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Networking (Apple) Businesses Apple Hardware

Darwin Streaming Server Beats Real, Windows Media 416

Posted by pudge from the apple-qa-people-are-superior dept.
pinqkandi writes "Network Computing recently ran an extensive shootout of video streaming servers, in areas from setup to quality to buffering times. The free, open source Darwin Streaming Server, which streams QuickTime content, edged out costly and closed source Windows Media & RealVideo streaming systems." Well, it edged out Real. It blew Microsoft away.
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Darwin Streaming Server Beats Real, Windows Media More

Darwin Streaming Server Beats Real, Windows Media

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  • Hmm... Too bad Quicktime isn't open source. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Friday March 15, 2002 @10:18AM (#3168061)
    There are ways to make quicktime videos without purchasing Quicktime pro, but most of them don't work very well, or use older versions of the quicktime mpeg4 based/inspired codec.

    Can the darwin streamer be used to stream any other kind of media?

    Tarkin support? Tarkin? Tarkin, anyone?

    • Re:Hmm... Too bad Quicktime isn't open source. (Score:5, Informative)

      by znu ( 31198 ) <znu.public@gmail.com> on Friday March 15, 2002 @10:43AM (#3168205)
      Darwin Streaming Server can stream standard MPEG-4. Not much can actually be used to view such a stream, of course. Not even QuickTime; as has been mentioned on Slashdot, Apple is refusing to ship QuickTime 6 (which has full MPEG-4 support) until the MPEG-4 licensing people come to their senses.
    • What $30 for the ability to author content is too much for you to spare?

      Talk about cheap, I mean really. They _give_ you the server, and have the unmitigated gall to ask you to pay less than one dinner for two at a nice restaurant for the software that lets you author media for it. I'm certainly glad most open source advocates aren't the cheap bastards you appear to be. Well, at least I hope I'm wrong.
      • I don't think the point is 'Quicktime is expensive' I think the point is 'Quicktime is not opensource' The appeal of Opensource is not "It's free", it's "I can look at the source, I can modify the source, I can tweak the source, I can port the source to the platform of my choice and not be tied to what some company wants me to use."

        -Sara
      • The authoring isn't the problem. The playback is. Offering a system that doesn't play on Linux or FreeBSD (unless you count OS X as being FreeBSD), or anything else that's not Mac or Windows, is NOT a win for open source like the summary falsely claimed - it's using one open source project (the streaming server) to hamper another (the OS'es that can't do quicktime because Apple won't release the Sorensen Codec (and it would be illegal under DMCA to reverse engineer it nowadays even if you could figure out how {damn DMCA}.)

    • I'm already sick of hearing about "Tarkin" -- Not only does it have a stupider name than Ogg Vorbis (and that's saying something) but it doesn't even *exist* yet.

      How could there possibly be Tarkin support when it's completely a made up meme at this point?

      ~jeff
    • Quicktime is probably the best open source video streaming server out there today, maybe the only one. It shouldn't be too difficult to use it as a starting point and hack it (if that is what is required) to stream other formats.

      Another option is to leave it as it is and make sure your encoder and player are compatible with it.

      Take a look at the mpeg4ip project on sourceforge. Shame about the MPEG4 license though :(
    • Icecast mp3 compatability....is it only in 6? I know it exists though. Surely better documentation than icecast itself.

  • I'm glad, Real is bad. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by EnVisiCrypt ( 178985 ) <{moc.liamtoh} {ta} {tsiroehtevoorg}> on Friday March 15, 2002 @10:19AM (#3168068)
    Even if it only "edged out" Real in terms of streaming speed/whatever, it certainly blows the doors of Real in terms of quality.

    Their "fractal" algorithm or whatever they're calling it has been ready for retirement for the last 3 years. Can you say artifacting? Especially in medium to high motion scenes. At low bandwidth it's about the only way to go, but for broadband applications, it's just ugly.

    Not only that, but I'm glad to see another alternative in streaming media. More choices is inevitably better.
    • The fractal codec was ClearVideo from Interated Systems. It was deprecated as of QuickTime 3.0, which included the Vector Quantization based Sorenson Video. That in turn was replaced by the all-new, much much improved Sorenson Video 3 as of QuickTime 5.0.2 last summer.

      There is still a lot of lingering pre-SV3 content out there, but stuff made with the current versions is of enormously higher quality.

