Real Player Or Windows Media

[Hell Puppy]

Originally posted by Mutt@Nov 12 2002, 01:07 PM
art you can embed a WindowsMedia video file into a webpage and if the surfer has a fast connection it will stream off any web server meaning you don't need a special Windows Media server dedicated to providing real streaming. The OxCash and RKMedia sites don't have streaming media servers, just plain old html pages with wmv files embedded in them.

I think it's kinda cheesey, lord knows they are making enough money to have dedicated streaming servers.

When Windows Media first came out it was impossible to protect your streaming server from anybody who found out its address. Now there are ways to keep them out.

Mutt,

Right. You can plop a wmv file into html, and it'll work. But at that point you're downloading a video file and playing it back just like an mpeg. You're not actually streaming.

There are lots of advantages to a streaming server on both sides. It'll adjust to the speed between the server and user. And unlike downloading, you can skip forward or backward without downloading the whole thing first.

The problem isn't really cost. You can get the microsoft MMS free. However, in this industry most of us are running Unix. Only game in town there is Real's Helix server which does cost a decent chunk. They've released it to open source though as of last month, so there might be some interesting stuff coming down the pipe.