Hosting your own movies from your PC

Too bad that you arn't bothering, 'cause you won't really have a clue "if" it works or not nor how "efficent" it really is.

In the past few days I've found that streaming vids on my land produces about the same lag as streaming audio does. And, I've actually been impressed with the frame rate of 3d animations that I have previously produced and then tested in SL. As the producer, musical composer and editor of these vids I know every millisecond of their content and see "zero" dropped frames. The only stalls I've seen have been in the begining of one larger vid and that one restarts itself in a few moments and then plays "fine'.

Since currently I only host this work from my dot com... I can't wait to move to a real streaming server to see the results.

I hope you can get over your disappointment and give vids in SL a try... you might be suprised. I've found that complaining about certain tools is some times beneficial.. but .. often.. actually using the tools and working with any "limitations" they may have is often more productive...

You might also try exporting your 300 meg files using a different codec such as Sorenson 3 to get smaller sizes. A quality setting of medium doesn't look "that bad" and I've been able to get sizes down to a fifth of their original at times using that.

Quicktime Pro offers several compression schemes... expriment with 'em if you have the time.

I just posted another thread on this, and I would have to agree with you. I tested streaming a DVD into SL last night. Although when viewing by myself it was great, 5 viewers was a total disaster. I currently use a cable connection and can achieve a 500kbps bitrate, but with 5 users, they were achieving anywhere from 30 - 80 kbps (totally inadequate).

when i try to run the server i'm getting this message:

# Streaming STARTUP 2005-04-05 17:46:29
2005-04-05 17:46:29: Another process is already using the following RTSP port: 7070
2005-04-05 17:46:29: Another process is already using the following RTSP port: 554
2005-04-05 17:46:29: Another process is already using the following RTSP port: 8000
2005-04-05 17:46:29: Another process is already using the following RTSP port: 8001
2005-04-05 17:46:29: Streaming Server failed to listen on all requested RTSP port(s).
2005-04-05 17:46:29: Streaming Server is not listening for RTSP on any ports.
# Streaming SHUTDOWN 2005-04-05 17:46:29

I have the ShoutCast server running in WinAmp and it's on port 8000. How can i tell whats running on the other ports. Nothing was running when i tried this. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

JLee, DSS is probably already running. Check your services window (if running on a windows based setup) for the service "Darwin Streaming Server". You can start & stop it manually from there.

Also, run your admin web page (http://localhost:1220) and check to see if it sez "Server is running" , if it does, no worries.

Since I started this thread I'll throw an update:

I moved DSS to a computer that's sitting on a dedicated T1. Right now I can run movies with the format rtsp://serveraddress/moviename.mov
I really wanted to put in the playlist .sdp name instead of the .mov name but that's not working really well atm. One thing I found out is that all the movies in your playlist *must* be the same screen size (e.g. 320x240, etc), otherwise it hoses.

Some movies (when viewed by my online wife and I) stream splendidly. Others fail miserably once the 2nd person presses play (e.g. they freeze up or move exceedingly slow). I'm convinced this is a compression problem, but as I convert all my movies to hinted movies using QT Pro 6.5.1, and have only seen some very minor options in regards to compression, I'm really beggin anyone out there to point me in the right path to get these things compressed correctly. I dont need DVD quality, just something that plays!

Cheers! -Syn

Sounds to me that you're complicating things a lot.

I uploaded a few movies in various formats, mov and mpg to my web server, some of them was 300MB+ in size and had no problems whatsoever viewing them with the standard Multimedia Viewer from Ben Linden.
4 people was watching without problem.
No streaming, no full download of files, it just work.

Maybe that's why there is no documentation ! None seems to be neeeded.

/RR

I have personally had a lot more success by transcoding to mpeg-4. Oh and the playlist on DSS will fail if the framerates differ between your hinted files.

/esc

whats the advantage of a streaming server vs. up loading to a webserver?
unless you are streaming live video i cant tell the diffrence?
-LW

If you upload, it's easy to get working and manage.

I guess the only reasons to stream are:

- everyone will see the same thing at the same time
- you can change playlists without getting everyone to change url on their land

Those the reasons that drove me to host DSS.

/esc

One more update - Using the aforementioned Nokia converter to get these movies into 3gp format. Oddly enough though, cant play them directly in SL so I have to convert them to .mov. The first one played great (although realy fuzzy) for both of us, but my wife coudldnt hear the sound. I found later that she didnt have the 3gp default audio codec. When I reconverted the movie in QT i changed the audio codec to QT and it worked well.

Starting to get the hang of this, but am still testing applications for compression, and how much bandwidth a T1 can stream out at once.

