The web’s top surfing destination, Surfline / Wavetrak公司., is an excellent study in resource management. 它在内部制作的视频很少, but it uses its network of live cameras and its motivated army of contributors to great effect.
Not bad for a site that was born preweb. Surfline originally started as a dial-in service.
“Surfline just celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary,” explains Brian J. Mezger, the site’s vice president of technology. “It started out as a call-in service. It was a paid service: you’d call in and you’d get a recording and it would give you the conditions of the day and a short forecast.
“Then it moved into the fax world, where you could get faxes of the conditions and a forecast. 在90年代末, when the Internet started to expand and become mainstream, 这就是网站诞生的时候. It’s gone through an infinite number of evolutions to where we stand today. We serve over a million-and-a-half unique visitors a month, and the site keeps growing and growing.”
The streams themselves have changed over the years. The company first streamed MOV files, went to Windows Media and then Flash, and now serves MP4/H.264 video. It doesn’t offer adaptive streaming, but it offers three static bitrates, 最高的是720p高清馈送. The company uses BitGravity, Inc. and Highwinds Network Group, Inc. as OVPs, with one reserved as a backup, able to handle demand if needed.
It’s Mezger’s job to manage 软件 development, the site, and the network architecture.
There are two types of video on Surfline: surf condition videos and live and on-demand news and entertainment videos. The surf condition videos have proven to be a huge resource for the site. It uses 100 high-definition video cameras and 50 standard-definition cams mounted in Hawaii, the West Coast, and the East Coast. Some of the cameras are in a fixed position, while others offer pan/tilt/zoom controls.
订阅者向网站支付9美元.每月95美元或69美元.96 per year for access to the cams, which they can reach on the web or a smartphone. The subscription also includes an extended 14-day forecast.
Because it’s such a valuable resource, The Weather Channel and local TV stations often make use of the streams free of charge, which provides valuable publicity for the site.
“One of our most popular features, definitely, is the live cameras,” says Mezger. Surfline now has more than 40,000 subscribers, a figure he says is growing daily. The cams are also used in a related site called BuoyWeather, which is aimed at mariners.
One thing Mezger won’t say is what kind of cameras the site uses. His team has spent a lot of time on research and development, 他指出, 调整相机, 软件, and network architecture to provide 99% uptime. That has to stay a competitive secret.
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While Mezger manages the surf condition cams, 是马克·比蒂, 该网站的视频经理, who oversees Surfline’s news and entertainment videos. Not bad, considering he’s basically the entire in- house team. While he has a few other people on staff who help out, he’s largely a team of one.
“什么 we try to do is cover anything that’s happening in the professional surf world,” says Beaty. That’s a pretty big goal, and the way he gets it done is a lesson in creative resource management.
First off, Beaty produces five different original web series each month: 60秒, 这显示了一个伟大的旅程; 每月最佳平底船， which highlights an impressive air maneuver; 最常见, 贝蒂的个人最爱; 黄金时段, which shows great moments throughout the world; and 超级会话, which focuses on the world’s best surfers. Beaty tries to create one new episode of each show per month. The videos are high on action and offer no narration.
“Mostly it’s all about the action. All surfers want to see good surfing, whether it be giant waves or guys really pushing themselves or just high-performance, high-action, 和高调冲浪,贝蒂说. Growing up pre-internet, he used to enjoy high-action surfing video on VHS tapes.