Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1347119
April/May/June 2021 I 29 Bandwidth requirements must accommodate the transport protocol which, in turn, is determined by the types of endpoint devices students use (Figure 7). The most common compression algorithm for streaming applications is H.264. When a software codec installed in the computer does the video encoding in the computer itself, there are processing limitations that limit codec optimization tradeoffs to two out of the three key perfor- mance parameters, based on application requirements. Audiovisual equipment manufacturers offer a variety of standalone hardware encoders and decoders that employ proprietary compression algorithms that support the H.264 format with virtually no compromises between the three key performance parameters. Public Hosting and Enterprise Streaming Platforms Rather than maintaining their own private streaming infrastructure, many educators use public hosting services like YouTube and Facebook or enterprise streaming platforms like Kaltura and Panopto. Public hosting services are free, but they are inherently less secure than enterprise platforms. Also, their terms of service state that that they can freely co-opt users' intellectual property. Enterprise streaming platforms are tailored to meet the needs of business and educational users. They offer privacy and robust security with private cloud servers, end-to-end encryption, and user login requirements with strong authentication methods. They do not lay claim to users' intellectual property and have built-in down- load protection to prevent unauthorized use or plagiarism. Furthermore, enterprise platforms offer many useful tools to make live streaming, recording, storing, archiving, searching, and retrieving class sessions and lectures simple and straightforward. As an event is live streamed, it is also recorded on the cloud server. Due to this real-time storage, students who join the event late do not miss any of the broadcast, and anyone can view the event on-demand in its entirety when it is over. FIGURE 7: Examples of streaming transport protocols used by different endpoint devices. The streaming transport protocol must be compatible with the encoder compression algorithm and the devices used by students. Computer with Software Codec or Hardware Encoder Endpoints will have different requirements An encoder may not support all necessary transport protocols High Quality H.264 RTMP HLS RTP, RTSP, or Smooth Streaming MPEG- 2 TS • Device: IPTV Set Top Box • Streaming Transport: MPEG-2 Transport Streams • Devices: MS Windows, Computers and Laptops • Players: VLC, Quicktime, Adobe Flash*, MS Silverlight • Streaming Transport: RTP, RTSP, RTMP Microsoft Smooth Streaming • Devices: Flash Player in Computers, Older Android Tablets & Smartphones • Player: Adobe Flash • Streaming Transport: RTMP • Devices: iPad, iPhone, Never Android Devices • Players: Quicktime, HTML5 • Streaming Transport: Apple HTTP Live Streaming - HLS *Adobe support for Flash ended December 31, 2020 Low Latency Low Bitrate Compression Image Quality