Re: [Hampshire] Video streaming

On 28/03/2008, Graham Bleach <graham@???> wrote:
> On 28/03/2008, Brian Chivers <brian@???> wrote:
> > Just thinking about my next project for College and one thing that I think I need to look at is
> > video streaming.
> >
> > Currently we have a server with a big HDD that people save clips on as AVI's and this is mapped to
> > the users via Samba. This is OKish for inside college but when they are outside of college they have
> > no access to it and as well allow external access to Moodle I'd like to be able for staff to embed
> > the clips into moodle so they have the same access inside or outside of college.
> >
> > Has anyone done this sort of thing before & if so what did you use. I have looked at the Darwin /
> > Open Source Streaming Server from apple [1] but don't want to start reinventing the wheel if people
> > have found something easier to setup / use
>
>
> Typically this is done on the web by using Flash video and progressive
> downloads; the video isn't streamed as such, but the Flash client
> starts playing it before it is fully downloaded. Streaming other
> formats hits obstacles such as lack of client support and bandwidth
> constraints.
>
> Regards,
>
> Graham
>

The likes of youtube use something called "progressive downloads"
mainly for cost reasons.
The licensing cost for "streaming" of most file formats is huge.
The licensing cost for "progressive downloads" is nill.
>From the user perspective the difference is...not much.

Progressive downloads is also considered a better technology now
anyway. As the user can happily watch the content later if they wish
without having to link to the internet.

I was going to implement progressive download for all online media
formats xine could play, but never found the time to do it.

I recommend finding a solution that does progressive download.

James