[Live-devel] media streaming and random access

[Jim Ham]

I'm still having trouble getting a stream to play after moving the 
slider in VLC. If I play from the beginning and don't touch the slider, 
all works.

I have a video queued now that I ripped from a DVD with ffmpeg using the 
following command (Linux):
cat /mnt/dvd/VIDEO_TS/VTS_0*_*VOB | ffmpeg -i - -c:v libx264 -crf 13 -g 
30 Tanya.mkv

I believe this sets the key frames to 1 per second. The resulting mkv 
file is about 60% of the size of the DVD image.

You can see what happens yourself: 
<rtsp://margotandjim.com:8554/Tanya.mkv> If I play this file directly 
(not streamed), it works fine.

I've tried transcoding with both Handbrake and ffmpeg - results are the 
same. They probably are both using the same .264 library. I've tried 
transcoding on two different machines just in case the hardware was 
making some difference. But no, all the same. I've tried serving with 
two different machines - also no difference. Bottom line - it sure looks 
to me as if the Live555MediaServer has a problem moving to a random 
place in a video.

It appears that the server jumps to the right location, and plays the 
first second correctly. Then it starts jumping ahead at regular 
intervals. Maybe it's jumping from key frame to key frame?

I'm really sorry to see this as the media server fits what I want to do 
almost perfectly. So - can I help? Although I've worked for years 
professionally using C and C++ in a Linux environment, I have zero 
experience with video or video servers. Still, maybe with some help... 
Let me know.

Best regards,

Jim Ham
-- 
Porcine Associates LLC
244 O'Connor St.
Menlo Park, CA 94025
USA
+1(650)326-2669 fax +1(650)326-1071