All of us coming to this Silverlight Streaming forum realize, of course, that the world wide web is moving quickly to videos. Videos are showing up in websites everywhere. Most people in the world will soon have a video camera in their pocket or purse.
Almost every website that lets its users view videos also has a need to display a
thumbnail of that video somewhere on its site. YouTube, of course, is the classic example. YouTube.com would certainly fail to please its users if it didn't have thumbnails. The thumbnails are crucial.
I've been using Silverlight Hosting and Streaming experimentally and am very well pleased. But when I try to come up with a clean solution for producing thumbnails that I can store in an image field in SQL Server, I'm hitting a dead-end.
I have these two links, which use WPF RenderTargetBitmap:
However, like most ASP.NET developers, I rely on a hosting service for my web applications. In my case, I'm using DiscountASP.NET as my host. Their position is that their hosted web applications should not have permissions to things such as mediaplayer.
Their position sounds reasonable to me.
THEREFORE, because thumbnails are universally crucial to almost any website utilizing videos, it seems to me that it's in the interest of Microsoft to add functionality to Silverlight Hosting and Streaming such that when we developers upload
a video file, we can simultaneously automatically obtain in return a thumbnail of the initial scene.
Well, for one you probably shouldn't be processing/encoding videos inside of your web server. It should probably be farmed out to an app server if possible or at least an application running independent from ASP.NET. As for what you can use, you can check
out the Expression Encoder API. I have the scenario you described set up and it works fine.
How I have it set up is:
- Use uploads file through Silverlight to a WCF service
- Service stores the file on the file system and inserts a processing record into a queue database table
- A windows service pulls the record from the queue, retrieves the file, processes it with encoder, uploads the result to Silverlight Streaming, and updates the video pointer in the database.
Forgot to mention... the added bonus in this is that you can support all sorts of file types this way, instead of just the WMV files that Silverlight supports. I use the same method for images, since Silverlight only supports PNG and JPEG.
Your solution looks like the best way to go. Thanks for your reply.
The problem (or opportunity for Microsoft) is that thousands of Silverlight developers all over the world who utilize Silverlight Hosting and Streaming for videos on their websites,
all have a common need -- to make thumbnails of their uploaded videos. And if each developer builds your solution, and each developer puts it on a separate app server, that's thousands of developers expending several hours each, and also each
spending money for the extra app server resource.
It would be much in the interest of the developer community, and in Microsoft's interest, if the person in charge of Microsoft's Silverlight Hosting and Streaming directed that their video upload process be improved so that when a developer uploads a video,
Silverlight Hosting and Streaming will itself automatically generate a thumbnail .jpg file.
This seemingly small feature would greatly improve the competitive position of Microsoft vs. both YouTube and Flash, and eliminate much wasted energy on the part of us developers.
Steve, perhaps you could give your design to the folks running Silverlight Hosting and Streaming, or perhaps they could hire you to create the feature, which would benefit thousands of us developers.
Any thoughts on that? Or am I perhaps missing something?
I think Silverlight Streaming was never meant to be an alternative to YouTube or MySpace. It's more of a content delivery platform than a video hosting service.
It's like a giant hard disk that can deliver silverlight applications at a high speed to the user who is requesting for it.
As such the better way is for you to upload your application (which includes your video player UI) to silverlight streaming instead of just uploading a video itself, because let's face it the default player that SLS provides.... not very usable.
:P
SLS is just meant to be a service to deliver your applications, not to serve videos. Therefore for better control of quality and user experience you should encode the video yourself, make the thumbnail yourself and upload it to SLS as an application.
And by the way, Silverlight Streaming is a bit of a misnomer. It is not a
streaming service. It's a hosting service only. To do true streaming you'll need an IIS7 server and configure it properly.
MarauderMY -- You spoke of YouTube. What is Google's strategic plan for YouTube? Do you think Microsoft's plan for Silverlight Streaming and Hosting ignores Google's plan for YouTube?
I notice many web sites are depending on YouTube solely as a video hosting service. YouTube generously cooperates for free, but with the condition that it's
logo is displayed on the player. Not a bad idea, it seems to me, on Google's part.
Steve, do you call that service by YouTube a "hosting service" or a "streaming service"?
Here's an example of a site using YouTube instead of Silverlight Streaming and Hosting.
Should Microsoft ignore/yield this giant market to YouTube simply because the Silverlight Streaming and Hosting department doesn't want to go through the trouble to add a simple feature that provides a
thumbnail?:
YouTube is a VIDEO streaming service, it's main objective is a specific type of media content.
Silverlight Streaming is an application hosting service cum content distribution network. it's not meant specifically for video but rather for entire applications, which might happen to be just a video player.
Like some people I guess calling the service Silverlight Streaming has caused some confusion into what it's supposed to do.
Miyamoto
Member
90 Points
112 Posts
Thumbnail for uploaded video - a universal need
Dec 31, 2008 05:53 PM | LINK
Hi all,
All of us coming to this Silverlight Streaming forum realize, of course, that the world wide web is moving quickly to videos. Videos are showing up in websites everywhere. Most people in the world will soon have a video camera in their pocket or purse.
Almost every website that lets its users view videos also has a need to display a thumbnail of that video somewhere on its site. YouTube, of course, is the classic example. YouTube.com would certainly fail to please its users if it didn't have thumbnails. The thumbnails are crucial.
I've been using Silverlight Hosting and Streaming experimentally and am very well pleased. But when I try to come up with a clean solution for producing thumbnails that I can store in an image field in SQL Server, I'm hitting a dead-end.
