PNG Laboratories

Email from the White House to PNG Laboratories, September 16, 2009, 6:03pm

“You have been granted a credential to cover the Medal of Honor ceremony tomorrow at the White House. Please enter the grounds at the northwest gate, which is located east of 17th St and on Pennsylvania Ave.”

With that short and simple email, PNG Laboratories personnel were granted a press credential to the White House.  Using PNG RT™ software running on a standard laptop as the LIVE streaming media solution, several web outlets received the Medal of Honor ceremony from the East Room as it happened Thursday, September 17, 2009.  PNG RT™ software made it possible for several local newspaper websites to feature live video on their homepages for the very first time.  Using a simple camcorder, PNG RT™ delivered perfect video even constrained by the minimal 128Kbps bandwidth available with a Sprint “air card.” The impact of the live stream was bigger than any proof of performance exercise.  A small Massachusetts town was able to see one of its fallen heroes honored by the President of the United States.

Jared Monti was just 30 years old when he was killed saving the life of a fellow soldier in Afghanistan.  The year was 2006 but to the men and women who served with Monti, the memory is still fresh.  Despite his own young age, he was a father figure to the people he served with.  No one was surprised when Jared insisted that he be the one to rescue an injured soldier pinned down by enemy gunfire.  Monti was fatally wounded in the attempt.  His last words were a message to his family poignantly saying he loves them.  Tragically the man Jared saved died later during an airlift accident.

The sequence of events left an indelible imprint on Monti’s family, friends and fellow soldiers.  His selfless acts of heroism and ultimate sacrifice warranted the highest honor the military bestows, the Medal of Honor.  President Obama presented the medal to Jared’s family in a solemn but celebratory ceremony in the East Room.  Senators, congressmen, high level military officials as well as family and friends gathered for the medal presentation.  Jared Monti is from Raynham, Massachusetts.

When Jared’s hometown newspaper, The Raynham Call, sent a videographer to Washington, DC to record the event, they enlisted the services of Curry College journalism professor, Jerry Gibbs.  Jerry is a journalism veteran and also a resident of Raynham, MA.  In his role as a journalism professor, Jerry knows there are dramatic changes in the way news is being covered and disseminated.  He has seen, first hand, the power and flexibility of PNG RT™ and suggested its use for the White House event.

From the beginning there were questions about streaming live from the White House.

• Would or could the White House provide internet access?
• Was there a “protective shield” over the White House preventing a signal in or out?
• Would there be enough lead time to set up and test the conditions?

The nature of any day at the White House for the press is very fluid.  Things change quickly with little or no notice.  Initially four hours of lead time was allotted to test the conditions and get the word out to media partners and other interested parties.  On the morning of the ceremony a change in schedule was made and the press would have less than hour to set up and, oh by the way, the start time was moved up two hours also.  There had been no confirmation from the White House about bandwidth availability at that point either.  Everything was going to be uncertain and last minute.  In other words, it was just like every other day in the news business.

There was some good news early, however.  Press row, on the north lawn, had connectivity!  A contingent plan of a live wrap up was formulated and passed along to the newspapers back in Massachusetts.  The Raynham Call, The Brockton Enterprise and The Quincy Patriot Ledger were on board to receive a live stream.  All three newspapers are part of the Gatehouse Media family.  Gatehouse Media decided to make the stream available to any of their newspapers who wanted the ceremony live.  Still, until a test could be done in the East Room, everything was on hold.

The first time you enter the East Room of the White House there is an overwhelming sense of awe and history and reverence.  It is an opulent space with gold and white accents.  It is brightly lit and lots of care goes into both the technical and aesthetic aspects of the room.  The press scrambles for prime positions and time moves very quickly in anticipation of the President’s arrival.

Within two minutes of set up, PNG RT™ was delivering a LIVE stream from a wireless connection using a Sprint USB card at 130 – 140Kbps.  Success!  The word is passed along to media partners who took the stream live on their homepages.  For some it was the first live event on their websites ever.  The middle school in Raynham, MA assembled to watch the live stream.  In the initial excitement of it all Jerry Gibbs did a live standup in the East Room!  That is not allowed and White House staff made that clear afterward.  Ignorance is bliss in this instance, however.  Ten minutes after the ceremony, back on the north lawn, a live wrap up of the day’s events was streamed live to the newspapers.  Amazing!

A truly extraordinary day was made possible by enterprising journalists, using PNG RT™.  No event is too big or too small.  With little or no prior information about the conditions at the White House, a national event with President Obama was delivered to a hero’s hometown.

PNG Laboratories would like to acknowledge the help of Jerry Gibbs, Elizabeth Lee, Curry College, The Raynham Call, The Brockton Enterprise, The Quincy Patriot Ledger and Gatehouse Media.

