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 This tutorial was however out of date, like many I had found either VLC was many version behind the current or the software used to segment the stream no longer existed.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.

The event itself was on the 22nd and 23rd of march and consisted of a few main spaces. These main spaces were the Primary Lecture Space, this also doubled as a realD Cinema, an Exhibition Space on Level 4, a Secondary Lecture room in 212/213 and a 3D Games room in 209/10.

Way-finding for the event was assisted by colour coding the individual floors, with the same or similar colours being used on the banners and event guides. This involved gel’ing nearly 300 separate lamps ranging from standard florescent tubes to small circle spots, this itself took nearly 2 day’s on and off between 4 people. But the effect achieved, certainly enhanced the buildings character as well as completed the objective to make way-finding as easy as possible.

Along with colour coding each floor I decided to stick with the theme of colour and light the Ground Floor and Level 4 atrium walls, this was achieved with some success, through the use of 4 Studio Due, City Colours per floor. During the day these were fairly effective at colouring the walls with certain colours working a lot better than others, mainly due to the sun and the great big white tent across the road, called The O2, both helping to wash out the efforts of the City Colours. The ground floor atrium’s city colours were also used during the after event networking and this is where they really performed and brought the building to life.

I also used two Clay Paky Alpha Spot 1200HPE’s per floor to provide a break up to the solid wall of colour. This could have been very effective with a little bit more programming and timing between all fixtures. The lack of time partially came from the 1/2 day it took to get the Clay Paky’s up and running, due to a simple fault/menu which prohibited the lamp from fully striking, once this was solved they individually outperformed 2 or more of the City Colours, and were very easy fixtures to use and program.

The Alpha Spots and City Colours, were two new fixtures for me and this event was the first time I had used either of them. We had some initial trouble positioning the City colours due to there planned location (Level 4 Balcony) being designated a fire lane and a new location being sought rapidly to cover the same wall. The new compromised location’s were on Level 1 and Mezz in 3 spread out locations. This caused a few focus issues, but the final results was better than originally planned with the new positions uplighting the wall, creating a far better look from the ground floor, which originally would have been quite shadowy with all the deep circle windows.

The Walker Space, which was the main Lecture space and realD Cinema, used a completely generic rig consisting of pars, pups, and source 4′s. The main goal was to provide a dark theatre like space that kept in theme with the ground floor of the building. The walls were washed pink and originally had a slightly darker pink break-up on top. Due to complaints of inadequate light from the hospitality team the breakups were refocused from the walls onto the seating and the gel was removed, this provided some speckled white light in the room between lectures.

Overall I’m fairly happy with the outcome of this project however there is a lot I would change such as:

• More audience lighting in the Walker Space
• 1k’s or Strand Coda Floods for the wall wash
• Checking Gel’s before purchase, from swatch and not relying on the Lee Filter’s Website
• Possibly Top Hat’s on the Source 4′s to stop glare for the presenters
• Black Wrap or Source 4′s as backlight to remove the spill onto the realD screen
• Lighting columns or spot locations by day and whole walls by night
• Having more time to program and adjust programming

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:

This Fly Away was created using any available kit that we found on Level 9, then using the time in our 208 and 204 lectures to design and build the system with the help of James Uren and the rest of the BET Pathway. After an initial brain storm and specification  we came up with a simple system that consisted of:

• 7 SD Cameras
• 1 VT Deck
• 1 16 Channel Vision Mixer
• 1 16×1 Router
• CTP and Jack Field
• 3 Digital DA’s – 1 Analogue DA in the Fly Away
• 8 Digital DA’s – 4 Digital to Analogue Converters in the Monitor Stack
• 10 Monitors
• 1 Large Engineering Monitor
• 1 Test Pattern Genorator
• 2 Wave Form Monitors

The initial brainstorm and scribbled drawing was then drawn up, neatly, onto a large A1 sheet of paper, along with a Cable Schedule and CTP / Jack Field layouts. This large Drawing was then attached to the side of the rack and used as a reference throughout the rest of the project.

After the project was completed on Tuesday (22/11/2011) we were required as part of our Hardware Systems unit (204) to draw up a full CAD in AutoCad based on the same layers and components that were used to create the CAD’s for the main system in Ravensbourne. This exercise was designed to teach us how to use CAD to create Technical Drawings as well as be confident in reading and updating existing drawings. A screen shot of mine can be found on the right, with a PDF copy of the final cad available for download below.

The technical drawing we had to create was in fact two drawings of two separate systems which interacted closely with each other. The first was the main Fly Away, which was a single rack with all the processing and routing required, and the second was of the Monitor Stack which was required to make the Rack work. This is a major problem with the system as it require one part to work to make the rest work, whilst also doubling the amount of video connections in and out of the rack. However these problems were only noticed after the initial and were not a problem in this project as the monitor stack and rack were being built side-by-side at the same time.

Having so many connection to and from the rack also opened up another problem, which could simply be caused by confusion during the connection of the rack to the video sources and the monitor stack. This confusion could lead to video being sent the wrong way into the system, which could cause damage to equipment, or for example a Camera could be fed into one of the ENG inputs, thus it would appear to work fine on the router but it would have completely bypassed the monitor stack and more importantly the Vision Mixer.

Above I talked about just a few of the problems with last weeks Fly Away, in time I may look into re-drawing the Technical Drawing to alleviate some of the faults mentioned, and when I have re-drawn a new version of the system I will post a comparison between the two.

