Access to multi-media streaming features over the internet has grown rapidly in the last few years due to cost reduction and advances in this technology. Live streaming of video over the internet has become quite popular with most media outlets who make their broadcast available online. Additionally, many live events are being streamed directly from their location due to reduction of the cost barrier to entry. Fueling all this is the advances in the video encoder technology, both in terms of hardware and software.

To get a good sense of what these solutions offer and how they stack up against each other, I have compared some of the encoders from a variety of vendors based on certain criterion:
- A system that can stream a total of 4 input channels, 2 in HD and 2 in SD.
- The streamed video is viewable with Flash Media player. The two leading commercial media servers that support flash streaming are Adobe FMS and Wowza and the encoders should be able to stream to at least one of them.

The following are the capabilities that were compared:
o 1080p: This is the highest HD resolution available, but not all HD encoders currently support this.
o Storage: The ability to record and store video on the encoder platform.
o Latency: The video latency could be important in certain situations, such as in teleconferencing applications. It also may indicate the robustness of the encoding algorithm used.
o Multi-rate support: It is the ability to encode a single input video at different bit rates. A must if we need to support users with varying bandwidth connections.
o HD/SD Dual Support: Ability of a single encoder to accept and encode either SD or HD signal at a time.
o Public Management Interface: This is required when you build custom application to control and monitor the encoder. Typically all of them provide SNMP but some vendors also have implemented SOAP.
o Centralized Management Interface: Some vendors only provide single element management application but others have centralized management solutions. The centralized management solution comes in quite handy when you are trying to monitor and control multiple encoders.
o Cost Estimate: The approximate cost of the entire solution based on written and verbal quotes from the vendor. You should check with the vendor for the latest prices as they fluctuate often.

Come back next week for a detailed chart of the results.