Re: Looping A Playlist With Files And Link REMOTELY Hosted

On Mon, 22 May 2006 16:33:00 -0600, Pat Cook <pchamster@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Besides, if I just wanted to VideoCast it, I could just as easily
provide a link to it like an ordinary blog entry. But since this is a
different concept of streaming video, videocasting as we've come to know
it over the last several months just simply wouldn't work.


Not true. Sending media content from a 'blog entry' on a web server is
distinctly different in implementation and capabilities than sending
media from a streaming server, not least in the capability to random
access the content, and manage the bandwidth expectations for example
by automatically streaming one of multiple bitrates of a presentation.


Is it possible to loop a playlist (i.e. it DOES NOT start from the
beginning when a visitor logs onto the page) on a web server? If so,

You've got the idea, but I don't want it to start from the beginning
beyond the one time when everything goes online. After that, it should
be an endless loop. .


OK so you want the viewer to drop in to the middle of a live
broadcast. OK well you have only a couple of options :

Either link directly to the http 'broadcast' (used loosely) provided
from windows media encoder or VLC - or go the whole hog, broadcast
from WME or VLC to windows media server (or Darwin, or Helix or...)
when you're actually connecting to a publishing point configured to
re-broadcast the encoded stream with improved management of the
stream.

what do I change (other than the source file link, which will no doubt
be either an ASX or M3U file following the HTTP protocol rather than the
MMS protocol) in the HTML code of the viewer so that it does this?


OK you lost me know I'm not sure what you're getting at - do you know
why you mentioned all those acronyms, or are they just stuff you heard
somewhere ? How do they relate to the problem you're describing ?

Well live video uses the MMS protocol, doesn't it? But since we're


It *may* though in general that's a rollover protocol for anything
later than WMP8. You don't actually stream "mms" protocol data.

Most windows streaming servers are configured to do rtsp streaming,
with http fallback if the client's unable to get the rtsp stream
(which may be because of firewall or NAT restrictions at the client
end). Linking to the rtsp stream is just as effective.


talking about archived video here, and since the web servers don't use
Windows Media Encoder (At least none I'm aware of), the videos would
have to be streamed using the HTTP protocol, would they not?

Again I'm noting some confusion at your end in associating WME at all
with a web server (i.e. in the same breath). As above, several options
exist, the last resort being streaming using the http protocol - which
is *not* equivalent to playing a file off a web server though - as
noted, you still have bandwidth management, logging and other features
available.

It's just really used to connect to port 80 so firewalls don't get in
the way (port 80 being the 'universal firewall avoidance port') and
for ensuring reliable transport, since http travels over TCP and is
error-corrected

rtsp travels over UDP and may (and does) drop packets in transit, but
in this scheme the server can negotiate for late retransmission of
packets, as well as the player doing some error correction and
dropping incomplete frames without you noticing. It's important to
note that all major media players can do this, not just WMP.


I think it would be helpful if you could provide a step by step list
of what actions should happen, from when a visitor first arrives at
your website, up to the last frame of video or note of audio they
experience.

Simple. Once the visitor logs on, the visitor, after the usual brief
buffering period, would start receiving the video at whatever point it
happens to be at (be it in the middle, at the beginning, or at the end
of one clip headed toward the start of the next one). The video would
stop playing in the usual manner Windows Media operates once a visitor
logs off or they click on the stop button.

I know that all the files would have to be uploaded and the link file
would have to have the entire list, complete with actual URL, and it too
will have to be uploaded. This is no problem at all. I just need to
know what to change in the code for the embedded viewer (Since I do not

In the page below, both the filename and src param/attributes ought to
point to somewhere on your web server hosting the ASX file eg
http://www.freewebtown.com/myplaylist.asx

Of course. I know this part. :)

However it's important to ensure with your web host that your web
server sends the correct content-type for the ASX file, which is
video/x-ms-asf

My web host is equipped to handle all kinds of streaming media (even the
most modern ones and source videos such as AVI and MPEG-1 and 2). All I
have to do is make sure everything is on the server.

own all the videos, but rather have permission to link to, I *DO NOT*
plan to offer a link to spawn the external viewer on the page and I may
also run it through an HTML guard program to disable the right click
option too).

VIDEO PAGE IN QUESTION - http://www.freewebtown.com/kb0oxd/webcam2.html

One thing I did notice which may interfere with the player loading
(though it may work OK too) is the codebase and pluginspage
declarations have extra space between the slashes (inside the quote
marks). You probably want to remove that for completeness.

Do you think this is why all non-IE based browsers don't read the page
right and Firefox seems to think there's embedded music there (which BTW
I did not put there)?


No, not really. With your current code, Firefox will try to load the
old player, version 6.4 (as may IE on some people's systems including
mine as it's Win2000 with WMP7).

Connecting to that URL directly, without the 'Windows Media Video
Advanced Profile Codec' present won't cause the embedded player to
download the codec in Firefox. Checking later I noted it was using the
Photo Story v2 codec which is odd (and doesn't work in WMP7 *or*
WMP6.4), then later on, Windows Media Video V8 (which did display
video).

In addition, the codec above isn't a type which can be auto-downloaded
to WMP6.4, so only visitors with IE (on PC) will get that update,
though many will already have it, it's not a given.

As that's a video codec, only the audio plays (I got Mr Blue Sky) and
not the video.

So it's content dependent, the publisher is sending heterogeneous
content in the stream which will mean some displays and some doesn't -
a real recipe for long unresolved tech support calls !

Been working since last night. And I got the URL off the owner's page

As noted I visited only in FF yesterday, so didn't see your video at
all. This particular box has WMP7 on it, so it may never actually play
the video with your current embedding code (which instantiates WMP6.4)

IE7 and IE6 with the latest update may also require the user to click
to activate the video control. something to watch out for as it won't
play automatically if that happens.

Cheers - Neil
------------------------------------------------
Digital Media MVP : 2004-2006
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs
.