    • Not only THAT, but Real the company is a really slimy organization. (Their proximity to Microsoft seems to be rubbing off.)

      I recently signed up for the 14 day trial of "Real One" their new streaming service with supposedly special access to radio and video. Well the special programs are so limited as to be useless. So deciding it wasn't worth 10 bucks a month I went to cancel my account before the trial came up.

      Though you can sign up quite easily, you have to call to cancel the service. And of course their 1-800 number 1) Doesn't work from Spain where I'm living now and 2) is constantly busy - or puts you on hold for seemingly forever. Thus it cost me at least $20 in long distance to TRY to cancel my account - I haven't been able to do it yet.

      That's a REALLY slimy thing to do. Enticing users to sign up and then making it really difficult to quit the service. AOL pulls the same shit. Assholes.

      I'll NEVER ever recommend a Real product to anyone ever again.

      -Russ

  • Go.. everyone? (Score:5, Funny)

    by sporty ( 27564 ) on Friday March 15, 2002 @10:19AM (#3168069) Homepage
    Go opensource (darwin)! er.. closed source (quicktime)! er.. apple (the underdog)! er.. quicktime (best codec)!

    I think this is great.. but what political stance can a mass of angry/happy slashdotter's take on this??

  • long live darwin (Score:4, Funny)

    by I Want GNU! ( 556631 ) on Friday March 15, 2002 @10:19AM (#3168074) Homepage
    Darwin sounds really cool. Perhaps it will evolve to become #1? Survival of the fittest streaming servers definitely applies here.

  • Anyone else surprised? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RevAaron ( 125240 ) <`moc.liamtoh' `ta' `noraaver'> on Friday March 15, 2002 @10:20AM (#3168078) Homepage
    I admittedly have almost nil experience with streaming servers (or clients, for that matter) except for mp3 streams. I must say that I'm surprised that Apple's Darwin QTSS beat out Real and MS! Not bad for something open source and free. Didn't expect it, given my percieved relative unpopularity of it. Is it behind more sites that I seem to be noticing, or is it really a well-kept secret?

    • Re:Anyone else surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jon_c ( 100593 ) on Friday March 15, 2002 @10:46AM (#3168227) Homepage
      I've played with Darwin a bit, the thing to understand is there are a lot of peices to a 'media server'. There's a video encoder card (the oone they used was $2,000) and there's a encoder, like WMA, Real, or Sorenson. Once you put the video source and the encoder together you have a 'video source', which is what these media servers will 'serve' to the clients.

      You could think of Darwin as a amplifier, as it only does the TCP/IP server end, Real and Windows Media do the whole thing. It's also interesting that the auther credits Apple with having a such a wonderfull FREE product, but then lists the $250 Sorenson Media's Broadcaster and the $500 Sorenson 3 encoder ($499), not exactly free. While Real charges around 5k for the whole package and Microsoft charges nothing as it comes with Win2k.

      -Jon

      • Re:Anyone else surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by znu ( 31198 ) <znu.public@gmail.com> on Friday March 15, 2002 @10:57AM (#3168301)
        You only need all the extra stuff if you're doing live broadcasting. You don't need a $2000 video digitizing card; if you have a Firewire camcorder, you just need a $15 Firewire card (assuming you don't already have Firewire; a lot of hardware does these days, including everything from Apple). As for the rest, Apple has its own broadcasting program ready to ship as soon as the MPEG-4 licensing people come to their senses, so soon you won't need Sorenson Broadcaster or the Sorenson 3 Pro encoder. Apple's program will be free, but probably Mac-only. Still, it's going to be cheaper to buy a G4 to do your live digitizing than to pay the Real server tax.

      • I personally would be more comfortable with the model of paying for the hardware, or flat license rather than paying for per-stream charges. The Real server is per-stream licensed, so if you buy a 10k stream server, it's going to be far far far more than what you would pay for an encoder card. The encoder card is great in that it keeps the cpu usage down a bit and lets you stream more from your hardware rather than throwing more boxes at. it.

    • Re:Anyone else surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Phroggy ( 441 ) <slashdot3@@@phroggy...com> on Friday March 15, 2002 @02:19PM (#3169525) Homepage
      Not bad for something open source and free.

      Note that QTSS is NOT a project started by random open-source developers who wanted to play around; it's a project built and funded entirely by Apple, which chose to release it as open source after it was already running (it was previously called Darwin Streaming Server and was released before Mac OS X 1.0 shipped).

