On today's StreamingMedia.com webinar about Adaptive Streaming & HTTP Delivery, RealNetworks shared the below slide featuring a nice chart that breaks out some of the differences and features from Apple, Microsoft and Adobe. You can see a higher-res copy of the image by clicking on it and be sure to check out the on-demand archives of today's webinar for more information on Adaptive Streaming & HTTP Delivery. Today's webinar will be archived within 24 hours.

Today at 2pm ET I'll be moderating another StreamingMedia.com webinar, this time on the topic of "Adaptive Streaming & HTTP Delivery". HTTP streaming and adaptive bitrate technologies continue to evolve and promise more efficient streaming, resulting in a better experience for viewers and cost savings for content publishers. Learn more about these technologies and how you can leverage them in your business.

Join Cisco, RealNetworks, Adobe Systems and Harmonic and learn:

• The evolution of adaptive bitrate (ABR) technologies and how they are being used by customers to optimize the viewer experience across multiple devices.
• Various creation and delivery methods designed to meet the changing world of streaming media and what this means to your organization.
• Challenges with video streaming within the enterprise (complexity, player availability, security, device fragmentation and network requirements).

Register here and bring your questions for the presenters for the live Q&A portion of the event.

The 2011 Streaming Media West show will take place November 7-9th at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles and I've just started placing speakers today. Below is the advance program for the event which details every session title and description. The HTML5 track will be shared shortly. I've already lined up some great moderators from Variety, CNET, Cable Labs, TechCrunch, AOL Video, ReelSeo.com and others who are involved. Keynotes will be announced soon.

I have hundreds of speaker submissions to still review but if you see something below your interested in, better try and grab it before it's gone. Email me at mail@danrayburn.com

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

A101 – Facebook: Transforming The Future of Online Media
Join Facebook and other leading media companies to discuss new methods of distributing digital media assets to the largest social media platform in the world. Technologies covered on the panel include HTML5, adaptive streaming, authentication, live events, tablets, mobile and DRM. The panel will also cover unique and highly targeted marketing opportunities to over 700 million global users of Facebook. Explore ways to transform social networking and digital media distribution into making mounds of cash.

Moderator: Tim Napoleon, Co-Founder, President, Alldigital

B101 – How the Cable Industry is Changing the way Video is Delivered
Cable operators are pursuing a new market-based approach to enable IP delivery of cable TV services to consumer owned equipment. This session will explain the benefits for subscribers and CE equipment manufacturers of new IP-based, in-home cable services and how market-based solutions are providing cable content directly to an expanding range of consumer owned equipment. Learn the role standards organizations play in the development of these platforms and the key technologies used to enable both the hybrid tru2way and direct IP solutions.

Moderator: David Broberg, VP, Consumer Video Technology, Cable Television Laboratories

C101 – How To: Encoding For Adaptive Streaming
This seminar identifies the most relevant adaptive streaming technologies and details the most critical factors for comparing them. Next, the seminar details how to choose the ideal number of streams and key encoding parameters. Then it provides an overview of options for encoding and serving the streams, and closes by describing techniques for serving multiple target platforms like Flash and iDevices with one set of encoded H.264 files.

Presenter: Jan Ozer, Principal, Doceo Publishing

A102 – Google TV Demo: The New World of Smart TVs
Like the smart phone before it, the smart TV will bring a new layer of functionality to your existing home entertainment experiences. In this session, executives from Google will examine the value the web will bring to TV, the opportunities for content providers and developers, and the common myths and misperceptions around smart TV. Attendees will also see an overview of Google TV, including the latest developments on the platform, the killer apps, and what lies ahead.

Presenter: Donagh O'Malley, Global Head of Content, Google TV

B102 – Driving Video Views & Engagement with SEO and Social Media
Thanks to social media platforms and search engine optimization, a tremendous opportunity exists in building new audiences and driving views via outside channels. In this session, speakers will present and discuss the case for social video and video SEO. Additionally, panelists will showcase real-life examples and case studies as well as provide expert guidance in terms of both planning for and implementing successful strategies and tactics to boost exposure and discover-ability.

Moderator: Mark Robertson, Founder, ReelSEO.com

C102 – Best Practices For Enterprise Communications
One size doesn't fit all when it comes to matching video delivery platforms with enterprise communication strategy. A town hall meeting with the CEO is a very different thing than a geographically dispersed team meeting, and different technology requirements are needed for each. To further complicate things, all video delivery platforms have their strengths and weaknesses, and different departments in the organization often own different parts of the technologies and strategies. What's a communicator to do? Learn from experts in corporate communications, event planning, and technology support about best practices for finding and using the right mix of video technologies to reach your audience most effectively.

