M3U files are simply text files with a .m3u extension instead of a .txt extension. When opened in a browser from clicking on a link to an m3u file, the listener’s default audio program will launch the playlist. Many mp3 players support the m3u format, including Winamp and iTunes. Here are the contents of an [...]

You can convert a song to a different file format while keeping a copy of the original. For example, you can save a copy of an uncompressed song file such as AIFF or WAV to a compressed format like MP3, AAC, or Apple Lossless Encoder. Saving a copy of a song in a new file [...]

GravityLab is pleased to offer HTTP Dynamic Streaming for all accounts. This is a technical reference and FAQ to this streaming video hosting announcement. What is HTTP Dynamic Streaming? HTTP Dynamic Streaming enables high-quality (H.264 or VP6), network-efficient HTTP streaming for media delivery that is tightly integrated with Adobe® Flash® Access® software for robust content [...]

Welcome to your Flash Video Hosting account at GravityLab Multimedia! We are the industry leader in flash streaming media hosting. We appreciate your business and want to make your account set up as easy for you as possible. Please bookmark this page for future reference. Don’t have an account with GravityLab? Don’t worry! Find a [...]

Overview Flash media can be streamed either through Flash Media Communication Protocol (RTMP) or HTTP protocol. This article will explain the differences between these two methods and the different types of stream configurations that you can employ. Additionally, we will provide detailed instructions on how to secure and archive your Flash media in another article. [...]

What happens when my audience watches my video from GravityLab? Three different steps take place when streaming video on-demand to your clients from GravityLab’s CDN.  These steps are: 1.      A Flash media file must be stored on our CDN origin servers. This is the server you upload your video to. When requested by a user, [...]

Setting Up Video On-Demand To store (add) Flash media on our CDN to your account Perform one of the following: FTP Client: Find out the name of the FTP server by viewing the FTP page on the Media Manager tab of the Media Control Center (MCC) ( http://my.gravlab.com/ ). Once you know the FTP server [...]

List of Players and Devices that have been tested and confirmed working with Flash Video

So what do we mean when we talk about our Content Delivery Network or “infrastructure” ? We took a new approach. We identified a smaller number of strategic global locations near primary Internet Exchange Points, and built supercharged points of presence we call SuperPOPs. These SuperPOPs have massive amounts of computing and caching power and [...]

Using and embedding Windows Media video with GravityLab Multimedia is simple. Insert the following code into your HTML document to embed Windows Media Player using your GravityLab Hosting account. We’ve also added a link to “launch” the video in the player underneath the embedded player : <br /> <table border=’0′ cellpadding=’0′ align=”left”> <tr> <td><span class=”mceItemObject” [...]

This help document will help you get started with setting up your Basic Services for immediate use to start delivering your multimedia from a global content delivery network. Questions about Advanced Services or more technically advanced questions can be answered through our User Guides. You can also ask any question about your account by opening [...]

Take a look at our hosting plans and options for Flash Hosting The following table lists the supported codecs and their earliest required SWF file format and Adobe Flash Player versions. Our video hosting accounts also support a huge list of Windows Media, Quicktime, Real Media, mp4, mp3, 3gp, 3gp2 and more. Video Codecs SWF [...]

Recently, GravityLab Multimedia migrated all user data to a centralized rack of servers. This has changed a few things. First, all users will log into our FTP server with the following new host: ftp1.gravlab.com. Second, Windows Explorer users now must specify the username and password in the address bar along with the host name. So [...]

Recently, GravityLab Multimedia made the switch to a new billing and support system. The new member center is available at http://members.gravlab.com/. From our member center, you can view your invoices, change your billing information, change your password, and more. Following are instructions on logging in. Go to http://members.gravlab.com/ Enter your e-mail address for the login [...]

These settings apply to both live and prerecorded (video on demand, or VOD) encoding. The provided settings are grouped according to whether the content is intended to be streamed over the Cellular or Wi-Fi network, whether the content is for iPhone/iPod Touch or iPad, and whether the content is 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio. The [...]

Streaming video to iPhone Frequently Asked Questions What kinds of encoders are supported? The protocol specification does not limit the encoder selection. However, the current Apple implementation should interoperate with encoders that produce MPEG-2 Transport Streams containing H.264 video and AAC audio (HE-AAC or AAC-LC). Encoders that are capable of broadcasting the output stream over [...]

Create Windows Media content and place it in the ASFROOT folder on the Windows Media Services server. Open the Windows Media Administrator. From the left side of the Administrator, select Unicast Publishing Points. In the Broadcast Unicast Publishing Points section, clear the use wizard option. Click Broadcast, and then choose New. For alias name, type [...]

