iPhone Streaming

I started by looking at this site which explained a way to stream to iOS devices using HTTPStreaming and in particular adaptive HTTP Streaming. This tutorial was however out of date, like many I had found either VLC was many version behind the current or the software used to segment the stream no longer existed.

Since version 1.2 (now in version 2.0.1) VLC has been able to create HLS live streams as part of its core streaming functionality, this function though I have found to be poorly documented as it is very similar to the standard progressiveHTTP Streaming module.

Stream Requirements

• A Video or Stream Source
• VLC –  dummy or web interface
• A webserver, Apache or similar

You used to also require the mediastreamsegmentator from Apple, however a version of this software has now been written into the core of VLC after the Unwired Developer created a module for VLC back in early 2010 to help streamline the process, this module has since become core functionally of VLC.

The Working VLC Code

The code below is the final code that I used to start VLC into dummy mode from the command line, then transcode and re-stream the incoming stream or video file.

/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC -v -I "dummy" rtsp://media-us-2.soundreach.net/slcn_sports.sdp  :sout="#transcode{vcodec=h264,vb=512, venc=x264{aud,profile=baseline,level=30,keyint=30,bframes=0,ref=1,nocabac},acodec=mp3,ab=96} :std{access=livehttp{seglen=10,delsegs=true,numsegs=5, index=/Applications/MAMP/htdocs/iPhone/stream.m3u8, index-url=stream-########.ts}, mux=ts{use-key-frames}, dst=/Applications/MAMP/htdocs/iPhone/stream-########.ts"

The first bold item is the incoming stream, for this I used a random RTSP stream I found online for testing, This can be replaced with a file that you wish to stream “as live”, there is also another option in this code to allow “On-Demand” videos to be created like this, but I will go into that another day.

The second bold (index=) item is telling VLC the file path of where it should store the “playlist”, the file that controls the stream, and the one you link to in the video players.

Screen Shot - Many Code Attempts

The third bold (index-url=) item is telling it how to link the .ts (Transport Stream) files in relation to the playlist file, in most cases these are stored in the same location, which means I only had to provide the file name of the stream files. The #### signifies a number which is auto generated by VLC with each file.

The fourth and final bold (dst=) item is telling VLC where to store the .ts files and what to call them, this is that system file path, similar to the index= above, including the filename.

On the right you can see the many code variations I went through first to come up with the winning combo above. The above code still needs a few tweaks to find the optimised quality to bit rate, and also a few tweaks to the number of .ts files created. Each .ts file holds approx. 10 seconds of video, and after 5 have been created it deletes the oldest and replaces it with the next 10seconds of footage, this currently allows for 40seconds or so of rewind during a live show.

Distrubution

To distribute HLS or AdaptiveHTTP streams is quite simple, in its simplest form all you require is a web server (Apache, Nginx, IIS) and a webpage with the <video> tag.

Mime Types however are critical and are not set as standard for most web servers, these simple flags are enough to break a stream that is otherwise behaving perfectly. To find out more about mime’s have a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME

Configure the following MIME types for HTTP Live Streaming:

File Extension	MIME Type
.M3U8	application/x-mpegURL orvnd.apple.mpegURL
.ts	video/MP2T

If your web server is constrained with respect to MIME types, you can serve files ending in .m3u with MIME type audio/mpegURL for compatibility.

 

The above quote came direct from the apple HLS Developers Site here.

For Apache systems its as simple as creating a .htaccess in the site’s folder or editing the main httpd.conf with the following two lines:

AddType application/x-mpegURL    .m3u8
AddType video/MP2T    .ts

OR

AddType audio/mpegURL     .m3u
AddType video/MP2T    .ts

Busted iPhone - No Way to get back to Safari via Touch Control's

This then tell’s the client that the file is video and in a mpeg transport stream, which allows it to process it accordingly. Without one of these MIME flags being set, a .m3u8 file is classed as text/plain and all you load is a 10+ line document with reference links, no video.

