Start Your Own Internet TV Show - Configuring the Type of Encoding for the Broadcast

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The next configuration step involves determining the type of encoding to use for the broadcast. The most important factor in determining what type of encoding to use is the processing speed of your computer. Encoding video and audio in a live environment uses more CPU power than just about anything so without heavy-duty hardware, you should stick to a low-quality encoding. Don’t worry about this though, because even at low quality, the results are acceptable for most purposes. Start at a low quality and monitor the performance of your computer. Then work your way up in quality until you find a balance between CPU performance and audio and video quality. Also, determine which aspect of your broadcast is more important, audio or video. The encoder allows you to specify the bit-rate of the audio and video separately. Therefore, if you want people to see what you are broadcasting more than what is being heard, set your audio quality very low then increment the quality of the video until you get the best results.

After that, you have the option of saving the file to disk. The entire broadcast will be saved as a Windows Media file. While having a backup of the event to later archive on your web site feels great, it also decreases the performance of the entire encoding process so weigh out the archival of events versus quality of audio and video.

The main part of the configuration is now complete. You have the option include other files to use as welcome screens or intermissions and can also include copyright information. However, if you are not requiring those at this point the wizard can be finished and your broadcast will begin.

When the encoder begins broadcasting, the Windows XP firewall will display a message that the encoder is trying to change the firewall settings. Allow this to happen or your broadcast won’t be viewable. The encoder is telling the operating system that it needs access to a port and to make it publicly accessible. For some reason, even if you click, ‘Do Not Show This Message Again’, it still will continue to display it, so don’t bother with checking it.

Next: Checking Your Broadcast >>
 

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