May the memory of Jared Monti continue to inspire.

The quality of a picture or a sound can be very subjective when it is not approached with the right tools. Ken Schaffer, our chief scientist and inventor of the wireless guitar and microphone, knows it very well. Back in his rock n roll days, an experiment was made on a large stage where two music samples were played on a left and right channel. One of those samples was qualitatively better than the other. However, when the time came to pick which one was better, half of the audience voted for the one on the left and the other half for the one on the right. They just couldn’t discriminate.

More recently, many people who bought an HDTV but didn’t subscribe to any HD channel still marveled at the much higher quality they thought they were seeing. When cellphones became digital, we were told the quality would improve. It’s actually quite the opposite, but people bought into it. It was the same with the CDs replacing the vinyls. Same with the megapixels race in digital camera (some 4 megapixels cameras deliver much higher quality photos than others with 10 or more, but most of the hype is focused on the megapixels alone). A lot of it is psychological, we are programmed to believe what we are being told without questioning much if anything.

We can see it once again today with online video and the great promises made by companies: HD, low bandwidth, etc. While those assertions may be correct for the most part, it’s important for the customer to know when and where it applies. Let’s review a few misconceptions.

Live Streaming vs Video On Demand. When you see a great looking video on the web, ask yourself. Is this happening in real-time? This makes a huge difference in the achievable quality. Streaming in real-time most often requires the video to have a fixed bitrate to make up for inherent connections problems over the Internet. A lot more processing can be done to a recorded video to make it look 100 times better: multiple passes, bitrate fluctuating according to the video content, noise reduction, etc. Some videos are processed for hours prior to be posted on a website. Imagine this: do you look your best straight out of bed or after you spent some time in the bathroom? The same goes for real-time video vs recorded video. It’s like comparing apples to oranges. We at PNG Laboratories are proud to say that our live streaming looks fabulous. You can also record to disk with our software, giving you many tools to improve the quality output.

HD. Given that you have the right inputs in your computer, you can potentially do HD with PNG RT™. I stress potentially as most likely the bandwidth won’t be there in the field for you to stream in full HD. What we can promise you is the best looking video at the available bandwidth. As the bandwidth increases, you will be all set to fully take advantage of it. We’d much rather under promise and over deliver than doing the opposite thing. Honesty first. We want to build a trustworthy relationship with you, not just sell our software to make numbers.

“Bonding” modems goes back to the time when aggregating the throughput of a couple of 28.8 kb/s modems made you the fastest guy in the ‘hood. It was a relatively straightforward process.

What limited the throughput of a PC to the net?  Certainly the limitations of the modems themselves – external hardware modems were all that there was — but moreso, the bandwidth capacity of the copper telephone wires connecting you to your ISP. Beyond the ISP, achieving relatively high bandwidth was rarely the problem — you were killed in the “last mile.”

Bonding several modems required that each modem be connected to the ISP through its own telephone line. When, today,we uplink (video) from a mobile transmitter through similarly limited carriers,  each modem needs its own “line” – i.e., cellular connection. Our connection is limited to what’s in the air, just as bonding telephone modems was reliant on what was in the copper pair. 

(In Portable News Gathering, connecting the laptop to a Wi-Fi access point, will within a very short range, realize throughputs suitable for transmitting video that meets the demands of television broadcast. For larger metropolitan area ranges WiMAX, 4G and LTE systems are already deployed in many locations (including vast regions of several third world countries) can provide those same speeds — essentially the same as hardwired cable and DSL modems.)

But when the story or event you’re covering is out of of WiFi range, you’re stuck with what you can draw from a cellular network… bad news in places where downstream speed is all over the map and the upstream speed prerequisite for Portable News Gathering, much less.

In the US we can expect cellular upload speeds no higher than 150 — in lucky moments — 250 — kilobits a second… fine for email and web browsing, far short of what it takes to transmit even the most efficiently compressed video to a large website window, or, God forbid, to full-screen television broadcast.

It’s not all a loser, though. These speeds are perfect for transmitting video that’s to be embedded in an online newspaper on webpage. In these applications, the video is usually framed in small windows — typically 320×240 pixels. At throughputs in the range of 150 kb/s, with the right signal processing, secret sauce and compression, video can be sent crisply, reliably, and with good detail —  but never bear being stretched to the edges of the screen.

Given the outstanding video quality we’ve come to expect from (wired, pre-recoerded) broadband, such limits leave us wanting.

So why not bond cellular channels, same as we once bonded dial-ups?

