RealEyes Media

Today Adobe announced the release of the latest sprint for OSMF 1.6, and it includes some exciting new features in terms of how it can handle audio. The biggest new feature is support for multiple audio tracks for HTTP Dynamic Streaming. Known as “late-binding audio”, this methodology allows producers to present multiple audio-only tracks attached to a particular video to the end user. Consider, for example, the need to deliver videos in more than one language. Late-binding audio allows producers to include seperate audio tracks for each language, and then have the viewer choose the appropriate one based on their needs. The benefits to having multiple audio tracks associated with a single video file are savings in encoding time, as well as reduced storage requirements-much more efficient than having to encode and store several different versions of each video. OSMF also supports the ability to switch between audio tracks during playback, which allows even more flexibility in terms of what kind of user experiences are possible.

Currently late-binding audio is available for video-on-demand only, but Adobe promises live/linear support in their next drop.

Check out the original announcement here.