I have these two links, which use WPF RenderTargetBitmap:
http://silverlight.net/forums/p/14104/46898.aspx#46898
http://www.tedspence.com/index.php?entry=entry070705-111722
However, like most ASP.NET developers, I rely on a hosting service for my web applications. In my case, I'm using DiscountASP.NET as my host. Their position is that their hosted web applications should not have permissions to things such as mediaplayer. Their position sounds reasonable to me.
THEREFORE, because thumbnails are universally crucial to almost any website utilizing videos, it seems to me that it's in the interest of Microsoft to add functionality to Silverlight Hosting and Streaming such that when we developers upload a video file, we can simultaneously automatically obtain in return a thumbnail of the initial scene.
Any thoughts will be appreciated.
scommisso
Member
74 Points
44 Posts
Re: Thumbnail for uploaded video - a universal need
Jan 05, 2009 08:31 PM | LINK
Well, for one you probably shouldn't be processing/encoding videos inside of your web server. It should probably be farmed out to an app server if possible or at least an application running independent from ASP.NET. As for what you can use, you can check out the Expression Encoder API. I have the scenario you described set up and it works fine.
How I have it set up is:
- Use uploads file through Silverlight to a WCF service
- Service stores the file on the file system and inserts a processing record into a queue database table
- A windows service pulls the record from the queue, retrieves the file, processes it with encoder, uploads the result to Silverlight Streaming, and updates the video pointer in the database.
video Silverlight 2 encoder thumbnail
MCSD.NET, MCPD: EAD
scommisso
Member
74 Points
44 Posts
Re: Thumbnail for uploaded video - a universal need
Jan 05, 2009 08:32 PM | LINK
Forgot to mention... the added bonus in this is that you can support all sorts of file types this way, instead of just the WMV files that Silverlight supports. I use the same method for images, since Silverlight only supports PNG and JPEG.
MCSD.NET, MCPD: EAD
Miyamoto
Member
90 Points
112 Posts
Re: Thumbnail for uploaded video - a universal need
Jan 06, 2009 11:36 PM | LINK
Steve --
Your solution looks like the best way to go. Thanks for your reply.
The problem (or opportunity for Microsoft) is that thousands of Silverlight developers all over the world who utilize Silverlight Hosting and Streaming for videos on their websites, all have a common need -- to make thumbnails of their uploaded videos. And if each developer builds your solution, and each developer puts it on a separate app server, that's thousands of developers expending several hours each, and also each spending money for the extra app server resource.
It would be much in the interest of the developer community, and in Microsoft's interest, if the person in charge of Microsoft's Silverlight Hosting and Streaming directed that their video upload process be improved so that when a developer uploads a video, Silverlight Hosting and Streaming will itself automatically generate a thumbnail .jpg file.
This seemingly small feature would greatly improve the competitive position of Microsoft vs. both YouTube and Flash, and eliminate much wasted energy on the part of us developers.
Steve, perhaps you could give your design to the folks running Silverlight Hosting and Streaming, or perhaps they could hire you to create the feature, which would benefit thousands of us developers.
Any thoughts on that? Or am I perhaps missing something?
Thanks.
MarauderzMY
Member
639 Points
283 Posts
Re: Re: Thumbnail for uploaded video - a universal need
Jan 07, 2009 04:48 AM | LINK
I think Silverlight Streaming was never meant to be an alternative to YouTube or MySpace. It's more of a content delivery platform than a video hosting service.
It's like a giant hard disk that can deliver silverlight applications at a high speed to the user who is requesting for it.
As such the better way is for you to upload your application (which includes your video player UI) to silverlight streaming instead of just uploading a video itself, because let's face it the default player that SLS provides.... not very usable. :P
SLS is just meant to be a service to deliver your applications, not to serve videos. Therefore for better control of quality and user experience you should encode the video yourself, make the thumbnail yourself and upload it to SLS as an application.
scommisso
Member
74 Points
44 Posts
Re: Re: Thumbnail for uploaded video - a universal need
Jan 07, 2009 12:43 PM | LINK
And by the way, Silverlight Streaming is a bit of a misnomer. It is not a streaming service. It's a hosting service only. To do true streaming you'll need an IIS7 server and configure it properly.
MCSD.NET, MCPD: EAD
Miyamoto
Member
90 Points
112 Posts
Re: Re: Thumbnail for uploaded video - a universal need
Jan 07, 2009 05:22 PM | LINK
MarauderMY -- You spoke of YouTube. What is Google's strategic plan for YouTube? Do you think Microsoft's plan for Silverlight Streaming and Hosting ignores Google's plan for YouTube?
I notice many web sites are depending on YouTube solely as a video hosting service. YouTube generously cooperates for free, but with the condition that it's logo is displayed on the player. Not a bad idea, it seems to me, on Google's part.
Steve, do you call that service by YouTube a "hosting service" or a "streaming service"?
Thanks.
Miyamoto
Member
90 Points
112 Posts
Re: Re: Thumbnail for uploaded video - a universal need
Jan 07, 2009 05:48 PM | LINK
Here's an example of a site using YouTube instead of Silverlight Streaming and Hosting.
Should Microsoft ignore/yield this giant market to YouTube simply because the Silverlight Streaming and Hosting department doesn't want to go through the trouble to add a simple feature that provides a thumbnail?:
http://www.globalsurfers.com/surfingvideos.cfm
Any thoughts will be appreciated.
MarauderzMY
Member
639 Points
283 Posts
Re: Re: Re: Thumbnail for uploaded video - a universal need
Jan 11, 2009 12:29 AM | LINK
YouTube is a VIDEO streaming service, it's main objective is a specific type of media content.
Silverlight Streaming is an application hosting service cum content distribution network. it's not meant specifically for video but rather for entire applications, which might happen to be just a video player.
Like some people I guess calling the service Silverlight Streaming has caused some confusion into what it's supposed to do.