Encoding is the conversion of offline material such as tapes to online material that can be viewed over the Internet.

Stream UK has expertise in encoding across all major formats and has completed a 7 man-month study for the PRESTOSPACE project - a 9 million EUR project commissioned by the European Union to establish best practice in digitising archives.

Encoding

We’ll get the best possible quality from your offline media. Leave it to us to ensure the aspect ratio is right, the bitrate is best-suited to your audience, the colour is correct and the audio is appropriate.

We have seven years experience in encoding for the internet and have developed encoding profiles for two of the biggest content owners in the world (which are both very good at non-disclosure agreements too).

What Formats Do You Encode From?

Stream UK can accept any format. For the BUFVC project we accepted a lot of material in the old 2" tape formats.

As standard (ie at no extra charge) we accept:

Digibeta (large and small)
BetaSP (large and small)
DVCam (large, small, professional and consumer)
HDV (small format)
Any file-based format (MPeg-2, MJPeg2000, .mov, etc)
Standard data-tape formats

Service Spotlight

Encoding The British Universities Film and Video Council (under its MAAS programme) chose Stream UK to encode its large archive of cultural material.

The classic encoding process included a high bitrate archive (MPEG-2 at 25Mbps), two web formats, back-up on to S-AIT and back-up of browser formats on to optical media.

If you would like more information or to request a quotation, email: encodings@streamuk.com or give us a call on freephone 0800 061 2361

Digital Rights Management

Encoding Stream UK offers a complete Digital Rights Management solution that protects Windows Media audio and video files from unauthorised access or distribution.

DRM works by requiring users to obtain a license before they are able to play or listen to a file.

The owner of the content sets the rights to the license. Stream UK is one of only five Microsoft-recommended DRM providers in all of the UK and Europe.

The complete solution is usually integrated with e-commerce and a front-end that allows license permissions to be set on the fly.

Restrict in a number of ways

Once the initial requirement to obtain a license has been built into the media file, the use can be restricted according to:

expiry date
start date
number of plays
total amount of time viewed
CD-ROM burning
download permissions
other commercially exploitable rules.

Complex, multi-business integrations are more expensive. Typically, Stream UK will integrate with the client’s database and online payment provider.

Case Study: Way To Blue PR

Way to Blue is the largest digital PR company in the UK. Stream UK encodes an average of 100 film clips per week from Digibeta into 19 different formats that they then distribute through various channels.

Way to Blue The whole process is tracked through an online booking board that gives the client an overview of the process and allows them to set priorities.