What Is MRSS? RSS Vs. MRSS for Video Syndication.

What is and how to use RSS and MRSS for video syndication?

Remember the days when we had to visit all our favorite sites on a daily basis to get our daily diet of information! Then came RSS and all things changed. All that we had to do was to get an RSS feed aggregator, subscribe to RSS news feeds and we could see through the latest content of site just like an email client. RSS news feed standard has come a long way from that point. Today it is being used for syndication of podcasts and videos.

What is MRSS?
Today RSS feeds are not only used to just send latest website details but they are used for a number of multimedia related purposes. A special specification for development of content intensive RSS called the Media RSS (MRSS) was developed by Yahoo! in the year 2004. Today there is a thriving Media RSS community which allows for syndication of various multimedia files like audio files, images and video files right inside an RSS feed. With the increase in popularity of user generated content and podcasts becoming the rage of the day. Media RSS has become a part and parcel of our lives.

A number of popular video related services like Yahoo! Video Search can recognize MRSS feeds. This is the reason a number of content developers put their video files in MRSS enclosures.

MRSS vs. RSS?
RSS and MRSS can both be used for syndication of downloadable as well as streaming video content. There are reasons which make one mode of delivery better than the other.

While the videos in streaming MRSS enclosures can only be viewed on a device where MRSS feed is downloaded, the downloadable video can be transcoded and converted to a format compatible with any device. This means that consumer of the content can watch the video on any device he likes.

How to use and when to use?
RSS and MRSS have changed the way video distribution works. The specification can be used by anyone. The process is very simple. Just add the MRSS extensions to your RSS feed and you can deliver video content to your audience without forcing them to check on the website every now and then.

What is more, you can add advertisements (both banner and discrete text) in the feeds. With advertisements in place, the content generator can earn some money and this incentive allows him to improve the quality of video content.