Ok, I downloaded the Apache 2 server and hinted a movie in quicktime pro and it's working alirght for me so far. I'm exporting an mpg right now itno mp4. I'll hint that and see how that goes next

Now I don't know what to do. I have movies set up to get to SL from Apache. I can view them just fine, but other seem not to be able to. It's not really a streaming server, but more of a progressive download. I wonder how long that takes for someone else to be able to see it. Or if they'll be able to at all.

Vince if your computer is connected to a DLS or Cable modem I doubt you'll have enough bandwidth to let anyone else see the stream. I tried myself, and it failed miserably.

Even when the streaming server is connected to a full T1 it just wont stream decent quality movies to more than one person I'm finding.

I've had to use Nokia's 3GP converter to get the movies into 3GP format (Crunches them down hellaciously) before I can play them to more than 1 person at a time. And what sux is the video quality is only barely livable, and the audo is sort of fuzzy. But 3gp format is intended for viewing on cell phones, so I understand why. Oh, they have to be converted to a hinted mov after converting to 3gp.

I don't think its LL's responsibility to document how to setup and use a streaming video server. That's not their business.

What they do document is how to use a server to create in-world movies (and that part is pretty damn simple).

If you want to setup your own streaming server, expect the server provider to document it, not LL.

- Ace

Well, I'm on a 10mbps cable line so that may be the problem. THe video I've been experimenting with have been small files (14 KB). I was hoping that with a progressive download situation I might be able to pull it off. Oh well..... I'll keep playing with it some.

i was using the Nokia 3gp converter it works great for making small files
but its very low quality. I found RaPiZ PSP video converter it makes .MP4
files with much better quality even on low settings.
a 51meg anime music video converted to 8meg. it uses 2 passes
and clears up the jaged edges that 3gp had.
-LW
(ps) whe you install rapiz the 4 buttons at bottom are:
my mp root, setup, begin, exit.
choose setup to change the language to english.

Awesome Lightwave thanks!! I'll give that a shot, and if it works then it will keep me from having to post a new thread about "how the heck can i stream a good quality movie off a T1 to 2 people?" post lol.

Ace - thanks bud, we're way past that now.

Just a word of warning if you are running a cable or DSL connection (which is probably most of us). If you stream from home based servers and the bandwidth gets to high many ISPs have a policy that if you do to much you should be using thier "web hosting" packages and will shut you down. I have heard of this happening with a few companies but no specifics.

Thanks for the head's up FM

All Hail Lightwave!!!! The PSP converter works brilliantly!!! For some reason it wont play MP4's in SL but a simple convert to hinted move thru QT does the trick magnificently!!!

Will you marry me? LOL

Comcast has done this on a number of occasions. The users had transferred on average a couple hundred gigs a month. Si Money has it right though, the throughput on average residential cable service just isn't sufficient to stream well. You could downsample the video to a very low bitrate and increase performance and possibly allow yourself to stream to a small group. But if you have the expectation that you'll be able to stream dvd quality video to a party..... you're more likely to fit a bowling ball through a straw.


If you want, here are some links to various hosting services. A couple people requested these as they didn't know where to start looking.

http://www.streamhoster.com/streaming_services.html
http://www.audiovideoweb.com/index.php
https://upload.video.google.com/



Now, if you've just got a small 128kbps clip that you want to have playing on a tv in your house; and it isn't requisite that it be streaming, then you can most likely get away with setting up a webserver and hosting from there. The advantage to that? People might initially experience a delay before seeing the video. But once it's up, they wont have problems with your connection and the movie is playing from their machine.

Disadvantages? Not everyone is synced. There are ways around that though. Also, the initial delay before everyone sees the video increases with the number of people watching.


Apache 2 is a great free webserver to host, but for those who wish for a lighter webserver there's the Abyss web server. You can grab it here:

http://www.download.com/Abyss-Web-Server/3000-2165_4-10283992.html?tag=lst-0-3



Last side note. Quicktime supports a surprisingly large number of formats. Before transcoding, try playing your video in game. Unless you're downsampling, you might not need to.


My 00010 cents.

heh im already married
but MP4's play fine for me. i am not streamming them at all, i just upload to my webserver
and they start playing right away. try just linking to them insted of streaming?
im trying to setup tiny.exe its a webserver its a 53k http server.
http://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/tinyweb/
-LW

Point taken

You know I think your right Sami. I will give it a try. I was disapointed with the Linden decision to use Quicktime as my RL job involves using streaming media. I have used all three technologies (Real, Windows and Quicktime) and I find Quicktime the worst in so many ways, too many to list.

I will overcome!!

Cen

people come here for help not to listen to children fuss with each other

Is anyone streaming Flash?