  • Great, but... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by flwombat ( 190748 ) <[jack] [at] [pinette.org]> on Friday March 15, 2002 @10:20AM (#3168080) Homepage
    This would be a lot cooler if *everything* about Quicktime were open (including codecs). It's pretty silly that I can run the streaming server on Linux but I have to go to Windows or Mac to view the content.

    • Re:Great, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by LoudMusic ( 199347 )
      I think that's the way it's going to be with most things for a while. Linux still doesn't have a standard for the desktop, but makes a powerful server solution. Windows, Mac OS, and OS X are the leaders in the home and the office at the desktop where this kind of application is presented.

      I think more software vendors will support Linux, or even have open source projects, when there is standardization on the Linux desktop.

      ~LoudMusic

    • Re:Great, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Havokmon ( 89874 ) <rick@NospAm.havokmon.com> on Friday March 15, 2002 @10:26AM (#3168116) Homepage Journal
      It's pretty silly that I can run the streaming server on Linux but I have to go to Windows or Mac to view the content.

      Ahh not entirely correct. Go grab Codeweavers Crossover Plugin 1.1. I currently run Opera 6 beta, on Mandrake 8.2 beta (and oh yeah, KDE3 beta :) and I'm able to view streaming Quicktime INDSIDE Opera.

      I was just expecting Netscape family support. So Opera really impressed me.

      I'll be sending out my $25/$30 for Crossover this weekend..

    • Re:Great, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by melatonin ( 443194 )
      It's pretty silly that I can run the streaming server on Linux but I have to go to Windows or Mac to view the content.

      If that's what you want, get the MPEG-LA to lighten up on MPEG-4 licensing.

      Then you won't have a problem. It's Apple's goal, after all, to have the most open, standards-based platform. It's not quite their choice to hold Sorenson codecs from Linux.

      • I don't see Sorenson holding on for too much longer. Apple is their only customer, and are rapidly switching to MPEG-4 (which thankfully is an open standard), and nowadays there are other CODECs like On2's VP5 which kick the snot out of Sorenson.

        • Re:Great, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by melatonin ( 443194 ) on Friday March 15, 2002 @10:52AM (#3168273)
          nowadays there are other CODECs like On2's VP5 which kick the snot out of Sorenson

          Hmm. I haven't used On2 in a while, but Sorenson 3 really is the good stuff, the best I've seen so far. I've been really amazed at what it's capable of; 600x400-ish video at 200 k/s, that does NOT look compressed, at all. This is with the free encoder without using Media Cleaner.

          Sorenson 2 isn't much competition for anything anymore.

          I'd think in the future, Sorenson 3 will be more like the high-quality versions of the Qdesign codec- kicks the crap out of the MPEG solution, but more proprietary (and no free high-quality encoders). You'll probably see movie trailers available in higher-quality, lower-bitrate versions next to MPEG-4 versions.

        • Actually, Sorenson has more than just Apple as a client.

          Macromedia is including the Sorenson codec in Flash MX. Discreet licenses Sorenson for inclusion in Cleaner and other products. (How long before Apple snatches them up!?)

          Sorenson provides great image quality at great compression rates. I took an 6GB video file, edited it in Premiere (unfortunately!) and exported it to a CD quality .mov file at a final file size of 170MB with uncompressed CD quality audio. None of the other video codecs could even come close to that level of compression with that level of image quality.

          I agree that it's kind of silly to have QTSS running on Linux when there isn't even a player client for it, but why don't people stop bitching here on /. and actually approach the people at Apple? Someting might actually come of it!

          I could just sit around and bitch to my friends about a lack of video editing work, but I seem to get more results by actually contacting people who have need of editing.

    • Re:Great, but... (Score:2, Informative)

      by spicyjeff ( 6305 )
      This is not entirely correct. You can stream Quicktime and MPEG (including MPEG-1,2,3&4 and mp3). So any media viewer that can play those types you can use to view the content stream.
    • This would be a lot cooler if *everything* about Quicktime were open (including codecs). It's pretty silly that I can run the streaming server on Linux but I have to go to Windows or Mac to view the content.

