Streaming Media and Progressive Download explained

January 6th, 2007

How do you choose whether to deliver a movie using progressive download, streaming, or broadcasting? It’s an important question for you, and since GravityLab’s business is delivering your content to your audience with the best possible user experience in mind, it’s an important question for us, too.
All all of the major streaming media codecs, both audio and video, can be delivered as progressive downloads. Streaming is limited to sound, video, and text. Broadcasting is further limited to compression schemes and quality settings compatible with real-time capture and compression.

Quicktime tools for streaming video

January 5th, 2007

If you want to stream Quicktime files, you will need to encode the videos correctly so they can be played on a streaming server. GravityLab provides this encoding service for affordable prices. We make the process simple for you so that you don’t have to acquire a new skillset just to get your videos online. However, if you are technically inclined, check out the following utilities for Quicktime files.

Streaming Tools
QTPlayer Streaming Info Plug-in Mac OS Win32
This plug-in adds an Info Panel for streaming tracks that shows packet transfer information.
QTStreamSplicer Mac OS Win32
This tool allows you to add an image to an audio only live stream. (or in front of a streaming track)

Darwin Streaming Server: Linking to MP3 via DSS

January 2nd, 2007

Linking to mp3 Streams

Linking to mp3 streams from your mp3 hosting account requires a text file with the extension .m3u. This file has the URL to your mp3 stream in it. For instance, if a mp3 playlist named “Blues” was playing from the Streaming Server, and the domain name of the server was stream.mydomain.net, the m3u file would contain the link:

http://stream.mydomain.net:8000/blues

The “:8000″ is the port for streaming mp3 playlists from Darwin Streaming Server. If you enable port 80 streaming the “:8000″ is not required. The .m3u file could be placed on any web server, and linked to a web page with the standard tag. For instance, to link to a file named “blues.m3u” from a web page in the same directory with the file, the link could be:

Read more... (159 words, estimated 38 secs reading time)

Windows Media MIME Types – IIS and Apache

January 2nd, 2007

Microsoft Internet Information Server 3.0

If you are running Windows NT Server and IIS 3.0 and want to configure the MIME types, create a registration entry file with a .reg file name extension:

1. Open Microsoft Notepad or another text editor.
2. Type in the following text. (Do not cut and paste the text from the Web page.)

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet
/Services/InetInfo/Parameters/MimeMap]

“video/x-ms-asf,asf,,5″=”"
“video/x-ms-asf,asx,,5″=”"
“audio/x-ms-wma,wma,,5″=”"
“audio/x-ms-wax,wax,,5″=”"
“video/x-ms-wmv,wmv,,5″=”"
“video/x-ms-wvx,wvx,,5″=”"
“video/x-ms-wm,wm,,5″=”"
“video/x-ms-wmx,wmx,,5″=”"
“application/x-ms-wmz,wmz,,5″=”"
“application/x-ms-wmd,wmd,,5″=”"
3. Save the file with a .reg file name extension.
4. Double-click on the file to add the entries to your registry.
5. After creating this file, stop and then restart all IIS services.

Apache

Quicktime MIME types

January 2nd, 2007

.qt video/quicktime
.qtc video/x-qtc
.qti image/x-quicktime
.qtif image/x-quicktime
.qtl video/quicktime
.smi application/smil
.smil application/smil

Real MIME Types

January 2nd, 2007

.rmm audio/x-pn-realaudio
.rmp audio/x-pn-realaudio
.rmp audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin

.ra audio/x-pn-realaudio
.ra audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin
.ra audio/x-realaudio
.ram audio/x-pn-realaudio

.rv video/vnd.rn-realvideo

RTSP protocol rollover problem and Windows Media Services 9

January 2nd, 2007

RTSP protocol is used for years for streaming Real Video and Streaming Real Audio. And starting with Windows Media Player 9 Series, Windows Media Services 9 Series and Windows Server 2003 RTSP Protocol is now the default protocol for streaming Windows Media.

Windows Media Services 9 Series can use RTSP, HTTP, or MMS for streaming. It uses RTSP when trying to connect to Windows Media Player 9 Series. If that attempt is unsuccessful, the server uses MMS or HTTP to connect to the Player. This process is called rollover. Earlier versions of Windows Media Player do not support RTSP, but they do support MMS. If the server cannot connect to the Player by using MMS, then the server tries to connect using HTTP. Windows Media Player automatically tries to rollover to different protocols according to its Windows Media property settings.

Can Windows Media Services 9 stream all media formats?

January 2nd, 2007

No. Windows Media Player 9 Series can play files in a wide variety of digital media file formats, but Windows Media Services 9 Series cannot stream all of those files. In certain cases, you may need to convert digital media files into a compatible format before you can stream them.

Servers running Windows Media Services 9 Series can stream files that are in the Microsoft Windows Media Audio (WMA), Windows Media Video (WMV), Advanced Systems Format (ASF), and Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG)-1 Layer 3 (MP3) formats. However, Windows Media Services cannot use the intelligent streaming feature to stream files in MP3 format.