Many times, you may want to have a listener stream MP3s from your site, but you don’t have any streaming software set up. One solution is to create an M3U file which acts as a playlist that opens up with many mainstream MP3 players such as iTunes and Winamp. Following is an example of an [...]

Decks and Cards WAP sites are generally one file that contains many sub-pages within the master WML page. Each page is defined with a special tag called “<card>”. This is why WML pages are known as “decks”, because they contain multiple cards. Each card can contain text, links, input fields, tasks, images, and more. You [...]

Note: for GravityLab Multimedia customers, this method only applies to our Live Broadcasting packages. Pseudo-streaming is available with all standard on-demand video hosting accounts, and does not require rtmp configuration. Download the free JW Player from www.jeroenwijering.com and unzip the file somewhere on your computer Open the newly created directory, you should see several files. [...]

QuickTime and Darwin Streaming Server support two primary transport methods for streaming: RTSP/RTP streams use standard IETF streaming protocols to stream video and audio to clients. The Streaming Server supports QuickTime .mov, MPEG-4 .mp4 and 3G .3gp files for on-demand streaming. In addition, the Streaming Server can reflect live streams and playlists using Session Description [...]

Quicktime offers a feature called “Kiosk Mode” that removes the rightmost menu arrow on the QuickTime player which also removes the “Save as” functionality. Kiosk mode is an option that can be set for a QuickTime movie, so that even users who have QuickTime Professional cannot copy the source of a movie. To enable kiosk [...]

To display a banner image (along with a link to more information) while video is rendered in Windows Media Player, add an entry to a Windows Media metafile (a file with a .wvx file name extension) by doing the following: In a text editor such as Notepad, add the following basic code while substituting the [...]

For those whose businesses rely on the Internet to produce revenue the latest Google update, nicknamed Jagger, was one of the biggest events in the past couple years (probably since the Florida Update of 2003). With this 3-part update Google has essentially changed many of the rules and have thrown the SEO community for a [...]

To embed an object into an HTML document, the object class ID is required. The class ID for Windows Media Player 7, 9, 10 and 11 is clsid:6BF52A52-394A-11D3-B153-00C04F79FAA6. Insert the following code into your HTML document to embed Windows Media Player 7 and later: Parameter Default Description autoStart true Specifies or retrieves a value indicating [...]

If you want to launch the standard Quicktime player outside of the web page, you need to create a reference movie — a tiny file that points to the URL of the real movie. Follow these steps to create a reference movie: 1. Put your actual movie on our server. 2. Open QuickTime Player on [...]

We recommend Main Concept H.264 mp4. Encoding should be based on the single-pass Baseline profile, with frame reordering disabled. Keyframes are suggested every 5 seconds, ideally an even divisor of the chosen segment length. mp4 encoding for iphone / ipad / android / html5 devices Delivery Dimensions Frame Rate Total Bit Rate Video Bit Rate [...]

Collection of HTML5 video players

If you are broadcasting live flash video with Wowza streaming server, occasionally a client may receive an error along the lines of “Stream not found”. The reason for this problem is typically that port 1935 is not open on their firewall, which is essential for viewing RTMP (real-time messaging protocol) streams. Alternatively, if you are [...]

Quicklinks: Live HTTP Streaming and On Demand HTTP Streaming at GravityLab How it works Designed into iPhone OS 3.0+, the built-in video player now supports adaptive bit rate switching during playback. As a user watches a video, the iPhone player will detect the user’s available bandwidth and automatically switch to the appropriate bit rate during [...]

Here’s a selection of sample files and linking protocols to test your phone’s video capabilities. Quicktime Mp4 http://helix.gravlab.com:554/sample_100kbit.mp4 http://helix.gravlab.com:554/sample_300kbit.mp4 H.264 http://helix.gravlab.com:554/sample_h264_100kbit.mp4 http://helix.gravlab.com:554/sample_h264_1mbit.mp4 Mobile 3GP http://helix.gravlab.com:554/sample.3gp http://helix.gravlab.com:554/sample_50kbit.3gp Windows Media http://media.gravlab.com/powered.wmv http://media.gravlab.com/racecar.wmv Quicktime Mov http://helix.gravlab.com:554/sample_100kbit.mov http://helix.gravlab.com:554/sample_300kbit.mov

This article provides information on transcoding audio and video files into a format that can be played on a BlackBerry smartphone.

From the Microsoft Expression Encoder download site: “Microsoft® Expression® Encoder, a feature of Expression Media, offers encoding, enhancement, and publishing of rich media experiences to Microsoft Silverlight. ” Features Include: Better Encoding VC-1 advanced authoring SDK integration: by adopting the new VC-1 authoring SDK, Expression Encoder 2 is able to author better quality video faster. [...]