      Amen brother.
      This seems to be the trend... GNU/Linux is perceived as a server platform, as much as the commercial Unices are. I know several Unix admins that exclusevely use Windows as their desktop box using X servers/telnet/ssh to connect to the Unix boxes. Even they really can't view a Unix platform such as GNU/Linux as desktop (not because it doesn't have what it needs, but because they can't come to terms with it).
      Take Lotus Notes... you can run Domino Server in Linux, but if you try to access the mail you are out of luck because Notes is Windows-only.
      Most desktop frontends end up being Windows-only, while the engine is running on some Unix. Hell, HP, IBM and other Unix vendors encourage this!
      Take mysql and CVS... there has been nice and friendly win32 graphical tools long before any was available in Unix. It seems people like it this way :P

      In the end it is exactly as you said it: we end up powering the services and providing content that we can't view ourselves

      cheers,

      fsm

  • It's the player stupid (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Spacelord ( 27899 ) on Friday March 15, 2002 @10:24AM (#3168098)
    I think in the end the player will determine which platform will be more succesful, and Microsoft is better placed there.

    Not that I love Media Player, but it sure beats that crappy Real Player or that irritating nagware that is Quicktime. Plus it comes bundled with windows...

    I know that whenever I'm presented with a choice of streaming media, I usually pick the one for mediaplayer.

    • Getting rid of Quicktime nag (Score:5, Informative)

      by BinxBolling ( 121740 ) on Friday March 15, 2002 @11:13AM (#3168423)
      that irritating nagware that is Quicktime

      Here's a tip to get rid of the nag screen: Set your system clock ahead, say, 20 years. Run the quicktime player. When it asks you to buy the full version, click the "later" option. Exit the player. Restore your clock to the correct time. You won't get the nag screen again for 20 years.

    • Re:It's the player stupid (Score:4, Insightful)

      by 4im ( 181450 ) on Friday March 15, 2002 @11:16AM (#3168437)

      If I had moderator points right now, you'd get a +1 insightful from me.

      I've been working with streaming media for a while - windows media (yeah, I know, that's one of the reasons why I quit). Guess why this corp would go for WM - because "everyone" has WMP, and they get the server "for free" with Win2k server. Real is extremely expensive (they'd have needed the unlimited license), and they don't even consider QuickTime an alternative - they don't want clients to have to download a player, anyway.

      Lessons: 1. corps don't want their clients to have to download a player. 2. They don't want to pay horrid licences (MPEG-LA - hear that? You're losing one hell of a business with that licensing scheme!).

    • Re:It's the player stupid (NOT in corps) (Score:4, Interesting)

      by gosand ( 234100 ) on Friday March 15, 2002 @11:19AM (#3168455)
      Not in corporations. In corporations and businesses, it is whatever they tell you it is. It doesn't matter if it is less efficient, or more expensive, it is whatever is mandated. If it is easier for them to set up the server, then the end users be damned. Sometimes it is ease over cost, sometimes the other way around - depends on the size and intelligenge of your business people.

      I have seen it first hand in the product our company produces. I am in QA, and even though I have raised several issues about the usability of our product, the end result is - it doesn't matter. The end user will use whatever they are told to use. We sell to hospitals, and cater to the administration needs, not the end user needs (nurses, stock people, etc). As long as we can sell it, and it does what the "higher-ups in the hospital want", the end user isn't a factor.

      I think that is what would happen with a company setting up streaming media - the end user will use whatever they decide they will use.

  • streaming is good but downloading is better (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15, 2002 @10:25AM (#3168107)
    I'd rather download something than stream it. Streams are often much lower quality and it prevents you from time-shifting it, which you should be able to do. For this reason I use Streambox VCR, which you can download here [afterdawn.com], for downloading .RM files and ASFRecorder, downloadable here [divx-digest.com], which lets you download streaming Windows Media files, so that you can time shift those as well.

  • OS X (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by crumbz ( 41803 )
    It looks like OS X is becoming a serious contender for the server market. Now if Apple can get their ass in gear and make some serious sever hardware, it has a shot at boosting market share.

  • QuickTime video quality sucks at low bitrates (Score:3, Insightful)

    by x1l ( 258922 ) on Friday March 15, 2002 @10:46AM (#3168229)
    and if you have to use 1.5 Mbps, why not just use MPEG. I would say WM and Real both do well at low and mid-range bitrates, but the sorenson codec sucks at anything but high bitrates.

    The review didn't mention anyting about frame rate or video size. quality was mesured from screen captures, so I guess video framerate and audio are not part of the streaming media experience.

