[Live-devel] New RTSP client support for tunneling over HTTP

[Ross Finlayson]

The latest "LIVE.COM Streaming Media" software release now includes client 
support for streaming RTSP/RTP over HTTP, as described in Apple's document:
<http://developer.apple.com/documentation/QuickTime/QTSS/Concepts/chapter_2_section_14.html>

This makes it possible to receive RTSP/RTP streams over firewalls that 
allow only HTTP.  (To support this, the stream's RTSP server must also 
support the appropriate HTTP "GET" and "PUT" operations.  Note that the 
LIVE.COM RTSP server implementation does not yet support this - but it will 
in the future.  However, Apple's "Darwin Streaming Server" does support 
this - e.g., using port 8000 in addition to the usual RTSP ports 554 and 7070.)

I have also added a new option "-T <http-port-number>" to "openRTSP".  Note 
that if this option is used, the "-t" option (stream over TCP) is not 
needed (because it's implied).  Also, any port number in the "rtsp://" URL 
will be ignored.

A note to Derk-Jan and the other VLC developers: It would now be possible 
for VLC to do what QuickTime Player and RealPlayer does: Automatically 
figure out the correct transport to use for RTSP/RTP streams.  E.g., it 
could do the following:
	1/ Try regular RTP/UDP streaming, but if no data is received within N seconds,
	2/ Try instead with RTP/TCP streaming, but if no data is received within M 
seconds,
	3/ Try instead with  RTP/HTTP/TCP streaming, on various HTTP ports: 80, 
8000, 8080, 554, 7070

Thanks to Orban/CRL Inc. and WIS Technologies for funding this work.

	Ross Finlayson
	LIVE.COM
	<http://www.live.com/>