第一眼:微软流预览版
的预览版 微软流 is 就像 watching video clips on ESPN to assess whether Lebron James Jr. 准备好打职业球了吗. 11岁时, “布朗尼”有明显的游戏和优秀的基因, 但是他离能在NBA打球还有好几年的距离, 也许在费城会更早). While the Stream Preview is similarly not ready for prime time, there are several cool features and impressive corporate DNA that make the platform one to watch over the next 12 to 18 months.
微软流:概述
从头开始, 微软流 is a cloud-only enterprise YouTube product that allows organizations to upload, 管理, 并在组织内共享高达1080p的视频. 预览版是免费的, 微软还没有公布定价计划, 但预计按月收费, 用户的基础上.
The enterprise YouTube market is a growing market with multiple existing services, including the Vidizmo EnterpriseTube, MediaPlatform黄金时段, 创作 MediaSpace, Ustream的需求，并提供服务 Panopto, 库, INXPO, 声波铸造，以及其他. 简而言之, this is a market already served by multiple mature and very well-featured products with multiple deployment options.
微软也面临着来自内部的竞争, 具体地说, 来自Office 365视频, 它于2014年11月推出. 微软在一篇题为 微软流媒体对Office 365意味着什么 这两种服务最终会融合, with Stream providing "the de facto video experience in Office 365."
With this as background, let's begin our look at 微软流.
组织结构
There are four concepts involved in the Stream Experience: a company, users, channels, and videos.
公司是围绕“商业”电子邮件地址建立的. 例如, 我用我的流媒体学习中心邮箱创建了一家公司, 从jan@streaminglearningcenter开始.com. 从这家公司的账户中, I can invite other users with the same company email 就像 chrome@streaminglearningcenter.Com和safari@streaminglearningcenter.com. (I use browser names so I can test with multiple browsers open on the same computer, 很容易追踪到谁是谁). If any other user with the same business email address attempts to create an account, 他们被调到同一家公司. 如果你没有公司的电子邮件地址, 你不能加入公司账户, 虽然这将随着时间的推移而改变.
Once you're a user, you can easily invite multiple other users to join the company. Or, 通过普通的电子邮件渠道, 你可以群发邮件邀请所有员工, instructing them to sign up for Stream using their company email address. Once they enroll, they will be placed in the same company by virtue of their business email. 此时此刻, beyond the mass email, there's no way to centrally control employee enrollment.
所有的视频都被组织成频道, 任何用户都可以创建一个频道, 哪些是所有用户都能看到的. You can choose an image to represent the channel in the portal by choosing a thumbnail from any video assigned to the channel. 你可以看到 图1, when you create the channel, you can specify who can contribute to the channel. 此时此刻, 没办法控制谁能创建频道, and any channel created for general distribution appears in the Stream portal for all viewers.
图1. 创建Opera通道 and identifying which users can contribute to the channel
最后，还有视频. 您可以单独上传视频，也可以上传 集体 以一系列格式, 虽然流只能接受现有的文件, 不是直播, 网络摄像头, 或者网络研讨会输入. Once uploaded, you can name the video, describe it with hashtags, and detail who can see the video. 您还可以提供WebVTT格式的标题. 如图所示 图2, 你可以把视频提供给公司, in which case you can also assign the video to a channel or channels, 选择一个自定义的查看器组, 或者将视频设为私有.
图2. 配置视频文件
There's currently no way within the service to prevent any users from uploading videos that can be seen by all users, which certainly will make Draymond Green (and Brett Favre) fans nervous. 大多数其他服务可以通过查看器类限制上传, or deploy a structured review and approval workflow to prevent unauthorized videos from hitting the portal. 微软计划稍后添加这些功能, 直接在服务中, 或者通过与其他工具的集成, 就像 微软流.
一旦上传并转码, anyone who can view the video can add it to a channel or watch list, or share it via embedding or by sending a link to the video via email. 然而, only authorized viewers can watch the video; at this point, Stream cannot distribute videos to external viewers who don't have company accounts. Virtually all enterprises need to distribute video internally and externally, and most enterprise YouTube systems enable external distribution, 微软还计划在未来添加哪些功能.
在微软流中查看内容
用户在流门户(图3)，这是不可配置的. As you can see, the portal shows trending videos on top, with training videos just below. 然后Stream会列出最受欢迎的频道, below which are any channels followed by the particular user (not shown). There currently is no way to integrate Stream into Sharepoint or other portals, 在大多数其他服务中提供的特性.
图3. The Stream portal, which presents trending videos and popular channels
在流门户中, viewers can click Browse to search for videos and channels that they have the right to view. 你可以看到 图4, you can sort the content multiple ways, or search by keyword or hashtag. One of the features on Microsoft's drawing board (and already available in some competitive products) is intelligent video searching, 由语音到文本转录驱动, 人脸检测, and optical character recognition from PowerPoint and other text-based content.
图4. 搜索流门户中的内容
Browse菜单条目的右侧是My content, 将用户带到他们的视频和频道. To its right is Create, where viewers can create a channel or upload a video, and a search function.
编码和分发在微软流
编码和分发由 微软Azure微软的云计算平台. All video are encoded into multiple streams for adaptive bitrate (ABR) delivery, 以DASH格式传送至电脑及安卓装置, HLS用于基于浏览器的iOS播放. 当传送到电脑上较旧的浏览器时, 流可以退回到基于flash的平滑流传输, 在Android设备上使用HLS和Flash.
如上文所述 博客, Stream使用自定义数据速率对每个流进行编码, using "a simple yet elegant function that measures the characteristics of the input video, 然后给出了一个推荐的比特率.“在我的测试中，这个功能运行得非常好. 例如, Stream encoded a 720p real world video stream at 3.4Mbps和720p Camtasia-based screencam stream at 576Kbps, about an 85% bandwidth savings. I played several low-bitrate Camtasia-based videos through from start to finish, 而且质量非常好. Ditto for real-world videos encoded at much higher data rates.
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