    They also should have used S-video for all captures. The osprey 500 DV applies a filter when you use the IEEE 1394 port. This is not an apples to apples comparison. Why not just use the winnov card for all captures?

    They also didn't mention how many streams a single server could handle. Real requires a heavy duty server, QT doesn't realy have specs, and I would bet Windows Media server does the best job.

    And WTF is with the apple networking icon? Is there realy a need for that?
    • Agreed - this comparison is pretty bogus. I have a feeling that they ran into computer speed problems with the WMP encodings.

      The one big advantage Real has over WMP is SureStream, which continuously adapts bitrates during playback. QuickTime does not have this either.

      Enterprise live video is probably the only place where QuickTime may make sense. It can multicast fairly well, and looks good at 1Mbps. Of course, you can also go with the hardware MPEG-1 systems as well. I have found that WMP has a problem with live encoded multicasts at 500kbps and up due to a weird property of the player to drop WMP packets during bursts. Pre-recorded WMP multicasts don't have the problem though. And Real's multicast licensing can be "challenging".

      For unicast streaming to a general Internet user base, I'd suggest Real if you can afford it because of SureStream, WMP if you have a 2000/NT box, and Darwin/QT if you have no money and no Microsoft ;)

  • Exactly as I thought (Score:5, Insightful)

    by oranjdisc ( 530731 ) on Friday March 15, 2002 @10:51AM (#3168267)
    I have wondered for the longest time why a number of news outlets use Windows Media on their web sites, when the quality / stability totally blows. Maybe they're Microsoft trained gnomes who only use FrontPage, write ASP, and use IE. I don't know. But QuickTime blows the $hit out of everything else. I just wish more people recognized that.
    • The popularity of Windows Media with content providers is a direct result of the ubiquity of the Windows Media client. It is another example of how Microsoft has used (abused?) their monopoly of the OS.

      Windows Media Player is available on every Windows machine. The Quicktime Player isn't. Quality loses out to quantity.
      • Windows Media Player is available on every Windows machine. The Quicktime Player isn't. Quality loses out to quantity.

        Let's see, first they release a player that runs as a klunky MDI app, installs to the windows system directory as hidden files, takes over your file associations for everything it can possibly view, without asking, then goes and sues microsoft when their media player goes and takes the associations back.

        Their current player on windows is nagware, popping up ads for quicktime pro every few invocations. The marketplace uses what gives them the least hassle, and by and large it is repudiating Apple for that reason.

        I really don't give a damn whether Microsoft signed in blood on a contract written by Mephistopheles himself, their player works with a minimum of hassle or nags.
        • I really don't give a damn whether Microsoft signed in blood on a contract written by Mephistopheles himself, their player works with a minimum of hassle or nags.

          Or privacy.

  • Check out the survey (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MikeMo ( 521697 )
    The survey of folks deploying streaming servers said that the #1 most important thing when choosing a format was quality. But, the #1 most-deployed format was Windows Media, which was judged to be, by far, the worst format for quality. What does this tell us?
    • ...Windows Media, which was judged to be, by far, the worst format for quality. What does this tell us?

      I think it tells us that the reviewer(s) had some bias going. Other reviews i've read do not place WM8 squarly at the bottom, personally i think WM8 looks better then Real at lower bitrates, where Sorenson looks best at high bitrates.

      Either way thought there is very little seperating the three. They're all based of MPEG4, which in turn is based of sorenson. Real and MS have just tweak the formats slighltly, trying to get smother motion, a sharper image, and tweak the performance.

      Then there's companies like MediaExcel [mediaexcel.com] that have MPEG4 encoders that encode about 3X times faster then MS's, yet can't find a market.

      -Jon
  • As a person that uses Linux for a Desktop.
    Let me just say this..

    I only see Windows and MAC on the download page.
    Next stop.. avifile?

    HOW ABOUT A QUICKTIME VIEWER FOR LINUX?
    (With a current codex.)
    • Use Crossover [codeweavers.com]
      It's worth its $25.

      • I've got it and it is...OK. It is slow as molasses, however. To run the quicktime plugin (or windoze media) you have to wait for the wineserver to start and then for the app to start. Lots of swapping going on there.


        It IS nice that for now we can have quicktime working on linux but it is not THE answeer. THE answer is for frickin' Apple to release the goddamn specs for the codec. If Apple wants to compete for providing internet media (this goes for M$ or anyone else too) then you have to use widely available standards so that no one is locked out because they use this or that OS. The frickin' OS shouldn't matter one bit.


