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Once you have your broadcast-quality video on the network, it can terminate in several different ways. While some industries, such as those involved in media broadcasting, will terminate the video at a monitor, video recorder or both, an enterprise customer may terminate at employees' desktops. It's important that your encoder will support whatever type of decoder you need.
Terminating to standard video equipment requires only a decoder that is capable of taking an MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video stream, decoding it and displaying it via a composite or component connection. This type of setup creates the best environment for displaying a network video broadcast, as it is sent full screen, full motion. When quality is an absolute must, this is the way to go.
Encoding for the desktop usually means a lower quality of video. Customers who distribute high-quality video to the desktop usually deliver a lower-resolution image. An NTSC video signal can be thought of as an image of 640x480 pixels, but video to the desktop can be one quarter of that, at 320x240 pixels. Delivering a smaller image can increase the ability of the desktop computer to decode successfully at a full 29.97 frames per second and keep the image clean and free of jitter. Add-on cards can be purchased to fit into a PCI slot that will do all the decoding at a faster rate than the computer can. These cards are similar to those necessary to display DVD movies on the computer desktop. The extra horsepower in the cards is often needed to decode MPEG-2 video.
If you terminate your video at the desktop, you may also need to purchase sound cards for those users intending to receive the broadcasts. While some video encoders will play back over a computer's headphone jack or speaker, others may need a sound card to play back properly.
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