Hi,
What do you recommend as the best way to publish large-ish (20-40MB) video clips to an Apache website?
I currently use an anchor to an MPG format file which causes video player to fire-up and download/plays the file - in a very staccato manner.
I do not have a media server - just Apache web server.
Thx!
Rob
Q: best way to publish video for PC/Mac/
Moderator: Ken Berry
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THoff
My recommendation would be to use WMV (Windows Media) format.
It's encoding efficiency is comparable to QuickTime's MOV files, it's a free download for all platforms (PC/Mac/handhelds), it streams well, doesn't require any special server software or unusual protocols, and it lets you target multiple bitrates in a single file.
You can thus configure UVS to produce a single .WMV file that support 256Kbps, 768Kbps, and 1.5Mbps all at once, and the client (the media player) will automatically select the highest-quality stream supported by the connection speed.
This is accomplished by retrieving the file header using one HTTP request, looking at what bitrates are available, and then retrieving the appropriate media stream using a second HTTP request that specifies the starting and ending position withing the WMV file of the desired encoding.
It's encoding efficiency is comparable to QuickTime's MOV files, it's a free download for all platforms (PC/Mac/handhelds), it streams well, doesn't require any special server software or unusual protocols, and it lets you target multiple bitrates in a single file.
You can thus configure UVS to produce a single .WMV file that support 256Kbps, 768Kbps, and 1.5Mbps all at once, and the client (the media player) will automatically select the highest-quality stream supported by the connection speed.
This is accomplished by retrieving the file header using one HTTP request, looking at what bitrates are available, and then retrieving the appropriate media stream using a second HTTP request that specifies the starting and ending position withing the WMV file of the desired encoding.
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ultra
Unfortunately, WMV plays back dreadfully on the Mac, and is installed on few machines. For big files, it's simply unworkable in my experience.
My recommendation would either be to go for MPEG 4 format, or if you wait a few weeks h.264. The file size saving using this quality is immense and the quality is unbelievable. Problem is that QuickTime 7 for Mac, which supports this format, doesn't as yet have a Windows equivalent. That should hopefully change in a few weeks. There are alternatives (eg VLC player, Elecard Moonlight MPEG Player (http://www.elecard.com/)), but nothing mainstream as yet. As usual you have to balance quality with the likelihood the recipient will be able to play it.
My recommendation would either be to go for MPEG 4 format, or if you wait a few weeks h.264. The file size saving using this quality is immense and the quality is unbelievable. Problem is that QuickTime 7 for Mac, which supports this format, doesn't as yet have a Windows equivalent. That should hopefully change in a few weeks. There are alternatives (eg VLC player, Elecard Moonlight MPEG Player (http://www.elecard.com/)), but nothing mainstream as yet. As usual you have to balance quality with the likelihood the recipient will be able to play it.
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maddrummer3301
- Posts: 2507
- Joined: Fri Dec 10, 2004 10:24 pm
- Location: US
Hi,
What do you mean "Publish" them. Web pages are published.
All you need to do is put them into a directory that the server is running under.
For Apache 1.3 the root directory starts under
/srv/www/htdocs/
So create a directory under htdocs such as video.
After you copy the video files into the video folder you need to mark the
new video folder directory as readable, also the video files, because most likely
they are marked as user=root and group=root. The server will refuse pushing them
because they aren't marked readable.
Change those to a user name and group could be users.
ex: chown -R admin:users * (also * also *.* for the *.mpg files)
Then change the permissions for people to have read access.
Access the directory from your browser using the following url:
(assuming the server is assigned a static ip, which it should have so it
never changes).
If the server is set to 192.168.1.50
Then type in the Browsers URL
<http://192.168.1.50/video/> (make sure to use the foreward slash at the end, no brackets)
The browser will then display the directory contents and list the files.
From there depends on your local browser whether to stream them or
download them first.
Another method to play the file directly would be a direct command from within
a player that plays a URL directly.
Ex: A file named baseball.mpg
Type directly in the program <http://video/baseball.mpg>
The windows media format is easier to use for all browsers.
Hope this helps,
MD
What do you mean "Publish" them. Web pages are published.
All you need to do is put them into a directory that the server is running under.
For Apache 1.3 the root directory starts under
/srv/www/htdocs/
So create a directory under htdocs such as video.
After you copy the video files into the video folder you need to mark the
new video folder directory as readable, also the video files, because most likely
they are marked as user=root and group=root. The server will refuse pushing them
because they aren't marked readable.
Change those to a user name and group could be users.
ex: chown -R admin:users * (also * also *.* for the *.mpg files)
Then change the permissions for people to have read access.
Access the directory from your browser using the following url:
(assuming the server is assigned a static ip, which it should have so it
never changes).
If the server is set to 192.168.1.50
Then type in the Browsers URL
<http://192.168.1.50/video/> (make sure to use the foreward slash at the end, no brackets)
The browser will then display the directory contents and list the files.
From there depends on your local browser whether to stream them or
download them first.
Another method to play the file directly would be a direct command from within
a player that plays a URL directly.
Ex: A file named baseball.mpg
Type directly in the program <http://video/baseball.mpg>
The windows media format is easier to use for all browsers.
Hope this helps,
MD
-
maddrummer3301
- Posts: 2507
- Joined: Fri Dec 10, 2004 10:24 pm
- Location: US
-
bctinc
Q: best way to publish video for PC/Mac/
WMV does not play with Quicktime Player on our iMacs - OS 8.5 (I think). They're older iMac and not going to be upgraded anytime soon.
Publish - I meant what's the best format(s) for viewing both on older Mac and older PCs as well as newer (but certainly not newest machine types). I am quite versant in Apache servers.
So, I created a webpage with 2 anchors - one to MPG (for Macintosh/Quicktime) and one for WMV (for Windows).
Oh well - gotta upgrade to UVS 9 and get the MPEG4 plugin!!
Rob
Publish - I meant what's the best format(s) for viewing both on older Mac and older PCs as well as newer (but certainly not newest machine types). I am quite versant in Apache servers.
So, I created a webpage with 2 anchors - one to MPG (for Macintosh/Quicktime) and one for WMV (for Windows).
Oh well - gotta upgrade to UVS 9 and get the MPEG4 plugin!!
Rob
-
ultra