GravityLab offers comprehensive iPhone streaming video hosting packages to deliver your video to the iPhone and other mobile cell phone devices. Follow this link to review our iPhone video plans and pricing. When the iPhone was unveiled, the mobile phone market was instantly changed. Consumers raced to buy them, and sales exceeded all expectation. The [...]

Supported Video Formats: codec: DivX, XviD, MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV, VC-1 format: 3gp(mp4), AVI(divx), MKV, FLV, H.263Sorenson Music & Sound : MP3 / AAC / AAC+ /eAAC+ /OGG /WMA /AMR-NB /AMR-WB /WAV / MID / AC3 / IMY / FLAC / XMF Video player app for Android: yxFlash : yxflash is the first and only [...]

Here’s some javascript for making your embedded video go full screen. You’ll need to create your own “Full screen video image” in the last line of code, or just make it a link I suppose. To add a go to “full screen” option for embedded windows media: <head> <title>Untitled Document</title> <meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=iso-8859-1″> <script [...]

HTTP Streaming can be several things. Here is an attempt to outline the different HTTP streaming protocols: MP3/AAC/aacPlus HTTP Streaming: This is usually the SHOUTcast or Icecast ICY protocol, which uses ADTS packetization over TCP. This is NOT compatible with ANY RTSP streaming. This uses an ICY based Streaming Server such as SHOUTcast or Icecast2. [...]

We are proud to announce the latest member center plug-in, our very own file viewer application. With this new feature, members are able to view all of their media files in one easy-to-use interface. This application also makes it a breeze to embed your media into any web page. Just find which video you want [...]

Here’s a short summary of the best encoding bit-rates and formats for mobile video Device Total Bit Rate Video FPS Nokia 3650 34 – 80 kbps H.263, 22 – 68 kbps QCIF 5 – 8 Motorola A830, Sony Ericsson P800 34 – 80 kbps H.263, 22 – 68 kbps QCIF 5 – 8 PocketPC 34 [...]

Problem: I can’t access my GravityLab Multimedia files with Internet Explorer! Answer: Make sure to use the following format in the URL bar for accessing your GravityLab FTP account: ftp://username:password@ftp1.gravlab.com

Downloading When a user wishes to view video on your site, there are several possible methods that can allow said user to see the video. The easiest method is the create a hyperlink to the video file. This method is useful if you want the viewer to save the movie to their computer before viewing. [...]

Before you read ahead, consider GravityLab Multimedia’s streaming media encoding services. We take the complexity out of creating streaming media for an affordable price. Often times, companies that wish to stream their media are given video from a production company on a DVD. This is a great multi-purpose archival format, because the disc is high [...]

When streaming media over the web, it is important to take into consideration the speed at which your viewers are connecting to the internet. Listed below are several common connection speeds and the corresponding bit-rate at which your videos will need to be encoded in order to play back smoothly. Bit-rates are listed in Kilobits [...]

All files that are to be streamed must be hinted for streaming. This is made possible by the hint track, which is a small piece of data inside a streaming movie file. Our streaming servers recognize the hint track and use it to guide the streaming process. The hint track is never sent to the [...]

In order to provide the best quality video possible to the widest range of viewers, it is necessary to tailor the bit rate of the video to match the download speed of the client’s connection. This is possible to do with Windows Media Server, Real Producer and Quicktime. The most difficult task of streaming audio [...]

Darwin Streaming Server (DSS) is the open source version of Apple’s QuickTime Streaming Server technology that allows you to send streaming media to clients across the Internet using the industry standard RTP and RTSP protocols. Based on the same code base as QuickTime Streaming Server, Darwin Streaming Server provides a high level of customizability and [...]

This article details the steps needed to create a looping collection of videos with WMS. With this feature, a viewer can “tap” into whatever video happens to be playing at any given moment. GravityLab Multimedia provides this capability for users with all video streaming accounts. Steps to Set Up a Server-Side Play List Create Windows [...]

One of the great things about the Flip camcorder is that it saves video using the H.264 Codec. If you haven’t heard, H.264 is arguably the best quality video codec out there, renowned for its high quality, low file size, and lack of artifacting. Luckily, since the release of Flash 9, H.264 is now a [...]

The FLV file format is supported, but FLV files will be shown as progressive download only. Ultimately, this means that users will not be able to fast-forward to any part of the video that hasn’t been downloaded yet. For small files (under a minute long or so) this is not that noticeable. But if you [...]

GravityLab Multimedia offers several mobile video hosting plans, and many of our customers ask how they can create .3gp video files in order to stream the video to 3rd generation cell phones. For this tutorial you will need a short clip of uncompressed video, including audio. You will also need Apple QuickTime Pro. You can [...]