Also without the MIME type’s being set you can end up with a black screen on the iPhone Safari, the only way to get out of this black screen is to fully exit Safari and then stop it before it loads or Exit Safari and stop the web server, this then forces an error on the iPhone and allows you to navigate the control’s again.

The Web Page

The webpage I used for this test was extremely simple, and included two lots of the <video> tag. The top set was a reference file that can be found on apple developer site, and the bottom one was the stream from my mac.

<html>
  <head>
    <title>HTTP Live Streaming Example</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <video src="http://devimages.apple.com/iphone/samples/bipbop/bipbopall.m3u8" controls></video>
     <br/>
     <br/>
     <br/>
    <video src="http://10.0.0.3:8080/iPhone/stream.m3u8" controls> </video>
  </body>
</html>

The above code and system works flawlessly on an iOS 5.1.1 and OSx 10.7.3 (Safari 5.1.5).

A rough idea of the new set and lighting - Pre Final Focus

This week we have been a part of Snake Pit, the Easter school held at Ravensbourne for years 10,11,12, and 13 from local schools. For this event we provided a lighting plot and its associated rig, and then left it to be programmed and operated by Martin Higgins. The rig was fairly simple yet another experimentation ground for all involved, the Lighting plot included some extremely new fixtures (Mac AURA’s) as well as some older generation LED and Moving Lights (Chormastrips and Mac 250′s).

The majority of the lighting rig was LED with the back-wall wash, audience and truss being illuminated by LED. Source 4′s provided the the main key and fill lights for the 3 judges with the back light provided by 1k Pup’s, the Mac 250′s provided the key, fill and back light for the contestants as well as effects.

The Christie Projector shown in the photo was not used during the performance and was only on during the rig and de-rig to allow music to be played out of the house system.

Check out some of the photos from the event below:

More can be found on our facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fluxity-Lighting/101581459918126

The events main supply was from a single 125A 3ph which was then split down to two 63A 3ph supplies, before being split down to individually protected 16amp circuits for each stall. This gave us plenty of protection against overloads as well as surges and faults. The system has fault protection at 3 levels before it tripped out the whole event, each 16A feed has its own RCD, each group of 18, 16A sockets had there own 63A 3ph MCB protection and the whole event had 125A 3ph RCD and MCB protection at supply and in distribution.

The bulk of the event was cabled using 6 way 2.5mm SOCA with Fan in’s and fan outs at each end, this provided an easy rig and de rig with only 6 SOCA’s being run out to the required locations, and only 3m and 5m 16A extensions to provide final distribution from the fan outs.

Each stall could pull up to 16A with out tripping the individual circuit , but if all 25 had pulled the full 16A, they would have tripped out the incoming breakers as the supply is only protected at 125A 3PH, but 25 stalls all at maximum load would pull 133.3A per phase. Due to the fact that most stall’s were only running a laptop and possibly a tv or small projector, this limit will never be reached, even if a few stalls do draw the maximum available.

During the event today we took some current readings on our main distro and each phase was so low it was unreadable on the meter and the meter’s range was from 50A to 200A.

Today also used the exact kit we have specified for the upcoming 3D Storytelling Conference in late March, and provided a useful insight into any problems we may come across when we rig the next event, in the same space.

Photos after the break:

Stickaid2011

This weekend has been a very long yet fun weekend working on Stickaid 2011 with SilverLine Media, at Ravensbourne University, North Greenwich. Stickaid is a 24 hour broadcast streamed live onto Stickam.com and Youtube.com and this year it came from Ravensbourne, with the help of SilverLine providing the stream and many Ravensbourne students filling rolls from Camera Operators to Sound Supervisors to Editing and many more. The students that helped out over the weekend came from all year groups with some only 3 day’s into there courses.

Scott and Russell from Fluxity were originally brought in on Thursday and Friday to rig the events lighting and power. This job turned out to be over complicated due to some poor planning and communication from all parties involved. The rig should have taken only 8-10hours to complete but had to be completely re-worked to overcome the lack of correct power and distribution.

