We’re streaming live from Harvard University on Oct 7th
October 7th, 2008
As we’re sponsoring the FDT roadshow event we mentioned in an earlier post, we’re also going to broadcast the whole event. So if you can’t make it to this free event for any reason, feel free to tune into our live stream.
Broadcasting starts on Oct 7th, 2pm EST: go to LIVE STREAM
This stream will approximately streamed with VP6 in 720×576 until 6.30pm
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Slot3 sponsors FDT roadshow event at Harvard University
October 5th, 2008
On October 7th the first event of Powerflasher’s FDT roadshow series is going to take place. On this free event Powerflasher is bringing up a couple of well known speakers to do some flash and FDT-related presentations. Slot3 will be there as well with a sponsorhip and the opening presentation on how to reach EVERY user with streaming video. We’ll be talking about our experiences with major clients and explain our approach dealing with firewalls and other possible blockades.
If there’s some time left, we’ll also give some feedback on a series of articles recently published by Reuters, regarding a security issue (1, 2).
The event takes place in the afternoon on October 7th at the Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. For more information on this event, check the FDT roadshow website.
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Slot3 flash live video stream goes HD
July 28th, 2008
We recently gave our flash live streaming demo a High-Definition upgrade. We changed the source from a Panasonic DV camera to a shiny new Canon HV-30 and the result is absolutely mindblowing.
What we’ve got now is a gorgeous 720p stream, with just 400KBit/s of videodatarate. This all happens without upgrading the server technology, so all Slot3 streaming server clients can do this kind of live streaming as well.
Click on the picture and have fun!
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Slot3.com - website finally launched
July 24th, 2008
As you might already know, the Slot3 website officially launched a couple of days ago. For us it was just another step in providing comprehensive information to give you an idea of what we’re doing and what services we do povide.
Right now, we’re more and more filling both the flash video streaming and encoding section of our website with more information, FAQ’s and case studies. But for us most important are our demos. Right now we’ve got just a couple of streaming demos, but more stuff is already done and waits to get published. Our newest addition: the flash live stream out of our head office in Bochum, Germany. We intend to keep this stream up 24/7, but are sometimes playing around a bit with codecs and bitrates. So don’t be confused if you sometimes see a 1 MBit/s h.264 stream and other times a little 350 KBit/s VP6 stream. We can do both.
To be always up2date of new video demos, make sure to subscribe to our RSS-Feed.
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Adobe Flash Player 10 Public Beta
May 15th, 2008
Today, Adobe released the first Beta of the Flash Player 10, codename Astro on labs.adobe.com. As a matter of course we’ve checked all our demos and client applications, if all is still running smoothly. With great success - all streams are working still as expected.
But what does the Flash Player 10 mean to our industry?
We think, the main advantage is the GPU-support. That makes it possible to use the power of modern graphic boards for filter rendering which is way more powerful than native CPU-rendering. All filters can be applied to raster content, so bitmaps and of course, videos.
But even the native fullscreen mode, introduced with Flash Player 9 Release 3 is now rendered through the graphics card, which should bring more performance for high-def content as well.
Our slot3 engineers are already working on some concepts using the new power of Flash Player 10, so to not miss that, check back regularly or subscribe to our RSS-Feed.
Links:
Adobe Labs
Flash Player 10 on Adobe Labs
Flash Player 10 Release Notes
Posted in Flash, News, Technology | No Comments »
Secure Video Streaming - the Slot3 difference
April 28th, 2008
We’ve seen a lot of Whitepapers where other Service Providers explain how they’re trying to secure video streaming, to protect your content. But in case of Flash Video Streaming, which is becoming more and more popular these days, you’ll soon find out, that it’s not as hard as it should be to download protected content – google is your friend on that.
Take the Replay Media Catcher for example. This popular little tool is doing a pretty good job (well, „good“ depends a bit on your point of view) in sucking all kinds of Flash Content, no matter wether the content comes from HTTP or RTMP.
The Replay Media Catcher uses a powerful technique called URL-Sniffing, which means basicly that the Media Catcher filters your Network Traffic and uses the result for it’s own requests. Pretty simple.
Don’t get us wrong, we don’t want to motivate you to download content which doesn’t belong to you, using these kind of tools. But we wanna open your eyes a bit on this important topic.
So, and what does Slot3 do different?
We’re using a 128 Bit SSL-based algorhythm to deliver our content, what means that all SWF-, Streamingfiles are transferred securely. The certificate is always included in your Slot3 Streaming Account.
But besides that we’re also including Domain Protection Mechanisms, so that it is ensured that the content is just viewed from allowed domains.
To guarantee that all firewalls are working with these kinds of protections, we’re using a high-performance HTTP-Tunneling. That frickin’ rocks!
So, but what about the videoplayer SWF-files? Are they protected , too? Of course they are! All example files we’re delivering with each Slot3 Streaming Account are using the Slot3 SWF Protection. Feel free to use Buraks excellent Actionscript Viewer to play a bit around with our demos.
So, until now we’ve justed talked a lot, it’s time to show something. Below you’ll find two demos of our technology, where you’re free to experiment with:
Demo 1: Flash Video (F4V) H.264 Stream, 1 MBit/s, 1280×720, SSL with HTTP-Tunneling
Demo 2: Flash Video (F4V) H.264 Stream, 1 MBit/s, 1280×720, SSL with HTTP-Tunneling
(You’ll need the Flash Player 9 for viewing these demos)
If you have any comments, questions, complaints or whatsoever, please use the commentform below or contact us directly.
Posted in Demos, Flash, Slot3, Technology | No Comments »
Ready to rock the streaming video business
April 28th, 2008
Welcome to Slot3. We’re a bunch of Video-Streaming-Ubergeeks who want to change the world.
Or better said, we’re a video streaming service provider where you can buy or rent „ready-to-go“ streaming servers, equipped with some of the most advanced streaming technologies worldwide. Mainly we’re focussed on Flash Video, but we do other stuff as well. Sony’s Playstation 3 and Apple’s iPhone are good examples. We simply love that stuff!
Another thing we do is video encoding. There we’re offering a server based video encoder which encodes video from and to all kinds of different video formats at ultra-high-speed, thanks to Multi-CPU and GPU support including real Grids. It’s so amazingly fast, you won’t believe it, until you see it.
All our solutions are custom-made, so every setup is configured and optimized to the clients needs. No matter if you need a 20 server Flash streaming CDN, or a tiny little encoding server which just hast to do one job a day. Just tell us about what you want to do and we’re pleased to help you out – our clients will confirm that.
Speaking about clients, Slot3 is not a newcomer in the business. We’ve already served a lot of clients, but most of the time as kind of a network of Advertising/Internet Agencies, Flash Developers and Video Engineers. There was time for a change, all the video stuff had to become it’s own home. And that is what Slot3 is.
So, but what abut the website? Well, we’re working really hard to get it up and running, but at the moment there’s so much going on in the video industry, that other things are keeping us busy all the time. But it’ll come very soon, promised!
On this weblog we’ll keep you updated on a regular basis, on what’s going on behind Slot3’s doors as well as some industry news, tutorials, and of course, demos. By the way, in the future you’ll find a lot of demos on our websites, because we think it is more important, and fun of course, to show some real stuff, instead of serving boring whitepapers and press releases.
So, that’s all for now. If you want to stay updated, we think it’s a good idea to subscribe to as well our Newsletter and our RSS-Feed. Again, a warm welcome to all our visitors and feel free to use the commentform below if you have any questions.
Marcel Fahle
Managing Director
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