Moderator: Patty Perkins, Team Leader, Wells Fargo Creative Services Technology, Wells Fargo

A103 – Simplifying the Multi-Format Video Workflow
A variety of streaming formats-Silverlight, Flash, HLS, WebM-is generally required to serve the multitude of screens through which content is consumed. Each format can include separate workflows, storage components, and strategies. Network-based media processing offers an increasingly popular approach to simplifying these workflows. How does packaging of media elements in the network (versus on the encoder) work? What are the benefits? What additional features are possible with network packaging (DRM, CAS, ad insertion)? Does this approach work for both small and large operations? In this session, we'll answer these questions and hear various approaches to this new workflow methodology.

Moderator: Matt Smith, VP, OTT Strategy & Solutions, Envivio

B103 – An Open Dialogue Between Video Ad Buyers and Sellers
This session will be a frank discussion with ad video buyers and sellers to discuss their perspective on what's really working in the online video advertising industry. What matters more, content or audience? Is it one or the other, or does each approach present significant opportunities? Also, is video advertising still an industry of empty promises in regards to transparency? What specific expectations do buyers and sellers have around control, and how are they affecting the growth of their business?

Moderator: Teg Grenager, Co-Founder, VP, Product, adap.tv

C103 – The Digital Living Room
Join experts from all sectors of the digital video world to discuss the ever-changing topic of “The digital living room” and how content producers and creators, service providers, and other video web services will thrive in this new economy. What business opportunities lie in the coming surge of Internet connected TVs? What role does mobile video play in the future of the digital living room and streaming content in general? Come hear what technologies and services are poised to be the market's biggest disruptors and how content owners, producers and distributors can capitalize on them.

A104 – Data vs. Content: Who's the Real Star of Online Video?
The rise of online video has opened up a world of metrics and audience data that can help us understand consumers' interests in a way that has not been possible before. At the same time, the growth of online content consumption drives investment in premium content to satisfy the demand. In this session, speakers will discuss what makes up good inventory-whether prioritizing audience data crunching or investing in high-quality, premium content will create the most engagement and return on investment. Ad networks and content platforms will debate which of these two approaches will prove the best for monetizing the boom in online video.

Moderator: Ran Harnevo, SVP, AOL Video

B104 – How-To: Technical Set-Up of Live Streaming Production
This session provides tips and tricks, best practices, and lessons learned regarding the technical set-up of live streaming production. Learn how to stream multiple formats from a single encoder, use social networking overlays, leverage adaptive bitrate streaming, and transition between live streams from multiple camera angles using multi-encoder synchronization. Come learn how to deliver interactive, high-quality experiences for your next live event.

Presenter: Rob Roskin, Senior Manager, Video Operations and Emerging Technologies, MTV Networks

C104 – The Impact Of Carrier Based CDNs On Video Delivery
This panel will discuss the CDN plans and implementations of
major North American carriers for delivering video to the last-mile. Topics will include the technologies, economics and product offering that make carrier CDNs compelling and how they may disrupt the traditional CDN model. Panelists will provide updates on their companies' strategies, perspective on the market and unique relationships their companies can forge with content owners and other partners.

Moderator: Barry Tishgart, VP, Comcast Cable

A105 – Traditional TV vs. The Connected Living Room – Who Will Win?
With the confluence of content from new media, UGC, and web-based video producers along with traditional studios, cable companies, and TV stations, what technologies are necessary to bring all of this content together onto one Internet-connected smart TV device? We've heard about the connected living room for years, but why has it not yet happened? What's holding back mass adoption of smart TV technologies? A look at how consumer demand, big media politics, and innovative new startups are coming together to make smart TV a reality.

Moderator: Mark Mangiola, Venture Partner, Canaan Partners

B105 – Making a Living on YouTube
Long gone are the days of cute kitten videos offering the only hope for "going viral," but is it possible to make a living making YouTube videos? As the audience grows more savvy and technology more accessible, the quality of content that reaches the millions of views mark needs to be more engaging and of higher production value than ever before. Meet some of the creators who are reaching these milestones consistently, as well as advertisers trying to gain access to these creators' huge audiences.

Moderator: Jenni Powell, Digital Content Coordinator, Relativity Media

C105 – How To: Enterprise Video Case Studies
This session will present case studies from leading enterprise organizations showcasing their use and deployment of video for live and on-demand applications. Attendees will learn about webcasting workflows, on-demand applications, and ways enterprise companies are using video today to improve communications, increase efficiency, and enhance their businesses.