Download an A1 PDF of my Technical Drawing Here.
Download a PDF copy of my Cable Schedule Here.

So to start with today I started with the obvious:

• The SDP file in a RTSP stream – Testsed using VLC and Quicktime prior to JW Player, to test it was still streaming.
• JW Player (Flash and HTML5)
• Some patience

As you can see the RTSP protocol is only supported by Android Devices, as well as many Software Based Media Players such as Quicktime, VLC and Windows Media Player. I haven’t tested iOS 5 with RTSP yet, it could possibly work, as iOS uses a stripped down version of Quicktime and Safari.

This leaves me with two options:

• 1 x Cisco DME 1000 (Stream Encoding)
• 1 x Sound Desk (Tone Generation)
• 1 x Composite Signal Generator
• 1 x Picture Monitor (Live View)
• 2 x MacBook Pro Laptops (Stream ReEncoding and Viewing)

Now the website is designed, built and is stable, I will hand over the content management to the other two members of the interactive team for this event, This frees myself to carry on looking into IP streaming and how to make it possible with the kit currently available at Ravensbourne.

Today we found out we will actually be working towards two events, one test event in November 2011 and the other main event in June 2012. We also decided on our roles for the events, I 1/2 decided and was 1/2 allocated the Head of Interactive Media, which mainly entails creating IP Steams, Social Media and other cool interactive items.

IP Streams

My first big challenge is going to be getting my head around IP Streams and hows they integrate with HTML and the rest of the Broadcast Transmission Chain.

Today I started playing around with Quicktime Broadcaster for Mac OS X and my inbuilt iSight Webcam as the live video source. Thing started off smoothly, until my mac crashed. I did manage to get a low quality stream to Quicktime to my Windows PC but this was very limited in performance Maxing out at 15frames per second and for only short bursts (10-15 Seconds before crashing the Mac), which made it pretty useless.

Initial Todo List for the November Event

• Look into other Encoders and Streaming Servers
• Look into what is already available at Rave to Stream
• Look into how to link into the Rave Transmission Chain
• Create a Dynamic Website with Customised Content, by the Exhibitors
• Link Social Media into the Website
• Combine the Stream and the Website
• Possibly add mobile compatible Website/Stream. 

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!

Sorry for the lack of update recently, just been so busy with loads of mini uni projects, including London Live and GCSE exams back at my old school and catching up on uni coursework and lectures.

The missed lectures and course were caused by Martins absence and other missed lectures due to the snow. To catch these up missing lectures we have been pulling extra sessions on day’s we normally have free, and where i would normally update my blog.

This weekend I have been working again with Ben Blake and Sarah Louise Ings on her latest Music Video. This weekend has been a strange one, and once again i wasn’t given any information about the director and the musicians vision until the day. This then again put me on the spot to come up with an adaptable lighting design thats sticks with the vision and looks good on camera.

I’m happy with the end result and am now waiting for them to edit the video and when its released I will post a few clips on here.

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.

Today’s lecture was quite mismatched as he was just reading from the notes, and explaining the bits we did not understand, this still didn’t give us the full reason / story behind timecode and why we use it. I feel they could have gone into more depth on how it works technically and why its so crucial.

Presentations skills are also key to getting work, as how you present yourself to a future employer is critical, as they say first impressions last. Presentations skills are also key for Producers and Operations students, when pitching there ideas to networks, and financiers.

The rig finally consisted of:

• 8 x 1k Fresnel’s
• 3 x 2k Fresnel’s
• 4 x 575w Profiles
• 4 x Mac 250 Entours
• 4 x Parcan’s

The shoot went well after a shaky start, we had some problems with blown lamps and damaged sockets, restricting out pantograph positions, and also the available lighting stock. I’m happy with the outcome of the of the day, and some of the effect created, photo’s to follow.

Today and Yesterday, I was asked to help out on the hospitality side of the event, providing assistance to delegates and generally keeping the event running smoothly. Yesterday started off as a very cold morning stood in North Greenwich Tube station, in just a T-Shirt, providing directions towards Ravensbourne. The day got slowly better, as I came in after about 2 hours in the cold, to provide Wi-Fi Assistance up on the 4th floor. This new role gave me a chance to learn more about the Ravensbourne network and how to troubleshoot it’s problems on mac and windows.

Today was a bit better, and defiantly a lot warmer, started out in the Walker space as one of the 4 Hospitality team in there making sure the audience were in and out at the correct times as well as providing general assistance to lost delegates. Working in the Walker Space had a huge advantage over other locations as it meant I could see all the fabulous 3D Content that was on show and see how it was being used to portray released and up and coming stories. The walker space is pictured to the right.

At the end of today, as the delegates were networking over in Union Square, we started the de-rig and had the huge task of turning Ravensbourne back into a working uni.

Today I was originally just the lighting assistant, but in the end with my previous lighting experience, I took over as the lighting director, coming up with the design, and assisting with the rigging.

This morning we got the bulk of the design rigged with in 40 mins of arrival, but after that, we struggled with a few flown lanterns and  dimmer channels. the dimmer channels were a major issue as they didn’t allow me to have lights where I required them.

These little issues pushed us slightly behind schedule, but we’ve learnt from them, and now know faster ways to rig in the studio, and other little niggles that are present.