Streaming Server

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sabby

sabby

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I've been looking for a free/open-source media (Audio+Video) streaming server for days. Tried Darwin, CATRA, VLC but all were almost useless for my purpose. Can you suggest one or post a link ?

Thanks in advance. :)
 
Who said so, I deployed Icecast based Streaming server across my college network providing services like multiple audio streaming, videoa streaming, live audio and live video streaming. See the Icecast's wiki to know more about it in detail.
 
Ok, I'll give it a try.

Edit: @Ryunosuke, Well, the icecast site says its an audio streaming server and there is no support for video as of now but they intend to. Could you tell me how did you stream video using icecast ? It'll be really helpful. :)

Meanwhile, I'm still trying with Catra Streaming Server but got stuck with the sdp portion. Seems like I've to explore multiple protocols first. :(
 
What I did as my major project was to deploy a Streaming Server. Due to limitation of time and resources, I couldn't deploy the system as I envisioned it but little what we did, it blew the pant's of our teacher's arses :ohyeah:

We deployed Streaming Servers using a standard desktop edition Ubuntu distro, Lord help u if u want to deploy servers using a standard desktop Linux distro. :no:

The Icecast itself is just a streaming server streaming content using HTTP protocol, no fancy streaming protocol like RTSP or anything else is used.

After u deploy the server, u need a source client to feed the server with stream to relay and streaming client to receive the stream.

The most popular and most recommended streaming software for use with Icecast is Ices. The most recent version is named ices2 and it operates well with Icecast2. An Ices0 release also exists and is used for streaming MP3 audio files. This latter version came about in response to user requests for an alternative streaming solution aside from Ogg Vorbis, which is the favored format of Ices2.

Preferred source client is Ezstream as this not only streams both MP3 and Ogg Vorbis audio but also Video. To do so, it needs encoder and decoder packages. For video streaming Theora is preferred and used.

Here’s a procedure for using the Oddcast plug-in for Winamp to broadcast from a Windows

system using a microphone:

1. Download Winamp. Download and install Winamp to your Window system. You can get it from Winamp Media Player - MP3, Video, and Music Player - Winamp.

2. Download Oddcast. Download and install the Oddcast Winamp plug-in (at least version 3) from the Oddsock Web site (www.oddsock.org/tools/oddcastv3).

3. Start Winamp. From the Start menu on your Windows system, start Winamp.

4. Configure Oddcast.To configure Oddcast, select Options➔Preferences from the Winamp window. From the Oddcast configuration window that appears, right-click the Vorbis entry in the Encoder Settings box and choose Configure.

5. Select Icecast settings. Enter the settings needed to connect to your Icecast server. You should recognize these settings from when you configured Icecast. Click OK when you have the settings the way you would like.

6. Start recording.To begin recording, click the microphone icon in the Live Recording, and then click the Connect button. Audio immediately should begin streaming to your Icecast server.

As for recipient client, I used VLC on another machine and LCG Jukebox on my E51 to show streaming on Mobile devices.

Believe, I may not be good at explaining it this right now but if u install the packages, the config and help files are very explanatory. I didn't knew jack about it, but managed to pull it off all by referring to the help files.

Details are sketchy to me as its nearly 6 months I worked it and the Ubuntu machine which had it has been reformatted. :ashamed:
 
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Thanks mate.. really appreciate it. :hap2: Although I'm looking for rtp/rtcp and rtsp supported heavy streaming servers, your information will help me for sure. :) What I'm trying to do is to build an IPTV network. I need rtp/rtcp + rtsp support for creating an interface between the client and the server. CATRA was looking good. But it show some errors when starting. No reply from the developers yet. :(
 
Thanks. Looking into it. :)

@Ryunosuke

Did you use Theora to stream video ?

P.S. - I don't want to broadcast. Instead, unicasting and multicasting will be used to deliver contents. :)
 
sabby said:
@Ryunosuke

Did you use Theora to stream video ?

P.S. - I don't want to broadcast. Instead, unicasting and multicasting will be used to deliver contents. :)
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Yes using the lib-theora codec package in Ezstream, we did stream couple NPTEL lectures across our college network in Labs and Hostels.

As for Uni and Multicasting, u can configure the domain range or IP range in the config files as to on which machines u want to stream content. :)

Besides that u can always rely on ACL for connection management.

For ur IPTV setup, I will too look into it, its just that my BSNL connection is still in bad shape :( so can't be very prompt in the matter and that's why the late responses earlier. Excuse me for those too.:cool2:
 
I also wanted to do the Icecast thing for my Project and ended up only downloading the binaries.. didn't know a bit about linux in those days... and was supa lazy :bleh: But now having tried out my hand at WMS servers I wanna just point out that if you are gonna stream video then check the specs needed for the streaming server. It needs a big a$$ rig. And best of luck with your Project :)
 
djmykey said:
I also wanted to do the Icecast thing for my Project and ended up only downloading the binaries.. didn't know a bit about linux in those days... and was supa lazy :bleh: But now having tried out my hand at WMS servers I wanna just point out that if you are gonna stream video then check the specs needed for the streaming server. It needs a big a$$ rig. And best of luck with your Project :)
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Well I don't think Sabby is doing it for his college project, correct me if I'm wrong Sabby. As for the rig specs, well I made my Dell Studio 15 laptop as the Streaming Server and the Source client too and there was nothing that proved to be a CPU-Memory hog, everything went smooth. The only perceptible difference was seen when it came to Live Streaming of Audio and Video as the data had to be processed and streamed in real-time all from a single machine and lack of designated Hardware encoder-decoders introduced lag but that was expected and we informed our peers about it while presenting it.