Moderator: Patty Perkins, Team Leader, Wells Fargo Creative Services Technology, Wells Fargo

Wednesday, November 9th, 2011

A201 – Cranking Up The Content Machine
This session will focus on what it takes to build up a library of quality content that will attract viewers. What's the competition for content like among the leading streaming companies? What kind of deals are they making with content owners? What kind of content is in/out of reach? These and other questions will be answered by a panel of content syndicators as well as reps from the content companies that sell to them.

Moderator: Andrew Wallenstein, TV Editor, Variety

B201 – Best Practices for Live Streaming
Producers are taking advantage of new technologies, workflows, and production methods to create successful live events. This session will discuss the entire webcasting workflow, including how to get the video signal from the site to end user; how to build an audience; when to use multi-bit rate streaming; strategies to consider for reaching mobile devices, and how to leverage social media platforms. Presenters on this session are the ones in the trenches, producing some of the live events you see on the web today.

Moderator: Jon Orlin, Executive Producer, TechCrunch

C201 – Webcasting Tips And Tricks From The Enterprise
This session will focus on best practices from enterprise corporations who have adopted and implemented live video across their organization. See first hand how these companies are using video for internal and external communications and learn how you can better leverage assets already available inside your company. Hear first hand from those who have been successful with their deployments and learn what advice their have for others deploying live video in the enterprise today.

Moderator: Patty Perkins, Team Leader, Wells Fargo Creative Services Technology, Wells Fargo

A202 – The Business of Premium Online Video
Over the past years, the majority of online video has been short-form UGC that is not advertiser friendly. As online video consumption grows, portals, vertical content networks, and video ad networks are looking to offer premium original content being demanded by their advertisers. With this business still in its infancy, the creative and business models are still unclear. Will what works on television work online? How does content find its audience without a traditional network to market and promote it? Does it make sense to create content without an advertiser funding it? Who are the players in the new ecosystem? A panel of heavyweights from the content creation, digital media, and ad agency worlds will debate and discuss the current state and where things are headed.

Moderator: Matt Farber, President, DoubleBounce

B202 – Cutting The Cord On TV: Will Online Video Really Lead To Cable's Demise?
From Hulu to Netflix, streaming video is having a powerful impact on the traditional television industry. But are consumers really cutting the cord and bypassing cable operators in favor of online video? With the broadcast networks facing some of the same threats as the newspaper industry, will services like TV Everywhere and over-the-top (OTT) content be the industry's savior? These topics and more will be addressed by this panel of content heavyweights.

Moderator: Greg Sandoval, Senior Writer, CNET

C202 – Cloud Demos: Amazon CloudFront and Windows Azure
With no up-front expenses and no long-term commitment, both Amazon's CloudFront platform and Microsoft's Windows Azure platform enable you to pay only for the resources you use, and it's simple to configure both of them within minutes to store and deliver your content and applications. In this session, you'll see how they both work and learn how to use them.

A203 – Strategies for Preparing Your Video for Tablets and Mobile Devices
If you distribute or produce content that will be digitally consumed, you are faced with preparing your media for a multitude of screens. From Android-based tablets to the iPad, iPhone 4, and beyond, mobility is the new video frontier. So what's the right strategy to reach all these devices? How many variants of one clip must a publisher create? Which platforms will yield the greatest uptake? In this session, industry leaders with hands-on experience will answer these questions and provide a best practices approach to help you develop your content to multiple devices.

B203 – How Streaming Video Is Changing The Television Landscape
Streaming sites like Hulu, CBS, ABC, and others have proven that savvy audiences are turning to their computers for entertainment, and in a way that's profitable. How are traditional and cutting-edge companies capitalizing on this trend? In addition to providing the content, how are they taking advantage of this "connected" platform as they deliver content? And finally, how might online video based subscription offerings affect cable companies to this new content source?

C203 – Connected Device Demos
As the number of broadband-enabled devices and platforms invading the living room continues to grow, lots of questions remain about their capabilities. In this session, company executives from some of the leading device companies will demo their latest TV platforms and devices. Attendees will see these devices and platforms in action, learn which content is available on them, and get their questions answered in a Q&A session.

A204 – How Old Media Is Embracing Online Video and New Media
This session will discuss how converging media technologies are redefining traditional distribution methods; how interactive and on-demand services are changing; and how entertainment and news video is being consumed on new platforms. Come hear from some of the leading publishers, broadcasters, and advertisers about the impact that video and new media is having upon their business models.