At 5pm on Friday afternoon Tom also joined the frustrated rigging team to assist in finalising some decisions and to get the rig moving again. The rig was finally completed at approximately 11.45pm on the Friday, with only a quick focus and program to be completed in the two hours before the 12Midday Broadcast start. Programming was completed during the first couple of hours of broadcast by Charlie Fox and Scott.

Fluxity Lighting was kept on call during the event for power and other related problems, and we are very pleased to report that we didn’t receive a single call, and the system was stable and survived the full 24hours.

Scott, Tom and Russell turned up at about 11am on Sunday for the De-rig that was due to begin at about 12.15pm. Between the three of us we had all of the lighting power and staging out of the rig and Ravensbourne back to how it was, in just under 6 hours, in a very relaxed yet steady de-rig.

All in all a long weekend in which we helped raise over £17000 for Unicef. It’s not too late to Donate still, just click on the logo above.

Here’s what Elliot from SilverLine Media had to say about working with Fluxity, over this last weekend:

Scott, Russell and in the end Tom, helped us Thursday, Friday and when I honestly thought that we weren’t going to have the lights going or anything, 2 hrs before TX they made it all happen.  Thank you so much guys, especially for dealing so well with my screw ups and then the de-rig on Sunday!

Over the past couple of day’s I have been playing around with Xcode and Quartz Composer, both of which are very powerful developer tools for the Mac and iOS platforms.  This very simple ScreenSaver is the product of about 20mins work playing with Quartz Composer.

The scene shown by my webcam wasn’t very interesting but it gives you the idea of its capability, when loaded as a full screensaver, it also shows the time in various locations. Any feedback is welcome, I’m still just playing with the software, and any thing you would like to see improved or changed, drop me a comment and I’ll see what I can do.

Installation and System Requirements

Installation is very simple process, consisting of copying the 3D Webcam.qtz file from the zip to “MAC-HARD-DRIVE/System/Library/Screen Savers”. Once the file has copied, go to the ScreenSavers menu in System Preferences, and choose “3D Webcam” and Enjoy.

This ScreenSaver has only been tested on a MacBook Pro running 10.6.6, however it should run on any Mac running 10.5.1+. Please note, running this ScreenSaver on battery power, will drain the batteries quite fast (approx. 1hour continuos)

Download

3D Webcam ScreenSaver 1.0.0 Mac

3D Webcam Cube 2.0.0 MAC

UPDATE:

Version 2 is up – This version is only a minor update with a couple of improvements:

• The cube is now slightly smaller
• The cube now rotates slightly slower
• The cube now also moves around the screen, preventing black screen burn.

Just take a look at my Facebook gallery, if you don’t believe how much snow we have had.

Due to the snow in the South East of London, and the lack of transport available, Rave decided to cancel the Industry day, that was scheduled for today. This was a good thing for me as if it had gone ahead I wouldn’t have been able to make it, due to the lack of trains and the fact that the car is also snowed in!

This morning we had a practical tv systems and signals lecture with John Palmer. We looked into termination of video signals, and why it was important. which was an interesting lecture. and it surprised alot of us, how much the signal changed based on if it was terminate or unterminated.

At the end of this lecture, the snow was still falling and I was now dreading trying to get home.

Another Electronics Practical in the afternoon, and the snow was still falling, by this time, my dad had phoned me to say we now had nearly a foot at Petts Wood, and that it will be hard trying to get home.

I finally left uni at 5pm, and got to Lewisham via the Jubilee Line and DLR with no Problems. Lewisham had still only 2-3 inches of snow and trains were running ok, into London. MY train arrived about 10-minuets late and was said to be fast to Orpington, which was fine for me, just meant a slightly longer walk back.

We Pulled out of Lewisham and moved slowly down to Hither Green, where we stopped and the opened the doors. This wouldn’t have happened if we had been the true fast service that they had said in Lewisham. We had stopped because there were 5 other trains in front of us trying to reach the South East, all being blocked by one train that had broken down at Petts Wood.

