video streaming codec and server software

[ammer]

hey what would be a good codec, container and server for streaming videos? i was looking maybe nsv, vp6, rm, and wmv. how bout mp4, xvid etc? something easy to setup and encode and on the fly encoding would be nice. low bitrate so that shouldnt be too hard there. any suggestions or preferences? i know karl would rm. hehe

[Bogalvator]

Yep certainly seems like RM is the best option for you given the criteria you've stated. It's designed to be used for streaming, gives good quality at low bitrates and with one of the GUIs around here should be quite easy to get up and running.

[slavickas]

vp6 can be used in nsv, but it requires commercial license :devil:

so my vote would be either real or windows media, as i don't know any easy mp4 solution for streaming (free, or cheap)

[ammer]

yeah i was looking at the nullsoft nsv cause i got a mp3 music server setup with very little effort which runs fine and is pretty widely used with winamp but the video server and encoder seems very undeveloped and beta-ish. so...real media maybe a quicker and no work way to stream some videos easily.

[ammer]

well im using it for personal use so a commercial licence shouldn't be neccessary. real media and windows media seem like a good option at this point. hmm. now i gotta weigh my options out..hmm ease of setup, playing, serving, use.

[ammer]

truecast for vp6 seems like an easy to use and interesting software hmm but maybe a drawback to it maybe that you need the client from on2 to recieve the stream.

[Neo Neko]

For those interested in good free MPEG4 solutions Darwin Streaming Server (http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/streaming/) is a good place to start.

[slavickas]

Originally posted by ammer
well im using it for personal use so a commercial licence shouldn't be neccessary. ...

actually streaming vp6 is "commercial" use :(


ahh remembered VLC is very good @ streaming, how could i forgot it :p

2 Neo Neko darwin knows everybody, but tell me a good broadcasting soft

[ammer]

VLC? darwin needs perl installed. and i looked at darwin server and it seems CLI-ished type and to uneasy to be used by this layman.

well i just got windows media encoder to encode and serve in 5 mins, real easy.

real media producer seems to bogle my mind after the encoder part, the helix server seems to be doing something but the helix server administrator doesnt seem to work...

the nsv encoder server seems to be easy to use actually the encoder uses flaskmpeg to encode which is easy enough but then the server part i need to get to though. the nsv seems to be a two part process where to file needs to be setup to encode then a server has to then load the encoding file as opposed to wm encoders encode and serve in one step. but i like nsv's listing option in winamp which adds extra functions to the format.

with vp6...well the nsv tools comes with vp31 which im assuming does not require commercial licensing being a royalty-free streaming format so i might use that codec with the nsv format. but the vp6 personal disclaimer says

VP6 Personal is offered under a Personal use license. The software may be used for personal use only at no cost to you. The software may not be used for commercial purposes. For more information about what constitutes commercial use, read the license agreement carefully while installing the VP6 Personal software or feel free to contact us at sales@on2.com. In general, if you are making money directly or indirectly from your VP6 Personal encoded content, you are using VP6 Personal encoded content in some way within your business, or using VP6 Personal encoded content to promote a service or product, it is likely a commercial use.

and no where in the license agreement does it say streaming is commercial use of the software. hey look at it for yourself if you want to be sure about it. well here's the licensing grant of it since its here.

SCOPE OF GRANT. This Software is provided in binary form for license on a single computer system. You may:
1. install and use one copy of the Software on a single computer;
2. make one copy of the Software for archival purposes, or copy the Software onto the hard disk of your computer and retain the original for archival purposes; and
3. use the Software for personal use only.