Moderator: Jose Castillo, President, thinkjose

B204 – Winners and Losers in Over the Top Video
Smart TVs have joined new set top boxes, Blu-ray players, game consoles, and media center PCs as ways for internet-streamed video to reach the big screen. But with so many choices, how do you pick which ones to develop for, which ones to deploy on, and which ones to ignore? This session explores everything from the possible emergence of a standard stack for Smart TVs to handicapping Roku, Boxee, Google TV, and more. We'll also explore best practices in developing apps that work across many of these devices.

Moderator: Troy Dreier, Senior Associate Editor, StreamingMedia.com

Roku officially took the wraps off their latest line of Roku devices today with three new models due out by the end of this month. StreamingMedia.com has the details on the specs and I'll be doing a hands-on review with the new units shortly as well as giving some away to readers of my blog. While I've always felt the Roku is the best box on the market for under $100, the addition of Angry Birds on the most expensive Roku model is not going to help Roku sell that many more boxes. Roku does not need games, it needs a better UI, faster software and more features in the hardware. [for a chart that compares all of the streaming media devices in the market check out www.StreamingMediaDevices.com]

In a story on USAToday.com an analyst is quoted as saying, "gaming through a Roku box will hurt established players like Microsoft and Sony," which shows just how out-of-touch some analysts are when it comes to streaming devices. Combined, Microsoft and Sony have sold more than 100M Xbox 360s and PS3s worldwide. Roku has sold less than 2M. Bringing Angry Birds and other games to the Roku is not going to "hurt" or impact Microsoft or Sony in any way. I've read more than a dozen articles today about the new Roku models and while many articles were quick to compare the Roku to products from Microsoft, Sony and Apple, not a single article mentioned sales numbers.

Roku's CEO is quoted as saying the, "Roku is the best-selling streaming player on the market because of its simplicity, breadth of content and value." How Roku defines "best selling" I don't know but I've asked the company for additional details. The latest number I heard from company executives was that Roku was aiming to have a total of 3M Roku boxes in the market by the end of this year. As much as I like my Roku, that's still a small number and that has to be kept in perspective.

Consumers are buying stand-alone streaming devices to stream, not to play games. Roku has not truly updated their UI in years. It's still slow, not as responsive as it should be and has poor navigation. While the Roku has the best lineup of content around, that is the saving grace for the device. What I don't like seeing is that Roku dropped support of dual-band wireless from their new top model, something the previous Roku had. Also, only Roku's most expenisve model at $99 has built in ethernet which is something that should be standard on all of their boxes and previous generation models that were cheaper than $99 use to have it.

While two of the three Roku boxes support 1080p streaming, Netflix still doesn't offer that level of quality on the Roku units. That means the only way to get 1080p streaming content to the Roku is to buy the most expensive model and use the USB port to load your own content. The probelm there is that one of the biggest things still lacking from the Roku is support for multiple video codecs. Boxee supports everything under the sun but Roku still only supports MP4/M4V, MOV, MKV and WMV. That does not give users a lot of choice when it comes to streaming their own content.

Roku really set the standard for the streaming device space when they launched in the market in May of 2008 and while they have been quick to refresh their lineup of boxes and add more content channels people actually want to watch, Roku is no longer the only option in the market. I would of liked to have seen some major upgrades to their UI, additional format support and more hardware functionality instead of gaming. All of these streaming device manufactures can't survive in the long run just selling boxes, which means the faster they move to a platform licensing model the better they will be positioned to lead in the market. And the better their UI works, the easier it is to navigate and find content and the higher quality stream it supports, the faster they are going to get to their ultimate goal which is to exit the hardware business.

Realted Posts:

– Apple TV and Roku Go Head-To-Head, Here's The Winner

– Testing the Apple TV, Roku XDS and Xbox 360, Plus 10 Other Devices

– Device Comparison: Apple TV vs. Roku vs. WD TV Live Plus vs. Sony SMP-N100

– Roku Adds Official Support For Video Playback Via USB Drives

– Roku Announces New Boxes, USB Support: Hands-On Review (with video)

Today at 12pm ET I'll be moderating another StreamingMedia.com webinar, this time on the topic of "Delivering Video To Mobile & Tablets With Helix Media Library". Today, everyone watches videos on their smartphones and tablets, whether it's for business, school or pleasure. But as an enterprise or university, organizing and delivering digital media – especially when your organization has hundreds of videos – can seem daunting.

Learn how to create, upload and organize your videos to create a YouTube-like experience customized with your organization's branding. If you have used popular video sites on the web, such as YouTube, creating your own Helix Media Library will be a simple and familiar experience. Viewers can access and play videos from their desktop, iPad, iPhone, tablets and other mobile devices.

