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March, 2003
Cool MPEG tools you never knew you needed
by Ken Pyle
So, I MPEG-encoded some content for a client the other day and found that the program streams I normally create did not work on their server. But not to worry, a nifty software program from Manzanita Systems saved the day. As telcos begin to offer video on demand programming, particularly local programming (e.g. high school football games, cooperative board meetings on demand, etc.), they will also have a need for software-based tools, such as the one I used, for analyzing and manipulating MPEG-encoded content.
It truly amazes me how far software-based MPEG-encoding has evolved in the past few years. I routinely do an edit on a video and then MPEG-encode the output directly from my editing program. The challenge I faced the other day is that the client needed a transport stream and not a program stream, which is normally what I provide to clients. Fortunately, a nifty program from Manzanita Systems is available to convert video and audio elementary streams into transport streams.
Actually, Manzanita Systems has a couple of different versions of this program. One version converts a single video and dual audio elementary streams into a transport stream, while the other will put as many as 16 video and 32 audio elementary streams into a transport stream. I used the latter program and it worked flawlessly.
The characteristics of the transport stream can be customized or can set by using Manzanita-supplied configurations. I encoded my output as video and audio elementary streams and then used the Manzanita-supplied CableLabs VOD configuration to convert these to a transport stream. What is amazing is that the resulting quality is comparable to what would have cost $50,000 or more a few years ago, but now is available for PC prices.
And they have a number of other tools that telcos dabbling in MPEG video will find useful. I have used their low-cost MPEG-analyzer (which once solved a finger-pointing problem for me) to identify the parameters of an MPEG stream. Another company with similar tools is Pixeltools. One of the tools that they offer, which sounds like it could be very useful, is MPEGRepair. The promise of this product is that one can actually dissect an MPEG stream and repair or improve those portions of the MPEG stream with quality issues.
I am sure these and other tools will become commonplace in the telcos arsenal, as splicing MPEG streams becomes as common as splicing fiber is today.
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