ViodiTV


Almost Live – VON

A recurring theme in Viodi View articles has been the idea that, “Youth are our present.” Blake Wenzel of Kulabyte, reinforces this idea. Wenzel and his cousin are the developers behind Kulabyte’s encoding technology. KulaByte is getting traction with their encoding technology, as evidenced by Wenzel’s comments in this video regarding Operation MySpace.  Read on below the video. 

 

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Operation My Space, produced by the Fox property, relied on kulabyte to compress a video feed into a 480P high definition, Flash encoded broadcast. Over 2.7 million people viewed this 5-hour long, live program. 

Although kulabyte’s solution can provide multiple file types, its claim to fame is they can create Flash files that are equal to or better than MPEG-4. VON TV, which provided live streaming of the VON conference over the Internet, used the kulabyte encoding solution. The VON TV generously loaned their studio for this brief interview with Blake Wenzel. The encoding rate for this particular video was 300 kb/s.  Any jerkiness in the above video is because it is not being streamed.  

The technology is cool, but the real interesting story is the development of the underlying software. The software came about almost as an accident. The cousins were working on a database project for a local businessperson/family friend when they ran into a roadblock. Their solution led to the encoding solution and the formation of KulaByte. 

The most impressive thing is how unassuming Wenzel is. Wenzel was running the encoding station at VON TV when I met him. He correctly pointed out that a live production is a great way to learn how to improve the software. He was very helpful in capturing and editing the above video. Regardless of where kulabyte ends up, it is clear that Wenzel and his cousin are just beginning to make an impact on the technology industry.   

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