[Live-devel] Can this be done reasonably?

[Derk-Jan Hartman]

On 03 aug 2004, at 21:45, Ross Finlayson wrote:
>> I am just beginning to look at Live.com's stuff. Several things are 
>> not clear.
>>
>> OS-X support seems to be secondary.
>
> Not at all.  All Unixes are supported equally.
>
>> How the heck do I view a stream from the samples? All are command 
>> lines and don't appear to have any gui attached.
>
> See <http://www.live.com/liveMedia/faq.html#custom>

As in liveMedia is a library, not an end product. On OS X, the closest 
to this is VLC media player (streamer). (which actually uses it's own 
implementation for being a RTSP server, but uses liveMedia for the 
client side of the story.

>> Are there any Xcode/Project Builder projects? Coming from the GUI 
>> world, doing command line building is somewhat alien (though I'm 
>> willing to try).
>
> The code is built using Makefiles (which, BTW, has been the standard 
> way to develop system software for at least 20 years).  Perhaps 
> "Xcode/Project Builder" has a way to import Makefiles, as Microsoft's 
> 'Visual Studio' does?  However, as you're developing system software 
> for Unix, you would be well advised to become familiar with Unix 
> command-line tools.

GUI is for pussies :)

>> Does the requirements list above seem reasonable to do from Live?
>> Is it necessary or easier to use the Darwin injector stuff, or can I 
>> avoid using the QTSS?
>
> You don't need to use a remote RTSP server (such as QTSS/Darwin), 
> because the LIVE.COM code has built-in RTSP server support.

So to get back to your original goal, i'll save you the trouble of 
looking into VLC, and just give you the lowdown.

> 1) Base platform to send from is Mac OSX 10.3+
Covered (though untested with Tiger)

> 2) I would like to send RTSP compliant feeds.
VLC can do this as long as you don't do trickplay etc. It should work 
well for live streams

> 3) > 1 simultaneous feed (multiple .sdp files)
VLC can do this in the development release.

> 4) I need to overlay information on each video feed (frame count, 
> clock, whatever)
Not yet possible, but since last night a whole lot closer. A new 
picture filter system is in place that will now allow us to do this. It 
only needs to be implemented

> 5) Full control over camera frame rate and resolution.
Well and here is the big problem. VLC doesn't support QuickTime 
external sources (camera, DVB, TV) input.

DJ



---
Universiteit Twente
Derk-Jan Hartman (d.hartman at student.utwente dot nl)
http://home.student.utwente.nl/d.hartman