[Live-devel] Frame drop in TCP mode

[Ross Finlayson]

There is no bug here.  The problem is that your incoming stream(s) are exceeding the capacity of your network (which is often a lot less than the nominal bit rate of your network adaptor(s)).  If you try to stream at a rate that exceeds the capacity of your network, then you *will* experience packet loss.  Streaming over TCP will not (and cannot) overcome this.  (In fact, it makes the problem worse.  You should stream over TCP *only if* you have a firewall - between your server and client - that blocks UDP packets.  Otherwise you should do regular streaming over UDP.)

This confuses many people who are relatively new to the Internet, because most people's exposure to the Internet these days is solely via the World-Wide Web (HTTP), in which data never arrives faster than the receiver can process it.  But datagram-based applications are different, and unfortunately many people these days - who think that the World-Wide Web is the entire Internet - don't appreciate this.  They try using the LIVE555 code and then, when they see network data loss for the first time in their life, mistakenly think that the LIVE555 code has to be to blame.


Ross Finlayson
Live Networks, Inc.
http://www.live555.com/