RTSP Client For GNU/Linux Systems? 23
gilgongo writes: "The Arts Council of England are doing an interview with Richard Stallman for the CODE conference here in the UK, and we plan to stream an archive of it later that day. Stallman has stipulated that his interview must be able to be seen by GNU/Linux systems (i.e. just RealVideo is a no-no).
Our RealServer installation (running on RedHat 6.2) will do RTSP, so we assume that takes care of the protocol worries, but now we can't find any eaily obtained/installed clients to test it on. So - what do Linuxers use for seeing those streaming media clips with?" So with what tools would you most like to experience this interview? (And I hope streaming isn't the only option -- what's wrong with a nice downloadable version? Not everyone has a fast connection.)
clients/codecs (Score:2)
If it is a live event, just multicast it with vic and vat.
Encode your video in MPEG-1, otherwise. You can stream this with Real (with a plugin), QuickTime, JMF (from Sun), and other things, such as the KOM player [tu-darmstadt.de]. You can also make the file available for download for those with slower connections.
Ogg Vorbis? (Score:2)
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WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";
Re:Ask RMS (Score:2)
Ask RMS (Score:3)
Also see if this means you can use the "RMS format" and Real for streaming.
Re:Finally! (Score:5)
If he was interested in whether the people interested in seeing it actually could, then it would be a no-brainer: he would use RealVideo. Because almost all people using GNU software are running Linux (and most of the rest are running Solaris) and those people have free-as-in-beer RealPlayers easily available to them.
But he's not interested in whether his target audience can see him.
He's interested in using this as an opportunity to make a political statement.
Which is fine.
But call it what it is. It's certainly not the pragmatic decision that you characterized it as.
Re:Why not RealVideo? (Score:2)
Sure, I'll bet you 5 million dollars that I don't.
Cough up, d00d. I've known about non-x86 Linux for ages.
The original article said nothing about requiring that the feed be available on non-x86 machines and, unless a "GNU/Linux" system really is a system with no non-free software (and I'll believe that only if somebody posts a reference; I don't see anything obvious on the FSF Web site about that), it didn't even say anything about requiring the feed to be viewable by free software.
(Saying that the feed had to be viewable by "GNU/Linux systems" seems a very odd way, indeed, to say "has to be viewable if you use only free software"; what about GNU/Hurd, for example? Why not just say "has to be viewable if you use only free software", as that is, I suspect, what Stallman meant?)
Why not RealVideo? (Score:3)
Yeah, I don't have RealPlayer installed on the Linux partition on my home machine, I have to boot another OS on it to run RealPlayer...
...oh, wait, that other OS is FreeBSD, and it's running RealPlayer in Linux emulation.
(I'm not at home right now, so I don't remember which version of RP it is, but I think it was an RP 8 beta - which doesn't seem to have expired.)
Go to Real's home page [real.com], click on "RealPlayer" on the bar at the top listing "Download"s, click on "RealPlayer 8 Basic" from that page, and proceed from there. Various Linux versions are available.
Er, he didn't say it had to be GPL software *only* (Score:2)
Sounds like you're free to use Real as well as Windows Media Player, and Quicktime too if you really want. Of those, Real can be used by x86 Linux users and some others.. pretty much any x86 Unix.
Stallman, however, appears to be asking that it be viewable also by someone using a "pure" Free Software/GNU system, thus ruling out all of the above, including Real. I believe Apple's RTSP server is open source. Your problem will be in finding a player.
But as long as he didn't stipulate that the GNU-compliant solution be as good as the others or that it must be streamed, I guess you could just post an MPEG-1 video clip and let him download it. (I'm assuming here that Stallman will be the only person who will insist on watching it this way, so don't worry about bandwidth for a horde of people downloading the MPEG.)
This is a fair and thought-provoking thing for Stallman to ask for. I'm just not sure what his intended point is, since the GNU community is certainly free to write a streaming server, codec, and playback system under the GPL.
Re:Ask RMS (Score:1)
Comment removed (Score:4)
Re:What is the benefit of streaming? (Score:2)
I strongly agree! [insert random number of additional exclamation points here...]
