Streaming Film from an Internet Server INTO a parcel.. not as easy as it looks.

I am a bit stymied. It was my intention to play silent movies in world for a recent social event. I read the SL tutorial on the issue, from the SL Wiki. I matched the screen texture to the parcel settings. I plugged in an URL from the Internet Film Archive, which maintains a streaming video file of dozens of public domain silent films. <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/Choronzon333-DerGolemPEmersonWilliamsScore568">Here is their listing for one silent movie</a> I had hoped to play that evening, the famous German expressionistic silent horror film, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Der Golem</span>. Obscure perhaps, but one of my favorites.

I placed the URL for their Stream feed in the parcel field for "media". I clicked on the "Play media tab". Suddenly, we were looking at DER GOLEM playing on a screen. Huzzah! Then we tried switching to another silent movie from the Internet Film Archive.. Keystone Cops, in fact. Big mistake. We lost the feed to Der Golem, and could not get it back. deleted the prim, recreated it, tried again with original stream url, nothing.

I tried the Freeview and SLGuide approach to do the same thing. Still Nothing.

So, what I have are:

1. A website with Public Domain film media with files that are listed as "streaming", in two speeds, 64 and 256.

2. I followed the wiki instructions (and the Torley tutorial). My media parcel settings do match my the uniquely textured prim I'm using for a screen.

3. I copy and past the STREAM URL into the media field..

4. I know I have the latest QUicktime installed.

5. I hit "Play" in the media tab, bottom right.

6. Something DOES happen.. it goes from unique texture to solid black. Sometimes I see an IFA website banner. But I have not been able to get the media to stream since.

7. I CAN view movies in an embedded flash player available on the IFA. I can Download the actual, physical file-- all 180 to 260 megs of it (some are much higher.. a gig or more).

So.. is this approach sound? Does it make sense? Or should I go out and purchae a streaming media service, and upload a gigantic video file to it? Advice sought and appreciated. Thanks

Hotspur O'Toole

That is the problem right there, its a Flash movie. To play in SL®™ it must be an mp4.

Torley explained this in a very recent video - the one about watching YouTube in SL. If it's a week old, it's been a long time.

Not quite.

The Internet Film Archive has a flash version of the movies they have on their server, but they also have the download file links, and the Streamed MP4s on the left hand side.

See: http://wanderinggael.freehoxt.com/Screen-IFA.JPG

My parcel media field was pointing towards these STREAMING FILES (circled, left), and NOT the streaming feed. I know you can wangle this in Second Life (I've seen the video), but that is not what I was trying to do. I merely mentioned that to show that the server on the other side was up and running, and serving out data.

Thks,

Hotspur

I am having the exact same issue. SOmeone told me that the problem was the archive is MP4 and SL only likes MP3s. But I kinda gave up on the idea until abetter solution happens.

There's a simple way to test if a stream is going to work on SecondLife:
Try to run it in Quicktime.

If it doesnt work, its not going to work in SecondLife.

I've tried afew streams from the URL you've pointed to - the movie wouldnt play for me in Quicktime. Ergo, no SecondLife availability.

The problem is at the Archive.org's end.

I just tried watching the Der Golem video in SL - it worked for me. I used the Play/Download link and not the Streaming Video link on the page that you mentioned above.

When you click the STREAM links on that Internet Archive page, you actually get a web page with the video file embedded. The PLAY/DOWNLOAD links will send you directly to the actually video file - which is what you want for SL.

BTW - I've created a couple of tutorial videos about using video in SL. One covers the basic mechanics of using video, and the other shows how to convert your own videos for use in-world.

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/

There might be a limit on the length of the name. Check to see that the complete name is in the parcel media url field.

It does seem to be related to MP4. If I pick a MP1 or MP2 from the archive it works just fine. MP4 nope its a no go.

I've noticed a few glitches related to mp4s recently as well.

Here's part of a post from another thread:

"I had trouble playing h.264 video in-world as well. When I first tried playing it I got nothing but a black screen. Nada.

I noticed that after trying to play the video that the new Media Type setting in the Parcel Media tab was messed up. It was showing a blank entry instead of Movie or another valid setting. My Loop Media setting was also blanked out.

After specifically setting that to 'Movie' the h.264 video will play. Also, any further changes to that tab had no effect and the video plays fine. I also noticed that once the video was working I could log out and back in and it would play fine, until I changed the video settings again."

Might try playing around with that Media Type selector in the Media tab in the land options.

Changing target media types from Streaming to Static MP4s did the trick. Here's Charlie Chaplin playing at my house on Polymath Rock:

http://hiberniaskids.blogspot.com/2008/06/streaming-silent-movies-into-your.html

I describe exactly how I managed it, for my parcel, in that post (with handy pictures). Essentially this is the basic "playing on a prim" method that Torley wrote about a while back-- with some finesse applied by Ms. Foo and Mr. Bjornson.

Thank you all!

Hotspur