[thelist] darwin streaming server

[Jake Stetser]

>> I refer you to Apple's quicktime previews of movies - those look 
>> really good
>> on a cable connection! 

>Progressive downloads, every time.

I never said _those_ were streaming. I was using those as an example of
quality. But where does the 'doesn't use broadband' well come in?

> >*  It still doesn't so much stream as do a progressive download
> >   which leaves a copy of the movie in tact in your cache
> This is true if you don't STREAM the movie. 

...coming to that...

> >*  It SUCKS at live broadcasting - and there's only one
> >   live encoder on earth, and it only runs on Macs.
> Yeah, those keynotes are just awful quality 

>So are movies which you can stream on demand.  The codecs
>for streaming (which need to be adaptive to an extent, and
>can't not degrade under certain circumstances) just
>aren't up to the job - no matter how fat your pipe is
>at home (oo-er missus) it'll look as bad as those keynotes,
>or nearly as bad.

Well, I was being sarcastic about the keynote videos. When I watched them,
they weren't perfect, but they were a lot better than I've experienced with
streaming realvideo. Yes, right now we simply don't have the bandwidth to
fit FMV over the pipes.

>The only remaining hint I'd have is that Apple's
>Quicktime people are completely and utterly not fscking 
>interested in you if you're not using a Mac: "Why would
>we want to help someone develop a live encoder for another
>operating system?"  was one question I got from Team
>Navelgazing (TM).  I tried to explain it to him but 
>received actual verbal abuse in response (copy available
>on request, if I'm in a bad mood later in the week.).

Well, I wish they had treated you with more respect, but that is a good
point. Apple makes machines and an OS. Microsoft makes an OS. Neither make
encoders for other platforms. At least Apple makes a server for other
platforms :) Real makes encoders, servers and clients. The more platforms on
which they run, the better!

Now, you claim they're not interested in helping you if you're not using a
Mac.. well, no, they don't make the encoder for something other than a Mac,
but they do make the client for the two most popular desktop operating
systems (and I wish they'd do a Linux version just to make the /. crowd
happy) and they made the server open source - leading enterprising
developers to port it to any operating system they wanted. That's their hook
- view (almost anywhere), serve anyware, create on a Mac. 

>If you're got a budget, there's another Darwin server
>from a company called Entera, which has been out for
>a lot longer and has much nicer people behind it. They
>ported Darwin to Linux about 2 years ago, before
>Apple bothered to try.

I've heard of Entera, and believe they have ported QTSS/DSS (same thing,
different name) to Linux and some other operating systems. That's the nice
thing about Apple opening up the source code to the server :) I think you're
talking about porting the Streaming Server to Linux because porting Darwin
(a BSD-based OS) to Linux (a Linux-based OS) wouldn't make a lot of sense.

Thanks for your comments!

Jake