NewTek TriCaster 8000 - Manual (Page 325)

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Delivering a good quality stream requires that you consider both your network
connection capabilities and that of your viewers. As well, to ensure reliable
delivery, you will ideally have some idea of the size of your audience. Nevertheless,
for all cases, TriCaster gives you the tools to do the job.
Naturally, streaming video is highly compressed to reduce bandwidth demands and
make it available to a wider group. TriCaster supports two popular and prolific
encoding systems, Microsoft’s Windows Media® and RTMP (Adobe Flash®).
The decision as to which encoding format to use for your live stream is up to you or
– in some cases – your client. Here are some things to consider:
 Some corporate and institutional network administrators opt to support one
or another format exclusively. (Check with your IT department to find out if
this affects your decision).
 RTMP has a very wide installed user base, and seems poised to increase in
proliferation in the foreseeable future.
 RTMP works well across multiple platforms (PCs, Macs, Linux, etc.).
Windows Media® is well represented, but perhaps not to the same degree.
 Some sources report that the RTMP movies will have a larger file size and
use greater bandwidth than Windows Media for a given stream quality. (This
is hard to assess, and changes constantly as developers update their
products).
 Encoding applications for both types are updated with fair regularity, and
when you choose the ‘latest, greatest’ encoding, your viewers may not all
have the current player, requiring them to update.
B
ANDWIDTH
C
ONSIDERATIONS
You’ll often hear the term ‘bitrate’ in connection with streaming video. This
expression refers to data throughput per second (generally measured in Kilobits per
second, or Kbps.)