Collaboration drives innovation

Mediaflo, the Division of Information Technology’s supported Media Management System, runs on the Ensemble Video Platform. Since the launch of Mediaflo, there have been ongoing concerns about video quality and audio/video playback. In addition, Mediaflo has seen its encoding engine discontinued by vendors twice in the last 3 years. Both of those encoding engines [Rhozet and Sorenson] also lacked the intelligence to limit transcode workflows in the ABR package based on the quality of the original file (e.g., – not try to unnecessarily upscale content).

When intermittent audio synching issues reappeared in February 2019, Jimmy Rico of the IT Assistance Center (ITAC), reached out to the Technology Resources Mobile/Web Systems team to try to determine where the problem might exist. Nick Wing identified that the problem was likely a result of a deprecated Sorensen encoder used by Ensemble Video, the vendor for Mediaflo.

Identifying the issues

The current encoder was:

• upscaling videos and wasting large amounts of storage
• forcing a frame rate that resulted in “skippy” videos
• frequently losing audio synching

All Good Things Involve Pizza

During a pizza Friday lunch, Jimmy, Nick and the assistant director of Mobile/Web Systems, Jeff Snider, were discussing the ongoing encoder problem. With Nick’s expertise in video encoding and Jeff’s recent knowledge of how Ensemble and Sorenson work together, they decided the best and quickest solution would be to build an encoder for Mediaflo. Jeff initiated a Technology Innovation Office core project so he could assist Nick and Jimmy with finding a solution.

Finding a solution

Over a week, Nick and Jeff were able to develop a solution that leverages HandBrake, a widely-used Open Source high-quality video encoding platform, and custom code that emulates the Sorenson API to maintain compatibility with Ensemble. The new architecture uses Docker for easy deployment and will automatically keep up with the latest version of HandBrake, ensuring the best possible quality and compatibility.

The initial test resulted in:

• an improved algorithm for video compressions, so complex videos can retain a higher bitrate
• repairs to interlaced video to remove distortion during playback
• eliminating double-compression of video if transcoding isn’t needed. This is great for video professionals
• use of best in class audio compression
• fully automated with Ensemble and Docker, so adding capacity is easier for the team

Qual and Production

With the initial testing complete, the Web/Mobile Systems team has moved the project into the normal IT Change Management workflow process and put it into production in April of 2019.

Dr. Carlos Solís is associate vice president for the Technology Innovation Office.

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This report was created by the Technology Innovation Office, including Laura Trial [Technology Resources]