Concurrent with developing the software that eventually became PNG RT, substantial resource was spent in trying to bond multiple cell channels — the thinking, was forgivably, expected that with 200 kb/s from a single channel, multiple bonded channels (analogous with multiple separate phone lines) could delivera high-quality image to any size PC monitor – even to television broadcasters who typically have moved their remote feeds signals by satellite, and to whom video piped through at  substantially lower speeds are quite “noticeable.”

Nice idea for sure, but one fraught with a lot of downsides in practice. Bonding cellular modems proved, at best, to be at the mercy a lot of problems that didn’t come into play when we used to bond wired modems.

Here are scenarios of bonding techniques that may seem to work in theory but which lead to erratic, dismal results when applied to cellular networks.

Each cellular tower is fed by a limited Internet connection. It’s hard to come by the actual capacities — carriers hold this information very close to their chests — but (confirmed) is that as of summer 2008, AT&T towers were each fed by a T-1 (1.5 Mb a second) connection; i.e., if you are the only user on the tower.

Of course, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever be the only user hanging on the tower; in fact, each of your bonded modems would be contending with one another for that limited bandwidth (also with other users who may, at worst case, be clustered, covering the same story!)

The inventive mind is an incredible thing - Eureka, a way to overcome contention: bond together modems using different cell carriers! Each channel going to a different carrier — this would eliminate contention! Assuming each carrier could provide 200 kb/s; there are 4 US carriers; aggregating all four would get us to 800 kb/s! Fast!

But not so fast. With contention no longer insurmountable, we run into new challenges: latency and packet loss. Transmitting live video from a mobile device to several towers might be a good for geolocation, but it turns out to be an awfully dodgy way to aggregate modems. The signal from the mobile device would arrive at each tower at a different time. The signals could be aggregated, combined and re-oredered in correct sequence, but this would require hardware at both the originating location and upstream at the receiving location. More equipment.  Another expense. (Plus 4 – or more – data accounts with four carriers.)

Finally, the real kicker:  should capacity, contention and latency be overcome, the expensive endeavor would be useful only for a very limited time. Expensive.  Simple, routine megabit connections — already commonplace in Asia and countries including Finland, Germany, Spain, ad infinitum – and will be here soon, too – and probably this very year…

With initial and ongoing expenses, the erratic performance to be expected, (not every location can access multiple carriers, so what is gained?), the need for physical hardware, and the ticking clock, we concluded the effort and expense wasn’t worth it…. not for an unreliable utility that will be obsolete before the fiscal year is up.

Bonding is frail and not without substantial costs and compromises.

Ask my ex-wife!

http://www.multichannel.com/article/278555-Translation_Please_Data_Speed_Vs_Throughput.php

Good answer to a question that comes up alot – the difference between an ISPs  (including cellular ISP’s) quoted broadband speed and real throughout.

You’re set now for Portable News Gathering, but how do you get your stream from your PC to your destination, whether it’s a CDN provided by PNG Laboratories, your own CDN, or, simply, an FTP site?

Because you’re uploading, you need access to sufficient upstream bandwidth. If you want to embed and dsiplay great-looking (standard-sized) 320×240 pixel video window on your existing webpage, PNG can deliver it on as little as 128 kb per second. To deliver that same quality to a larger window, such as 480×360, you’ll need  256 kb/s. Running PNG at even these low these speeds is perfect for feeding high-quality live video to websitea from nearly anywhere.

Constant data stream speeds of +/- 200 kb/s are all we can get through most cellular data sites in the US…. In many countries — Japan, Singapore, Germany, Finland — even Spain! — upstream speeds in megabits are the rule. Speed in the US is not  low because of any inherent technical speed limitation in the most recently deployed  3G systems, but – though US cell carriers would have you believe theirs is the fastest speed in the world– it just ain’t so. Compared to 3G and 4G systems long operative in other countries, the data throughput of US cellular is antediluvian. There was no drive to invest beyond the puny cellular systems we have…  until recently, few customers demanded it.

But this will change within the next year or so. Give it 1 mb/s upstream, the video PNG delivers is almost seamless with TV broadcast.  

Your PNG equipped PC, and the PNG software will detect and choose the best (“fastest”) way out, automatically configuring its video profile to be optimal for the conditions available to it. (Would that there always will be WiFi and WiMAX! )

WiFi is great if the story or event you’re covering  is happening within a couple of hundred feet of Starbucks or other hotspot — not all breaking stories are so obliging. You can war-drive and pick up WiFi off strangers’ access points, but, for a commercial operation, this would be of questionable legality.

WiMAX, finally deployed in a handful of cities, promises to put bandwidth limitations away. The specs and carrier promises say “yes.”

This leaves us with cell data — fairly ubiquitous, but, again, unforgivably limited in its ability to deliver a high-bandwidth robust stream…or, of course, good old Ethernet — and someone will throw an Ethernet cable out the window to your PNG-equipped laptop.

