Beat9: Last 35 Posts

ameno on "Webroot Spy Sweeper prevents upload of files."

ameno — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:43:17 +0000

It has come to our attention that those of you who use Webroot Spy Sweeper, or other security programs may be prevented from completing uploads onto the Beat9 servers.

For those of you experiencing this problem, you need to disable IE Hijack Shield in the Internet Explorer tab. That should clear the problem up.

Link to Screenshot of Error Message

ameno on "Unable to see publisher login area"

ameno — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 22:41:52 +0000

It came to our attention that some users who have ad blocking software such as Norton Ad Blocker may not be able to see the publisher login areas of our servers. It obscures all ViraCast server areas. If your screen looks like the link below, please disable Norton Ad Blocking and continue.

Norton Ad Blocking Screenshot!!

ameno on ""How Do I Get Paid?""

ameno — Thu, 24 May 2007 16:45:53 +0000

This post is to illuminate the very important question... "What's the deal with my $$$?" After all, Beat9 is a place where content owners go to monetize their content, so let's talk money for a minute.

As a content owner (podcaster, musician, etc...) you are paid by Beat9.com. In most cases, Beat9 will secure and dispatch ads to people viewing your content. This means that you don't have to go out and secure your own advertising. Advertisers pay Beat9 on a per campaign basis based on either Clicks or Impressions.

Impressions (CPM):
Advertisers who choose this method pay for impressions on their ads in lots of 1000 impressions. This is called a CPM. The CPM divided by 1000 is the amount that each ad impression is worth. Each time a CPM advertisement is shown in your ViraCast, that "per-impression" amount is instantly added to your earnings.

Clicks (CPC):
Some advertisers choose to pay only when the viewer actually clicks on their ad. In this case, every time someone clicks on that ad in your ViraCast, the cost-per-click is credited to the earnings section of your account.

Beat9 does a revenue share with you, the publisher. The value of a given ad may be in a certain amount of flux on a given day. Accounting for a small variation, Beat9 pays around 40% of gross ad revenue to the publishers for advertisements that Beat9 secures.

Publishers who wish to secure their own advertisers and insert them into their ViraCast can also do that, and the staff at Beat9 will be happy to expedite that process.

Please put any additional questions you have into this forum topic.

ameno on "Podcast Advertising Study"

ameno — Tue, 15 May 2007 17:07:29 +0000

eMarketer.com came out with a great study earlier this year that breaks down some numbers on podcast advertising. Well worth a look for all potential advertisers.

ameno on "MP4 Encoders"

ameno — Tue, 15 May 2007 17:05:06 +0000

Wanted to open up a topic so everyone can post their favorite encoders, or even their least favorite. I'll start by suggesting the encoder that we use over here.

3GP Converter

This encoder will create MP4's out of almost any file. It is freeware and is based on the great command line encoder FFMPEG. You need to have a little bit of experience with the command line or be willing to take an hour or two to learn it, but it's great. It'll do batch encoding also. The video quality from this encoder is the best I've seen. Better than Vegas or Final Cut even at the same bitrates.

To be sure that you can encode all of your WMV and AVI files, you'll also need to install AVISynth which is also free.

What other great encoders are out there???

ameno on "Specifications for Advertising Creatives"

ameno — Fri, 11 May 2007 18:21:54 +0000

Beat9 currently supports two advertising creatives sizes within ViraCasts.

Audio:
Standard size for audio creatives is 300x250 pixels (IAB Medium Rectangle). We can display creatives that are rectangular and not this size, but they will appear stretched out within the viracast.

Video:
Standard size for video creatives is 468x60 pixels (IAB Small Banner). These ads are sized downward in the ViraCast but maintain their aspect ratio. This gives increased quality if the end user decides to view the video ViraCast at double size, full screen, etc.

Access to Creatives:
The minimum requirement for creatives not hosted by Beat9.com is that the graphic element (JPG or GIF file) is not served via browser-based, client side methods such as Javascript. If the hosting entity (ad network, advertiser, etc) would like to display ads on ViraCasts, the creative must be tracked and dispatched via a server side method such as a PHP, ASP, or PERL script. Creatives meeting these specifications can be added into rotation within ViraCasts instantly upon approval by Beat9 staff.

ameno on "Specifications for audio and video files"

ameno — Thu, 10 May 2007 18:21:38 +0000

In case there were any questions, you can upload several different file formats to the Beat9 servers to create a ViraCast. I figured it would be helpful to spell out what those formats were.

Audio:
.MP3, .MP4, .M4A are all valid.
We recommend 128kbps stereo mp4/m4a audio for good music sound quality. If you have only speaking (no music), 64kbps mono will give you the same sound quality at half the size.

Video:
.MP4, .M4V
These are standard and there are any number of encoders that will encode existing video to this output. Programs like Final Cut or Vegas will export projects to these formats, and there are any number of freeware/shareware/commercial encoders out there as well. We recommend the H264 video codec and a size of 320x240 pixels. ViraCasts are resized to 320x240 standard. Despite the viewing window being resized, Beat9 does not reencode/transcode video and therefore your ViraCast will maintian the same aspect ratio, bitrate, and frame rate as the originally uploaded content.

Size:
We currently allow a file size, either audio or video, of 100MB.