web streaming xvid - is it possible?

[takeru]

i know there are several linux servers that allow you to stream mpeg-4 based videos over internet. what i want to know is, is there a way to stream it from windows. preferably without the need of using my computer as the server. (example: streaming wmv files from web pages). i have an xvid clip i want to stream from my earthlink homepage, but i have no idea how to do this. can anyone help?

[lexor]

I think streaming xvid is more of a licence issue with MPEG consorcium (or whatever it is) rather than technological barier.

That aside can't you mux xvid into an .mpg container, and have quicktime paly it back (like it did with one of the Steve Job's Keynote at some Apple developers conference, they just stuck mpeg4 stream in .mpg container, everyone tuned it and watched that)

[takeru]

any info on how its done?

[neilm]

Xvid streams fine via http in realtime, BUT there are a few issues
I've come across. You of course need the client server route able
to sustain the data rate of the videos but if that's ok most players
out there won't playback most formats as "progressive http". The
only two I've found that work extreamly well are VLC and Mplayer,
VLC seems to handle the .ogm and .mp4 best progressively streamed
via http. If you can't guarentee your clients are going to be
either of these two players it's a no go, all the other players
will just attempt to download the whole file first, and then play
it back. As an alternative if you mux the Xvid with an AAC sound
track, Quicktime will progressively play it back if you enable
"instant on" I think they call it, BUT please note when you create
the mp4 file (ie with mp4creator) ensure you mux the AAC with the
"AAC Profile" set to mpeg4 (-aac-profile=4) or else Quicktime will
complain about the file being invalid !. Hope this helps, I've been
using an old Celron 500mhz running Apache as a video jukebox on our
local LAN very successfully to VLC/Mplayer clients for a while now.

Neil.