NewTek TriCaster Studio - Manual (Page 245)

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Flash has a very wide installed user base, and seems poised to increase in proliferation
in the foreseeable future.

Flash works well across PCs, Macs, Linux, etc. Windows Media is well represented, but
perhaps not quite to the same degree.

Some sources report that the Flash 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.)

Codecs 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
download and install updates.
BANDWIDTH CONSIDERATIONS
You’re going to hear and use the term ‘bitrate’ in connection with streaming video. This
expression refers data throughput per second (generally measured in Kilobits per second, or
Kbps.) Think of it as being like water flowing through a hose. You control the ‘faucet’, because
you get to choose the Streaming Profile in your TriCaster’s Stream to Internet panel. However,
you don’t own the ‘hose’ – or at least, not the entire hose. Once the stream leaves your
immediate environment, even if you can supply good throughput locally, bandwidth may be
constricted elsewhere along the transmission path.
Internet traffic can impose some limits, but a major concern is the sort of connection your
viewing audience may have. Consider an example:
Even though you know that most of your audience will connect to your program using
(relatively slow) wireless devices, you use a very high outgoing bitrate – thinking that this will
surely be enough to supply any need. Perversely, though, your high bitrate may well ensures
a poor result.
The client player tries to play the stream at the bitrate you specified, but (in this example) the
wireless bottleneck impedes flow. It is as if you connected a fire hose on your end, giving
them a suitable high capacity nozzle for their end – but in the last stage of flow, the stream