Actually, I'd be quite happy just to find an RTSP-capable equivalent of wget, which would enable me to download clips to view at full quality later without any special work having to be done on the server side, but it appears nobody has done anything like this yet as far as I can tell. Something like this would let me pull down clips in Realvideo format (the only one www.atomfilms.com and many other sites offer that can be viewed on Linux it would seem) and watch them, regardless of the crappiness of my internet connection...
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"They have strategic air commands, nuclear submarines, and John Wayne. We have this"
Finally! (Score:1)
Finally, someone appearing on a "streamed" event has had clue enough to say, "Um, can the people interested in me actually see this?" I can't count the number of times I heard about an interesting streaming event and couldn't watch it because it was in some evolutionarly-dead-ended data format. I kinda like RealVideo as applications go, but it doesn't DO ME ANY FAVORS. Gimme, some streaming media I can see or hear on any platform.
Shoutcast [shoutcast.com] comes to mind for audio.
Re:Why not RealVideo? (Score:1)
I bet you think that intel machines are the only ones that run Linux.
-John
Think, then post
Re:just use MBONE. (Score:1)
Re:Finally! (Score:1)
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Re:Try (Score:4)
My google and freshmeat searches turn up
http://www.kom.e-technik.tu-darmstadt.de/kom-pl
http://freshmeat.net/projects/popcorn/
both can only handle mpeg1.
Article isn't quite correct. (Score:2)
I'm not sure if RMS' concern is about (1) GNU/Linux playability by any means or about (2) Free software usage.
If (1): Realplayer is available for GNU/Linux on at least x86 (and IIRC some other platforms too). A quick look at real's web site will tell you that.
If (2): Well, obviously you can't do anything that involves the RealVideo server, because it isn't Free software. Duh.
Hello, fact checking?
Re:What is the benefit of streaming? (Score:1)
I stream Kentucky's entire General Assembly session including committee and chamber meetings live using RealServer & RealProducer (for encoding). Once you begin to build an audience for such an event, you would be surprised how important people feel it is to watch events live. Also, archiving a large volume of events for people to download or stream is the real pain in the arse. My how 3-8 meetings a day for 2-3 months on end can wear down a guy supposedly hired as a web application developer! Harumph!
I support RMS's political statement, and here's why. RealServer/RealProducer to date does not allow me to schedule events for streaming or archiving. It basically is a throw the switch to start streaming and archiving type of system. I have expressed my need for some method of scheduling to RealNetworks numerous support calls and even to supposed Real developers at their conference in San Jose. That was a year ago, and I've heard no word. Lariat, another company I spoke with at the Real Conference last year, said they would have an scheduling application for use with RealServer/RealProducer available in July of 2000. It was December of 2000 before they released the software. Too late!
With nearly 200 meetings to stream at all times of the day for 2-3 months, I don't have the time to watch a video feed all day long and click a button to begin streaming and archiving. In dire need of a method to schedule events for streaming/archiving, I wrote a Perl module to work with a SQL database of events that are entered via a Web interface. It got me by despite the fact that we're running Windows NT on all our servers! No native CRON daemon! Ack!
Despite my manager and network admin being card-carrying Microsoftians, I probably could have pressured them into running an open source streaming video server. But there are none, and I think that may be RMS's motive behind his demand. I hope the open source community does not bahhumbug streaming media too much longer. Its importance to end users will continue to grow.
Finally, there is good news on the open source audio streaming front. Icecast [icecast.org] is an open source audio streaming server that continues to improve thanks to some talented programmers. Those in need of an audio only streaming solution should give it a look.
Re:Article isn't quite correct. (Score:1)
I'll give you a hint...
When you click on a link in "older stuff" and you see:
Posted by timothy on 27/03/01 0:40
Stop reading and press the "Back" button on your browser.
Try (Score:2)
I found it using Google [google.com].
skip RTSP, just use mpeg-1 (Score:1)
What is the benefit of streaming? (Score:3)
I wholeheartedly agree. I never saw a benefit of (not live) streaming media, especially at home over a dial-up. I'd rather wait 10 minutes while a 2 minute video clip downloads than watch the horribly crap-ified streamed version of the same clip. The supposed benefits of streamed media (It doesn't take up space on your hard drive) are a mute point when the price and size of today's disk drives are taken into effect. So what's the benefit? Is it simply that the producers of said media want to controll its distribution? If so, well, its working: not only do I not re-distribute streaming media, I don't watch it myself.
Re:Why not RealVideo? (Score:2)