For the last decade, Apple has been selling QuickTime Streaming Server, which uses an RTSP (Real-Time Streaming Protocol) server to stream live or rebroadcast video feeds to viewers. Apple uses this technology to stream some of its own live events. However, despite offering royalty free streaming and also delivering it as an open source project, QuickTime’s RTSP streaming server hasn’t gained the traction it was once expected to achieve. A large part of this is due to the fact that RTSP traffic is blocked by many firewalls, making it difficult to deliver streams reliably. The audio and video conferencing used by iChat also relies on RTSP, causing some users frustrating problems for the same reason. Getting RTSP video streaming to work on the iPhone would be even more difficult, as it routinely moves between mobile and WiFi networks.

Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming proposed draft looks a lot like a method Microsoft began selling last year, called Smooth Streaming. The difference is that Apple’s proposed IETF standard can use anybody’s encoder and broadcast server, and will work with any client software designed to receive the stream. In contrast, Microsoft’s Smooth Streaming is of course designed to exclusively use Microsoft Expression Encoder, Microsoft Internet Information Server with a Smooth Streaming extension, and requires Microsoft’s Silverlight 2 on the client.

Apple attempted to solve the RTSP problem long ago in QuickTime Streaming Server by creating an option to bundle up RTSP streaming video traffic into HTTP packets, which appear identical to standard web traffic and therefore are permitted through most firewalls. This involves a extra layer of overhead however, resulting in a greater demand for bandwidth. For the iPhone, Apple decided to pursue a different strategy, which it calls HTTP Live Streaming.

The real benefit to HTTP Live Streaming is that the server can maintain multiple versions of the clips in different formats. This allows an iPhone user with a WiFi connection to negotiate a higher quality version of the video than if only EDGE were available. Even better, the phone can renegotiate a higher or lower quality dynamically if it improves or loses signal. This enables the watcher to experience the best video quality possible at the current bandwidth available, continually optimized as new segments are requested. Unlike Microsoft’s Smooth Streaming trojan horse for Silverlight, HTTP Live Streaming works with any playback client on any platform and does not involve a layer of DRM, although it does support encryption, allowing broadcasters to limit access to their content. Because support is built directly into the iPhone’s embedded QuickTime player, users don’t even need to download apps for every broadcaster or channel; content creators can simply publish their feeds within a standard website, and iPhone can access them just like a desktop client. Other phones can similarly support the same interoperable standard, providing a leg up for mobile platforms with less commercial attraction or no ability to run real applications, like the Palm Pre.

Learn more about iPhone HTTP Streaming segments. Stop by Ankoder site where you can find out all about Online Video Encoding and what it can do for you.

Since video sites have been realizing more and more traffic growth, they have had a unique opportunity to innovate and test various different online video ad formats. And the advertisers as well are more than happy to experiment as they are looking to these leaders to develop the most effective online video advertising formats. Traditionally, pre-roll, mid-roll, or post-roll ad formats (aka in-stream ads) have been favored by advertisers due to the availability of inventory and prominence of the advertisement itself.

Pre-Roll Format – Ads, typically videos in duration of 15 or 30 seconds are streamed before the video itself plays. This make the advertising incredibly prominent but causes plenty of issues with regard to user friendliness and many studies show this format to be unpopular with users.

Post-roll Ads – This format includes the advertisements at the end of the video clip and it is up to the viewer to decide whether to watch the advertisement clip or not. This format of advertisement is being used by certain video sites. However, this is not effective for the advertiser as often times users dont watch the entire video.

Mid-Roll Ads – This advertising format is where the clips are included in the middle of the videos so that the viewer goes through the video advertisement if he is curious enough to see the remaining part of the video, this format is also very popular with many of the video sites.

Some of the video sites have started experimenting with different formats like, in-player banners: In-player ads sometimes include relevant text or image advertisements in the space available in video player between the outer margin of the video and the inner margin of the video player.

One of the most promising video advertisement formats is contextual advertising which attempts to match advertisements with the most relevant content and visa-versa. This ad itself can take of various different forms, in-video banners, lower-thirds, and contextual text overlay advertisements. The nice thing about this particular method is that it does not disturb the viewing of the video and it responds only when the viewer clicks on it.

One of the most popular version of contextual video advertising is that of what is known as the “overlay ad.” In this format, relevant textual ads are scrolled or displayed across a small portion of the video screen (usually the bottom). Users in particular prefer this format as it is relatively unobtrusive.

I have given you a brief overview of the most common formats of video ads that are being tested and utilized at the moment. That being said, with growth being what it is, and video discovery as new as it is, we will certainly see many different companies innovating in regards to developing new and exciting formats for online video advertising.

The above article was provided courtesy of ReelSEO, the web’s leading resource for online video industry news and information, covering video marketing, video advertising, social media, and much more. For more information about video advertising, visit ReelSEO.com