You may NOT:
1. copy the documentation, if any, which accompanies the Software;
2. license, sublicense, rent, lease, sell or transfer in any manner any portion of the Software or the work product resulting from the use of the Software;
3. reverse engineer, de-compile, disassemble, modify, translate, make any attempt to discover the source code or resources of the Software or create derivative works based on the Software;
4. use the Software for any third party on a service basis or use the Software or the work product resulting from the use of the Software on a commercial basis or to generate revenue;
5. use the Software other than for personal use;
6. install more than one copy of the Software (other than the one permitted archival copy) or run multiple instances of the Software on a single computer; or

well it doesn't but 'the sell or transfer in any manner any portion of the Software or the work product resulting from the use of the Software' part seems undefined or unclear to me. i mean transferring, does that mean if i move the software or product from my computer to a disk that im transferring it? maybe on2tech could answer, but that'd just be another reason for me to not use vp6 and for person use. but hey i don't really plan on commercializing the use of it even with streaming it.

[slavickas]

vp6:
Originally posted by ammer
You may NOT:
1. copy the documentation, if any, which accompanies the Software;
2. license, sublicense, rent, lease, sell or TRANSFER in any manner any portion of the Software or the WORK PRODUCT resulting from the use of the Software;


it was/is duscussed on nsv forum @winamp, vp3 is quite outdated so at least personally i don't like nsv anymore

vlc check www.videolan.org really great open source project

[ammer]

if the video goes from a to b easily thats fine with me. no streaming? what a useless codec. bah! well vlc im going to get it and play around with it..it doesnt work..

[Neo Neko]

Originally posted by ammer
VLC? darwin needs perl installed. and i looked at darwin server and it seems CLI-ished type and to uneasy to be used by this layman.

Everyone needs PERL. It's not like it takes up alot of resources or slows the system in anyway. It is very nice in the light that Microsoft at best provides piss poor scripting abilities for their OS. And did I mention it is free? You start Darwin via CLI but any serious configuration is done by those whatchamacallems....... er GUI. Darwin exposes all common important control varriables and settings through a nicely organized web based GUI interface accessable in any popular browser.

Originally posted by ammer
well i just got windows media encoder to encode and serve in 5 mins, real easy.

Yep. Unfortunatly it offers very few choices on anything. Especially when such a choice is not Microsoft's. It works. And for those with basic or little needs it is fine. But it does not offer some of the finer points one could want.

Originally posted by ammer
the nsv encoder server seems to be easy to use actually the encoder uses flaskmpeg to encode which is easy enough but then the server part i need to get to though.

"Flaskmpeg"!? /me shivvers. That is more than enough to turn me off for a bit.

Originally posted by ammer
the nsv seems to be a two part process where to file needs to be setup to encode then a server has to then load the encoding file as opposed to wm encoders encode and serve in one step.

You might see WM as one step but it comes with a cost. NSV offers quite a bit more choice compared to any Microsoft solution. So since Microsoft has removed the burden of all important choices from the user they can make assumptions at the server level about what the server will be handling. Leading to the oft used term Fischer Price software. It is a simple solution. And simple does not always mean bad. But it rarely means good either. Simple interfaces to complex processes are most often deficient. And true media streaming can be quite a complex process.

[bond]

Originally posted by slavickas
so my vote would be either real or windows media, as i don't know any easy mp4 solution for streaming (free, or cheap)have a look at my mp4 faq (link is in my sig)

there are already some, not only cheap, but free, streaming servers (for example darwin from apple), also live streaming ones
and there are already many free players which handle the playback of such streams (the most popular one is quicktime, and realplayer too i think)

for streaming mpeg-4 you can use basically every mpeg-4 codec, which includes xvid, divx5, 3ivx, aso...

the closed streaming formats have to be fought back, use mp4! ;)

[ammer]

hey i got darwin streaming server up and running but haven't got streaming running yet but it seems pretty cool. nice web browser based server configuration control which looks pretty fully functional showing all sorts of server stats etc. displays my server info pretty correctly with a slew of info. cool man, now i just gotta see if it will run my streams as i want it to and to clients as i want to without troubles. time test its functionality. now lets hope it serves like butter, smoothly.

[keel]

There are good references to setting up DSS for streaming in
http://www.soundscreen.com/index.html

Works on Windows, Linux and Mac OSX

Frank