part, we have incorporated dedicated servers into the CDN for performing the task of transcoding in order to provide good broadcast quality to our viewers based on the devices they use and the channel quality. In this manner, all published streams in our CDN are available to all the viewers.


Now, assume that a company is starting to introduce its monetization strategy where a number of streams should be available for free and the rest on a subscription basis. Or, for example, webinars for in-house staff training are broadcasted simultaneously, but each subsidiary has a separate stream, and disclosing the sales techniques used in Southeast Asia to the managers from CIS countries is undesirable.

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Total votes 1: ↑1 and ↓0 +1
Comments 0

Dynamic CDN for Low Latency WebRTC Streaming with Transcoding

Reading time 5 min
Views 1.6K


In the first part we have deployed a simple dynamic CDN for broadcasting WebRTC streams to two continents and have proved on the example of a countdown timer that the latency in this kind of CDN is actually low.


However, besides low latency, it is important to provide good broadcast quality to users. After all, this is what they are paying for. In real life the channels between Edge servers and users can differ in bandwidth capacity and quality. For example, we are publishing a 720p stream at 2 Mbps, the user is playing it on an Android phone using 3G connection in an unstable signal reception area and the 360p maximum resolution that provides smooth picture at 400 Mbps is 360p.

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Total votes 2: ↑1 and ↓1 0
Comments 0

Dynamic CDN for Low Latency WebRTC Streaming

Reading time 5 min
Views 2.2K


Having analyzed earlier the capacity of standard server configurations in Digital Ocean in terms of WebRTC streaming, we have noticed that one server can cover up to 2000 viewers. In real life, cases when one server is insufficient are not uncommon.


Assume gambling amateurs in Germany are watching real-time horse races in Australia. Given that horse races are not only a sports game but also imply big gains on condition that field bets are made at the right time, the video has to be delivered with lowest possible latency.


Another example: A global corporation, one of FCMG market leaders with subsidiaries in Europe, Russia and Southeast Asia, is organizing sales manager training webinars with live streaming from the headquarters in the Mediterranean. The viewers must be able to see and hear the presenter in real time.

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Total votes 2: ↑1 and ↓1 0
Comments 0

How To Make Videos For Games. Practical Tips and Helpful Guidelines

Reading time 6 min
Views 915


Recently we at Alconost were producing several videos for games and, in the process of working with clients, we heard questions again that we had heard before: what should we show, should the video have a voiceover or not, how expensive is it to translate into multiple languages, what source materials do we need, how can we capture video of the screen of a mobile device… To answer these burning questions once and for all, we would like to share with you and give specific examples of how we make videos for games.

We think our experience will be useful both to anyone who is trying to produce video independently and to developers who are outsourcing creation of video for their games.

Written by Alconost
Total votes 4: ↑4 and ↓0 +4
Comments 0

We're in UltraHD Morty! How to watch any movie in 4K

Reading time 3 min
Views 14K
You’ve probably heard about Yandex’s DeepHD technology they once used to improve the quality of old Soviet cartoons. Unfortunately, it’s not public yet, and we, regular programmers, don’t have the dedication to write our own solution. But I personally really wanted to watch Rick and Morty on my 2880x1880 Retina display. And I was deeply disappointed, as even 1080p video (the highest available for this series) looks really blurry on a Retina display! Don’t get me wrong, 1080p is often good enough, but Retina is designed in such a way that an animation with its pronounced outlines in 1080p looks awfully blurry, like 480p on a FullHD monitor.

I decided I want to see Rick and Morty in 4K, even though I can’t write neural networks. And, amazingly, I found a solution. You don’t even need to write any code: all you need is around 100GB of free space and a bit of patience. The result is a sharp 4K image that looks better than any interpolation.


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Total votes 21: ↑19 and ↓2 +17
Comments 7
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