How we did it

We installed FlipFactory Publish Version 1.1 software on our Dell PowerEdge 1400 server (dual 1-GHz Intel Pentium III processors and 1G byte of RAM) running Windows 2000 Professional Server. Installation included support for server playback of RealNetworks' RealSystem and Apple QuickTime file formats. Microsoft Windows Media Technology support is included in all Win 2000 systems. The server was connected by an embedded Intel 10/100 network interface card to our 100M byte Ethernet LAN and accessible from any client on our campus network.

The testing scenarios simulated a company creating and distributing significant quantities (more than four hours) of video-rich training content, corporate communications and promotional content on a weekly basis to servers located in remote facilities globally. Original sample content files, provided by Telestream for this test, included an 8M bit/sec MPEG2 file approximately 30 seconds long and a 1.5M bit/sec MPEG1 file approximately 15 seconds long. Using FlipFactory, we created new files in RealVideo and Windows Media formats and flipped these further. In one scenario we pointed the factory to the file located on the corporate network and asked Flip Server to leave the four outputs (RealVideo G2 at 20K bit/sec for streaming over dial-up modem connections; RealVideo G2 at 68K bit/sec for higher connections; Windows Media Video Version 7; and Audio Version 7 at 20K bit/sec and 80K bit/sec, respectively) on the transcoding server for FTP download. In other scenarios, we requested that the resulting files be returned to the account's owner by e-mail and placed in a specific directory of a second, high-capacity hard drive on the server.