As far as the need for high spec rig goes, one would need it if the streaming media properties are set high, we streamed audio@128-192Kbps with dual channels and Video@30FPS@320x240.
 
Ryunosuke said:
As far as the need for high spec rig goes, one would need it if the streaming media properties are set high, we streamed audio@128-192Kbps with dual channels and Video@30FPS@320x240.
Click to expand...

Yes.. encoding and sending the video at good resolutions need huge servers or else ur good to go on normal desktops too..
 
Ryunosuke said:
Well I don't think Sabby is doing it for his college project, correct me if I'm wrong Sabby. As for the rig specs, well I made my Dell Studio 15 laptop as the Streaming Server and the Source client too and there was nothing that proved to be a CPU-Memory hog, everything went smooth. The only perceptible difference was seen when it came to Live Streaming of Audio and Video as the data had to be processed and streamed in real-time all from a single machine and lack of designated Hardware encoder-decoders introduced lag but that was expected and we informed our peers about it while presenting it.

As far as the need for high spec rig goes, one would need it if the streaming media properties are set high, we streamed audio@128-192Kbps with dual channels and Video@30FPS@320x240.
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:P This is my final year project guys. :P

Anyway, I really want to complete this. I've to submit the working theories and my ideas by december although it will be continued to next semester. Special thanks to Ryunosuke, I explored a bit more about icecast today. Tried the tools like ffmpeg2theora, oggfwd etc. ffmpeg2theora is working fine. But the problem is oggfwd. It only works on linux. And in linux (I'm in suse 11.0), there's no built way to stop the icecast server whereas, there's a GUI for icecast in windows. That means, I had to create new instance of icecast servers every time I wanted to change the icecast.xml as the previously mentioned listener port is not available. :(

That is also no problem for me as icecast doesn't consume much resources. Besides, for rtp/rtsp support ( for unicast or multicast for VoD ), I can create as many instance as I want for every IGMP group or user. For VoD, I can put the .ogv files ( batch converted by ffmpeg2theora ) so that live encoding is not needed. But I'm a bit confused about the mountpoint. I've set a mount point "/home/sabby/abc.ogv" which is preconverted by ffmpeg. But whenever I run the oggfwd command, the status said connected and then nothing happens. Btw, I've already bound an instance of VLC player to my ip at the filedeliver port of icecast.

In the the /etc/icecast.xml, there is a script called whenever a listener is connected which is "/home/icecast/stream-start" but there is no such directory I can found and I think that is causing the problem.

Back in windows, I tried ezstream. But I couldn't create the configuration file to stream a video. The all example xml configs were about audio streaming. :(

Yes using the lib-theora codec package in Ezstream, we did stream couple NPTEL lectures across our college network in Labs and Hostels.

As for Uni and Multicasting, u can configure the domain range or IP range in the config files as to on which machines u want to stream content.

Besides that u can always rely on ACL for connection management.

For ur IPTV setup, I will too look into it, its just that my BSNL connection is still in bad shape so can't be very prompt in the matter and that's why the late responses earlier. Excuse me for those too.
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I want to assign ip to contents dynamically. Which is why trying to use rtsp. What is ACL btw? :ashamed:

While typing this reply, I explored "cortado" a bit. Its actually working. But "pause" and "rewind" don't work correctly. :(

@djmykey,

we have some kick a$$ servers in our lab. Even we have a Sun streaming server. But the bad news is that they (SUN) won't give us the source code. VLC works but with many problems and pain. It requires a 1Gbps connection too. The only player which can play the contents delivered from it smoothly is to be bought from Sun and again no source. That way, we are paralyzed as developers. :(

Damn, I have an exam tomorrow. I've to explore the feng and others. :'(
 
sabby said:
@djmykey,

we have some kick a$$ servers in our lab. Even we have a Sun streaming server. But the bad news is that they (SUN) won't give us the source code. VLC works but with many problems and pain. It requires a 1Gbps connection too. The only player which can play the contents delivered from it smoothly is to be bought from Sun and again no source. That way, we are paralyzed as developers. :(
Click to expand...

Damn that is serious bad luck.. but then your project would have been very easy isn't it ;) IMO if you have your concepts clear but dont have a working thing to demo it then still you get marks. I got 85/100 where others didnt even reach 75 :bleh: and my Icecast wasnt even working :ashamed:
 
djmykey said:
Damn that is serious bad luck.. but then your project would have been very easy isn't it ;) IMO if you have your concepts clear but dont have a working thing to demo it then still you get marks. I got 85/100 where others didnt even reach 75 :bleh: and my Icecast wasnt even working :ashamed:
Click to expand...

Well, I never worry about marks. :) It would feel really good to build a complete or at least working set up. I'll try some more servers.

@Ryunosuke
Still waiting for your reply to my previous post. ( I know BSNL is giving you probs with inet )
 
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