RealVideo - Waiting on Broadband

Jeff Rule

April 19, 1999

RealVideo is the dominant streaming technology on the web today and will play an increasing role in broadband web delivery in the near future. In this article we'll see how to create video optimized for the web, how to encode it and how to incorporate it with SMIL.

Delivering video over the web is the Holy Grail of web development. It's the magic bullet that will allow the web to compete with TV as a viable entertainment medium. However streaming video across the Internet still requires some serious bandwidth. Let's admit it, video at 28.8 is an experiment. It's a promise of things to come; it is not a viable technology. The Real compression codecs keep getting better every year. Some of the new G2 codecs make 56kbp/sec video look pretty good. I can remember trying to get video to playback off a 1X CD-ROM back in 1993. It was usually Quicktime compressed with Cinepak and it was playing back at about 15 frames per second (fps) at 160x120 pixels and it was always locking up. A 1X CD-ROM gives you 800kbps or 100K/sec! I just had ADSL installed and my Internet connection is 640kbps. Only now six years later do I have the Internet bandwidth that I had running from CD-ROM back in 1993. When I stream video over the Internet at these rates it is 24-30fps and usually 320x240. The difference is better compression codecs and faster computers to decompress the video. When RealVideo is combined with other media types such as graphics, audio, and text it can make for a powerful multimedia presentation. This is the environment that the G2 Real Player and SMIL provide.

Broadband access to web is the key ingredient for true streaming video. Currently there are about 1.25 million home users with cable or ADSL service (1 million cable and 250K ADSL). In addition to this there are 10 million users who access the web either through a fractional T1 line or over ISDN. Unfortunately most of these 10 million users are viewing the web at work where entertainment viewing is discouraged. That doesn't leave all that great a market penetration for broadband RealVideo. However, there is a lot of lip service being paid to broadband development. The recent merger of Yahoo and Broadcast.com should help speed the delivery of a true broadband portal. In the mean time several sites are already aggregating broadband video and other content. OnBroadband.com is a site dedicated to aggregating broadband content including RealVideo. Another site, BroadbandZone.com, is dedicated to Broadband content as well as discussions of development tools, books, and tutorials. Other sites focusing on RealVideo and its incorporation into SMIL are Streaming Media World and JustSmil.

Including RealVideo in an SMIL presentation can be quite a challenge if you are planning on delivering at anything below 56kbps. The lowest setting for RealVideo is delivery over a 28.8 modem. This is going to produce video running at about .25 fps or one frame every four seconds. If you use the full bandwidth of a 56kbps modem you might get 10 fps. However, you'll want to be able to stream other SMIL media types so the video will probably be encoded at 28.8kbps. If you're doing graphics this means you can download a new graphic that is 10K every 5 seconds to give a slide show along with the video. RealText could also be added to the presentation since it takes up only minimal bandwidth.

RealVideo - Waiting on Broadband

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