[Live-devel] Live streaming MKV video

[Ross Finlayson]

> I am trying to make a live555 rtsp server which streams live MKV video. 

The phrase “streams live MKV video” doesn’t really make much sense, because ‘MKV’ is a filename suffix that’s used for Matroska-format files.

>From reading the rest of your email, I gather that you’re trying to pipe a Matroska-format file - as it’s being created - to our “testOnDemandRTSPServer” demo application, which can stream from from a Matroska-format file.  That won’t work, because when a server is streaming from a Matroska-format file, it has to demultiplex the video (and audio, if present) from it, and this demultiplexing involves seeking within the file, rather than just reading through the file sequentially.  But you can’t ‘seek’ within a pipe; that’s probably why you’re getting a crash.

As you discovered, you *can* pipe a media file to our server, but that will work only if the media file format is one (like “.h264”) that is read sequentially.

It doesn’t really make much sense to try to stream a Matroska-format file as it’s being created.  Instead, just create a raw video stream, and stream that.  (Or else have our server read and stream the discrete media frames, as described in our FAQ.)


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