At this webinar learn how to:

• Upload and convert existing media files like MPEG, AVI, MP3, Windows Media or QuickTime files
• Embed video and audio content created by your Media Library in your existing Training or Learning environment
• Stream video and audio to desktops, mobile devices and tablets
• Secure your organization's media assets utilizing existing authentication structures
• Customize your organization's media library

Register here and bring your questions for the presenters for the live Q&A portion of the event.

While Netflix won't admit it, and in fact says the opposite in their blog post, the latest pricing hikes by the company is a clear sign that they want to exit the DVD business. While they want us to believe otherwise, Netflix is smart enough to know that you don't raise rates by 62% and then expect to retain a large portion of your subscribers for that particular service.

Netflix clearly wants to take the money they will no longer have to spend on DVDs and use it to license more streaming content. And if by chance you do want both streaming and DVDs, Netflix is fine with that because as much as they would like to be a streaming only service, they have raised the monthly price for DVDs by a large enough amount, $6 a month, that they will make money off of most users that keep the option. In my opinion, this latest move by Netflix shows they are no longer in touch with the reality of their current streaming offering and its lack of content.

While it's nice to think that we can all move to a streaming only plan, Netflix knows very well that many seasons of shows are only available via DVD. So you could watch all the episodes of seasons 1-4 of Psych via streaming, but the final season is only available via DVD. If Netflix was trying to force all of us to streaming only plans and they had their entire DVD catalog available in streaming, fine, but we know that is not the case. Netflix has not increased the volume of their streaming content by much and having 25% or less of their entire DVD catalog in streaming is not going to cut it.

Netflix can spin this any way they want, but the bottom line is that they simply want to get out of the DVD business as fast as possible so they can take that money and use it to license more content for streaming. And with Netflix launching a streaming service in Latin America sometime this year, the company needs to license a lot of in-country content since a good portion of the content licensed for the streaming service in North America is not relevant to the Latin American market. As a result, Netflix's licensing costs are going to skyrocket and they need as much money as they can.

But forcing users away from getting DVDs in the mail only weakens their streaming service since Netflix's real value comes from a dual combination of streaming and DVDs.

Today, Netflix announced that they are raising rates on monthly plans that allow customers to get unlimited streaming and one DVD out at a time. The plan which originally cost $9.99 a month will now cost $15.98 a month. In addition, the company is now splitting out streaming only plans from DVD plans and consumers can get an unlimited streaming plan for $7.99 a month, or one DVD out at a time for $7.99 a month. Essentially, Netflix is making people decide if they really want DVDs as part of their streaming subscription and if they do, requiring them to pay nearly $6 more for it per moth.

In November of last year, Netflix raised DVD plans between $1-$3 per month, depending on the plan you were in and now, only eight months later, they are raising rates again. This is a bad move on Netflix's part, but one that's not surprising as they look for ways to generate more revenue. With their licensing costs skyrocketing and the company aggressively pursuing more content deals for their expansion into Latin America, Netflix is feeling the pressure.

Now, they are forcing people like me who were paying $9.99 a month, to drop to a streaming only plan at $7.99 a month. That's $24 in revenue they are missing out from one customer, per year, and they are going to be millions like me who make that decision. Typically, I only got one or two DVDs a month, so Netflix wasn't losing money on me with the inclusion of DVDs in my plan. Now, when I want a DVD, I'll simply go to Redbox and get it for $1 a night. Forcing customers to go somewhere else for DVD rentals, when even Netflix admits there is still a demand for then, really isn't a smart move.

It was bad enough that Netflix gave in to the studios and agreed not to rent any new DVDs by mail for 28 days, just so the studios could force consumers to have to buy the DVDs instead. Now they are raising prices on DVD plans for the second time in 8 months and not increasing the selection and inventory of streaming only content fast enough or with content that's a lot newer.

In January of 2008, Netflix confirmed it had about 12,000 titles available for streaming. In September of 2009, ads on their website put that number at 17,000. Today, it appears that Netflix has about 20,000 titles for streaming, although Netflix won't confirm that number. If that number is accurate, it means that at any given time, Netflix has only added about 4,000 pieces of content a year for the past two years. That's not a lot of content.

Netflix is going to have a real challenge continuing to grow their subscriber numbers each quarter when they continue to give customers less for their money each month and make their plans less valuable.

Added: When logging into my Netflix account, unless I click on "your account" and then select "change plan", there is no notice that Netflix is going to raise my rate to $15.98 a month come September 1st. So unless you have heard of the news, imagine how many people are going to be surprised when they see their monthly fee change. Netflix should be highlighting this change to you immediately upon logging into their website.