we are testing 3GP test streams through QuickTime / Darwin Streaming
Servers using encoders such as Nexcaster 2 and Popwire Live Engine LX.
All live and on-demand streams work fine in the QuickTime player. All
our on-demand 3GP files stream fine from the same server to several
multimedia phones (SonyEricsson and Nokia).
But, when we use the exact same phones that show on-demand 3GP content
(same operator networks) to stream the live channels from the same
server, we get no result. The phone does connect, keeps showing a black
screen, and the counter stays at 0:00:00. The frustrating thing is that
the DSS server logs show a '200' which means that the stream was
succesful, and that data was sent to the phone without packet loss...
(!?!?)
We have tested with clean installs /zero configuration of DSS 5.0.1.1,
and also tuned the streamingserver.xml file (turned on streaming on
port 80 and added the lines below), but no result so far.
Do we have to configure more in DSS? Does DSS 5 support live 3GP
streaming at all? Please Apple, confirm this. Do we need to manually
modify the SDP files in order to get the phones working? Are the
on-demand files streamed with other protocols than the live streams?
What makes the difference for these phones between the live and
on-demand streams, and why is QuickTime Player able to show both and
mobile clients are not?
!! **Don't** use RealPlayer to test the links, there's a nasty bug in
it that can kill the server. :-(
Feel free to test these links on your multimedia GRPS/UMTS phones. (If
they work, let me know! ;-)
We added these lines to streamingserver.xml and then restarted the
service. We tested the streams before and after (no result).
We tried all possible URL calls (http calls instead of rtsp, forcing
port numbers, using the server IP address instead of DNS name, using or
not using the .SDP extension... we also tried all possible live encoder
combinations (codecs, sizes, etc) but stayed within the 3GP specs.
Some operator networks are closed. But others are open, and on-demand
streams are tested succesfully on those networks. The server is not
firewalled, and has a public Internet address with 100Mbps. The
encoders are behind a NAT router with 512Kbps upstream but are pushing
to the server (unicast) and QuickTime Player streams these channels
fine.
Please help! We want to avoid using the expensive Helix Mobile
solutions and get our clients to use XServe / QTSS. But we can't
convince them without working demo's. I bet more people on the list are
eager to get this working, right?
We have full documentation on encoder configuration, network
configuration and server configuration and logs ready for anyone
willing to help and figure this out.
Frits (at streamzilla dot nl)
--
Frits Webstra
www.StreamZilla.nl
StreamZilla is member of the StreamHolding/Jet-Stream/Video Exchange
group.