For use at fixed venues – churches, high school sports stadiums, venues leased for weddings, corprorate meetings and presentations, Ethernet is there now….    choose from PNG’s pre-stocked profiles and run that PNG pedal-to-the-metal!   Lack of wireless bandwidth simply limits the size of the embedded video window to resolutions that are, serendipitously, standard for websites and newspapers.

Where Ethernet can be used, your PNG RT PC is in business for the most demanding —   full screen, high-quality television broadcast — applications!  Think of a video journalist of videographer who’s equipped with PNG much as a top-flight mobile DJ –  except the gear is graciously smaller – just a laptop!

The greatest things seem to happen at the most inconvenient times — in this regard, the technology that makes Portable New Gathering technology possible has appeared at a nexus coincident with the rapidly changing service and business models of its most avid customers (newspapers and television stations).

With real broadband looming on the near horizon… this means that a PNG equipped laptop that, today, may be is limited to providing excellent video in a four 480×360 pixel box is ready, laying in wait for real broadband to pervade the skies around us; i.e., the very modest investment it takes to install PNG RT today is, at once, ready to take full advantage of the bandwidths that are promised (and which are in everyday use elsewhere in the world. The PNG that earns its keep in video windows on the web Is in no threat of obsolescence , because the software already runs at far below max. (As a software product it will be regularly updated as further advances are made in video processing and compression). Either way, you win.

Live video within a standard web-sized video boxes is what PNG delivers today; tomorrow (more likely, this year). it will be able to bring that same quality to full screen webpages and conventional television broadcasts.

His young wife tries to calm him – “Tweeting is easy!”

“I am a dinosaur… 50 guys showed up for the job, I was ten years older than any one of them – and, in the waiting room they all just sat there t-t-twittering…”

In Desperate Housewives’ dialog is the stark truth about the post-labor market. As a Desperate Jobseeker you need to bring an array of knowledge about technologies that extend your own brain. Selling yourself in times of economic slowdown has become challenging – we’re all brand machines, we need to be “packaged” –  knowledge of our subject may be totally useless in the eyes of the company — especially in jobs that put you in front of a company’s customers, you’ve got to bring charisma.

In many companies, when it comes to the job of PR and marketing oneself, do not underestimate the power of self-marketing. If you do not understand this, you will not work (literally).

I asked  jobless friends about self-promoting techniques. None had an inkling,  for example, that new applicants for vacancies at  major Japanese banks,  now must send in a well-produced video self-promotions prior to the scheduling of a meeting. In Japan this is accepted. Recruiters send resumes to the scrap-heap because they lack a winning presentation, other qualifications and achievement not noted.

So, an idea you are welcome to use: show some resourcefulness.  Let’s go Niomura Bank, and all your competitors, one better:  introduce yourself through live video, showing no doubt you’re the best suited, most resourceful,  applicant for the gig:

· devote a week to looking right, dynamic and efficient …

· let prospective employers see you, live, in action.

· Have a prominent link on your resume that promotes:

“SEE ME AT WORK – HERE –  9 AM TO NOON  - EVERY DAY UNTIL I GET A JOB WITH YOU!”

A curious employer could click and marvel –  a simple reality show: you sitting there at your home office desk, empowered, dynamic, hustling, organized, tasty and resourceful. (Be sure to make up  tasks in advance – do some public service, tackle your taxes…  look sharp, be sharp!)

A caveat:  such intimate exposure will work better for some than for others. It would require some discipline – (make certain you look and show your best during “viewing hours”). Get on the phone, produce in visually compelling ways, Googling and researching, compiling lists, sketching budgets on Excel and designing  the next Channel with CAD …. show some humor…. and of course, try to look and sound kind of hot. The motif: “This employee could be YOURS….”

The goal is to get the gig. Stand out from the crowd. 50 “similarly skilled” people are a mess of nerves in the waiting room behind you – 600 offshore are aching to cut your price. You’ve got to be the one to show the moxie, to grab kudos for this cool new “Live! There s/he is!” super poignant mode of self-packaging… before it becomes too fashionable, use it to grab a lot of points.

I don’t know about you,  but my dear mother always told me, “You’re always judged by how many tricks you know.”

And here’s a trick:

Download PNG RT (currently offered for 21 day free trials), plug in a video camera and run it on your existing PC over your net connection…. you’re ready: Facebook, Tweet, blog, mailing friends – spread the word every way you know – smart pro-active problem solver that you are – will be there, candidly strutting your stuff. Recruiters will be watching! Get out the wardrobe (be sure to plan ahead to always look busy).

Be one of the first “applicants” to pioneer this technique… to the video go the spoils.

Good hunting to you!