Uploading Video Feed

I couldn't find anything quite on this subject with the obvious title, so thought this may be the best section for it.

I have recently been introduced to the SL ability to watch movies, television shows, etc., on televisions, through various DVD rental shops or certain private home theatres. I think it is a great concept and was curious to know how I would be able to go about doing that myself.

Instead of simply renting someone elses DVD, I would prefer if I could simply upload my own from my harddrive and make those DVDs myself. I am not looking to upload small files into a free upload database so everyone can watch, but have the option of creating my own private selection here at home.

If anyone could share some helpful information that would be highly appreciated.

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Example:

I am a snowboarding enthusiast, and I want all of the SL community to enjoy the sport of snowbaoarding just as I do. I have 1000+ hours worth of video, depicting me and me friends snowboarding across the nation. I wish to make hundreds of copies of that video feed, in order to make dvds, that the people of SL can buy at my newly created Snowboarding store in-game.

How can I create those copies and dvds, so that I can sell them to my customers?

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Not that I condone or support anyone streaming 'copied' media, ripped from DVD's etc, but, from a technical angle, it is not that difficult to do.

What you need from a hardware aspect is a server with a connection (upload bandwidth being important) that can stream the media via a IP or domain name, onto the internet, you can link a media player, or use the land based url loader, to then render that into a SL client.

If you are considering security, which you should always do when opening ports from your own system, then you could use a Silver Stream media system in SL. These play like normal players, but have the added advantage (amongst others) of not openly broadcasting the url. This should help prevent anyone getting a hold of your IP/Domain port and hijacking it.

Security of your system is the most important aspect you must consider before attempting this. Depending on your upload bandwidth capacity (actual as opposed to advertisied) will effect your ability to broadcast. Bear in mind, you will be Multicasting, this is for each viewer of the stream, you will increase your upload bandwidth strain. A very BASIC equation, if the media streams at 500kbps, then you times that per viewer.

An alternative is to pay for a internet hosting package, and use their servers to broadcast the media. Look carefully at the various packages, most say unlimited, or some huge bandwidth potential, but you will either be sharing that bandwidth, or find that even if you tired to get even a 10th of that bandwidth, it never delivers.

Sorry, seems I didn't quite word it correctly, so I will try to clarify. I am not interested in streaming anything, but simpy uploading downloaded video media files from my harddrive, into lets say a prim in order to make a copy. I may be mistaken, but I would like to create a DVD, similar to those found at SL DVD rental shops and etc.. The end result would be, a functioning in-game dvd, that I could use to play in a private home theatre.

If that is even possible, which I think is, unless I am mistaken with the product being advertised, information on how to accomplish this goal would be appreciated.

Example:

I am a snowboarding enthusiast, and I want all of the SL community to enjoy the sport of snowbaoarding just as I do. I have 1000+ hours worth of video, depicting me and me friends snowboarding across the nation. I wish to make hundreds of copies of that video feed, in order to make dvds, that the people of SL can buy at my newly created Snowboarding store in-game.

How can I create those copies and dvds, so that I can sell them to my customers?

Ok, it seems the illusion of DVD's being available in SL needs explaining.

There are NO such things as DVD's available in SL, what people are selling is a scripted prim, that contains a url to streaming media. The url is uploaded into a player, when the 'DVD' is placed near the player. This then links the player to the media hosted either on an internet server, or from a private PC system.

The same applies to CD's.

So there is no way of doing this then? The only option available is to stream?

I don't know how else to explain this concept to you.... No?

SL/LL do not stream any media, it is all streamed from 3rd party hostings...

Well we weren't exactly on the same page in the beginning, so I apologize for the inconvenience. Thanks for your help, that just about clears everything up.

It wasn't any inconvenience.. just perhaps a difficult concept in the first place.. especially as some people use terminology as DVD which creats a misconception in the first place as the vast majority align their thoughts to how RL items of the same name, work.

When I first started creating/selling media systems in SL, I didn't use terms such as Plasma screen, DVD players, VHS etc etc... Now I have renamed them as such, they seem to sell better, in essence, they all do the same thing, irrespective of what they are called. I cannot imagine anyone wanting to buy a VHS player, when there are no VHS tapes in real terms, in SL.....

Also people should be aware that it IS illegal to buy copyrighted movies from these stores in SL. There has yet to be any action or crackdown on this in SL, however these "dvds" are not legitimate so do realize by buying them you are putting yourself at risk, whether anything will happen, I doubt it, but a lot of people seem to think that this is a legitimate business.

Agreed... our own media players all come with open playlists, we do not provide and or stream any ilegal content. You will find streams that are freely available over the internet preloaded as a starting point. Owners of the players can add whatever urls to media sources they wish. This was primarily so people could stream their own media.

Elleon, I've created a tutorial video that explains how video works in SL , and another that explains how you can convert your own videos for use in-world. They also show how you can use the Internet Archive to find free, legal videos or how to host videos that you've created for free on Blip.tv. Check em out here:

http://www.shiny-life.com/2007/12/31/how-to-use-video-in-second-life/
http://www.shiny-life.com/2008/03/06/converting-videos-for-second-life/