After 3 hours of very slow moving and long waits at stations we finally made it to Petts Wood, the snow is in deed over a foot deep, and there are only two lines out of the usual 4 the could just about be used. Walking back from Petts wood station was just as dangerous, with next to no grip on the compacted snow.

I don’t think, I’ll be going to uni anytime soon.

Avid, Avid, Avid, where do I begin, It’s hard to say I liked it, because I didn’t, and the truth be told I don’t think I will be finding much time to edit using it. It’s handy to know the basics and it’s little quirks with the Rave MAM System. This little bits of knowledge will help me troubleshoot problems with the software if required, at a later date.

Patching

Patching was an interesting, yet small session, aim at teaching me on how to route signals around the ravensbourne building. There’s not much more than that i can say about it.

Without Time Code, editing the shot footage, is near impossible, especially when you are trying to sync up two different shots of the same pice of action up. For theses sorts of cuts to be smooth, the Time Code also needs to be synced between all the cameras that are recording.

Working with Rolly today has been interesting and light hearted session, we used a simple interview set-up to practice recoding to a Location Camera, for this simple shoot we teamed up with the location Sound Group.

Looking at these roles and listening into to talkback of some recently recorded shows, gave me a look at how teams work together and how much is actually scripted, including all camera shots, tracks, how long the presenter talks and more. Listening to the talkback also gave a clear indication to myself and the group, how much teamwork is actually involved in creating the final show the viewer watches.

With lighting already being my specialist subject, after transferring from a theatre environment, I found I was only looking out for the differences between live theatre and live broadcast. The main difference i found was the huge requirement for Backlight, this isn’t such a requirement in theatre world.

Other little tips and tricks I have picked up from today, include:

• 3 Point Lighting / The importance of shadows
• How to use a Pantograph
• The idea of bouncing a hard light of something white to create a large soft light

Today we looked at optical fibre links and how they now power the internet age that is now upon us. The amazing power of fibre is slowly being understood with new theoretical limits being constantly found, the current tested theoretical limit could handle the worlds current internet and phone traffic, and more in a single fibre.

Fibre’s are the back bone the UK broadcast industry, as they link all the Studio Centers with the 1000+ Transmission sites in the UK. The Fibre links are mission critical for all Analogue and Freeview transmission, as they provide the 17 Main and 1000 “Fill” UHF Transmitters, with the signal to broadcast.

Electronics

Starting with the basics over the last few lectures, we looked into the fundamentals of Electronics, this included:

• The Atom
• Charge
• Voltage
• Current

Most of this I had covered previously in at A Level, but these lectures stood as a handy recap. Over these lectures we also covered Resistance, Power, and Capacitance, all at a fundamental level, to provide the building blocks for later lectures.

Tv Systems & Signals

Tv Systems and Signals is a completely new unit for most of us on the course. with these first couple of lectures covering the very basics, starting with the Broadcast Chain and The EM Spectrum. Both topics although basic provided me with a huge insight into the broadcast world and how its not as simple as just watching TV makes it seem. This small insight into the industry has spurred me on to find out as much as I can about being a Broadcast Engineer

Welcome to my new blog, this blog will hopefully contain daily reports of what I’m currently doing at Uni and as a Freelancer. This blog is not only a good record of what I have been learning over the next few months, it will also highlight some key projects that I’ve been working on.

Blog posts will be all categorized under news, with them also being categorized by Project / Lecture. This will not only keep the blog organized, it will also help me when I’m referencing back to it later for my IPP (Industry and Professional Practice) Report, which this will forma a huge part of.

IPP is a unit on my Broadcast Technology Degree, that is designed to teach us about how the industry works, as well as some basic transferable skills including Team Working and CV Writing. As part of the unit we have to create a Reflective Blog, this blog should be created on the Maharh Blogging tool, but as this is not currently functional, I have decided to create this one on my website. At a later date, I will transfer the content over to the required software.

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