QuickTime Streaming

[AtHomeBoy_2000]

I need some help with streamin a QuickTime video. I work for a church and we are looking to add video content to our webpage. Being a Mac user, QuickTime movies is the most logical. however, to make it easier on people visiting the website, I'd prefer to stream the video. HOWEVER, we do not have a QuickTime streaming server. Is this an ABSOLUTE requirement or is there someway I can stream it without a special server?

 

[numediaman]

I may be crazy, but I don't believe you need to stream QT.

Just create a link to the QT file on your web site. If users right click the file it will download to their desktop. But if they simply click the link the file will be opened by QT and will begin to play as soon as it has buffered enough data.

An easy way to create a nice link is to have a picture of the first image of your QT move, then have the picture be the hot link to the QT file -- this simulates the effect of having a built-in player.

 

[Texas04]

No you dont need a "quicktime streaming server" the movie should just stream. The only trouble i've had with my site on the PC side is whenever they just click the link, it opens up in their IE, and does not stream, It waits to download the whole thing. But when they open it up embedded in a webpage, it works just fine. If you have acess to a PC here is an example
http://vicssite.o-wh.com/eggroll.html
vs.
http://vicssite.o-wh.com/eggroll.mov

 

[amorphic8]

Yes, you do need the QuickTime Streaming Server to 'Stream'

No you dont need a "quicktime streaming server" the movie should just stream. The only trouble i've had with my site on the PC side is whenever they just click the link, it opens up in their IE, and does not stream, It waits to download the whole thing. But when they open it up embedded in a webpage, it works just fine. If you have acess to a PC here is an example
http://vicssite.o-wh.com/eggroll.html
vs.
http://vicssite.o-wh.com/eggroll.mov

What you're talking about is Progressive downloading, not streaming. In progressive download, the movie actually downloads to the client computer (even if only in the browser cache) whereas when streaming, no data touches the client's hard drive.

AtHomeBoy_2000 could probably do fine using progressive download... it will most likely suit his needs and does not require the QTSS... He should, however, license a copy of QuickTime Pro...then take his movies and export them as 'fast start.' This will ensure that the files will begin to play even as they are being downloaded (progressive download).

Texas04, the reason that your movies are probably not progressively downloading properly is that:
1. perhaps you didn't export them as 'fast start'
2. your HTML code in the example that you posted is incomplete in so far as having the movie play from within a page. As a matter of fact, when I looked at your source code, I was amazed that the movie played at all.

What both of you want to do for progressive download is something like this:

<object classid="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" width="480" height="276" codebase="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab#version=6,0,2,0">
                 <param name="controller" VALUE="TRUE">
                 <param name="type" VALUE="video/quicktime">
                 <param name="autoplay" VALUE="true">
                 <param name="target" VALUE="myself">

                 <param name="src" value="the_path_to_your_movie_goes_here">
                 <param name="pluginspage" value="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/index.html">
                 <embed width="480" height="276" controller="TRUE" target="myself" src="the_path_to_your_movie_goes_here" type="video/quicktime" pluginspage="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/index.html"> </embed>
            </object>

Notice that there is an <object> element which has an <embed> element nested within it. The <object> and it's attributes are for the ActiveX component of IE Windows...all other browsers will only use the code between the <embed></embed>.

Also note that there are other parameters that can be set... this is just a basic movie embed that shows the controller and plays automatically.

You can copy and paste this code directly into your web page, then put the filepath to your QuickTime movie for the 'src' parameter in the <object/> and the 'src' attribute of the <embed/>.

The classid, codebase, and pluginspage are all set for using QuickTime, so there's no need to change those.

You may also need to adjust the height and width to the size of your movie. REMEMBER to add 16 pixels to the height of you movie if you want the controller to be seen fully (Texas04, yours was a little cut off)...

Now if you really are interested in true streaming, then you need to export your movies as 'hinted' movies and place them on the streaming server. Then you create a metafile to the streamed address that will begin with

rtsp://

(real time streaming protocol) instead of

http://.

...
But like I said above, progressive download is probably sufficient and doesn't require a Streaming Server. Just be aware, that the file will eventually download to your client's machine.

For more information about this visit: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/embed.html

 

[djsound]

from the sounds of it he probably wanted it to stream live.

I am trying to do the same thing but wondering if the server can be any computer seperate from my encoding computer..