        If you want to provide a media service on the OPEN and NONPROPRIATORY internet, then use open standards or fully publish your codecs so developers can produce apps to VIEW your media.

        • At the risk of being modded 'Redundant', The codec is NOT Apple's, it's Sorenson. Sorenson is the one who won't/hasn't released the codec. Quicktime can use other codecs, but they all suck ass, quality-wise, compared to Sorenson.

          There is another issue, though. Apple's market share on the Desktop is enormous, compared to Linux. Now that they are the LARGEST purveyor of UNIX on the desktop, how willing are they to twist Sorenson's arm to get a codec for a fringe desktop platform?

          (Yes, I know linux is making some progress on the desktop. But Gnome and KDE and all the Office-type apps out there Blow Goats compared, even to MS Windows. That isn't likely to change anytime soon, given the typical Open SOurce attitude that syas, ''If a pretty smart geek can figure out just how to tweak this stuff to get it to limp along, that's good enough.'' That doesn't cut it in the real world.

  • The free, open source Darwin Streaming Server, which streams QuickTime content, edged out costly and closed source Windows Media...
    To be fair, Windows Media Server is free...like all Microsoft products that they don't yet have a monopoly over.
    • To be fair, Windows Media Server is free...

      Not really, you still need W2k Server[1] licenses.
      I guess you could say it's free if you're already a W2k shop, but otherwise, the more accurate term would be "bundled".

      I think QT/Darwin is still definately the cheapest software option,
      even including the $500-odd dollars for Sorensen and QT Pro.

      C-X C-S
      [1] I suppose you could run a small streaming server on W2k Pro, but I think it's server capability is limited to like 10 connections.

  • Test looks like bollocks (Score:3, Insightful)

    by purplemonkeydan ( 214160 ) on Friday March 15, 2002 @11:14AM (#3168425)
    "We created screen shots of the same scene from each player at different encoding rates: 56, 128, 256, 384 and 512 Kbps."

    So they're not even testing motion or sound quality?

    • Re:Test looks like bollocks (Score:4, Informative)

      by dwoods-nwc ( 566716 ) on Friday March 15, 2002 @11:58AM (#3168708)
      Actually we did test motion and sound quality, just not in our blind testing. We based overall quality on the results of the blind testing and found that the results of our blind testers looking at the screen shots mirrored what we found while performing the tests.

      Real scored very well at the low bitrates - which is what they've always been good at. Apple scored well for the midrange of our test bandwidths and scored second on everything else. Microsoft actually had the best quality at the highest bitrate that we tested according to our judges.

  • Not just for video... (Score:5, Informative)

    by jvj24601 ( 178471 ) on Friday March 15, 2002 @11:25AM (#3168496)
    My company is using the Darwin Streaming Server for a client project to stream MP3's. You can create SMIL files that auto-detect the right bandwidth-specific version for your connection.

    <smil>
    <body>
    <switch>
    <ref title="Title of Song" src="rtsp://streaming.my.localhost/mp3/Title_ of_Song/128.mp3" system-bitrate="220000"/>
    <ref title="Title of Song" src="rtsp://streaming.my.localhost/mp3/Title_ of_Song/40.mp3" system-bitrate="45000"/>
    <ref title="Title of Song" src="rtsp://streaming.my.localhost/mp3/Title_ of_Song/20.mp3" system-bitrate="20000"/>
    </switch>
    </body>
    </smil>


    I don't know much about Linux/BSD software, but RealPlayer and QuickTime plugins can play these streams.

    No one at our company had ever done any sort of music streaming before, but I was able to convince the client to go with our solution. It (Darwin Streaming Server - free) is running under Linux (free) as a Apache/Tomcat JSP application (free).

    It was the right decision financially (as far as keeping development costs down). It's also nice to see that our decision, in this instance, was the right one performance-wise as well.

  • Best thing about the article.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gilroy ( 155262 ) on Friday March 15, 2002 @11:32AM (#3168533) Homepage Journal
    ... It opens with a scene from Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension [imdb.com]. Yay.

  • The interesting part... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ablair ( 318858 ) on Friday March 15, 2002 @07:05PM (#3171145)
    ...of the article was the software ratings compared with the user survey [networkcomputing.com]:

    What is the most important aspect of a video stream?
    Low Bandwidth 27%
    Quality 73%

    Video Quality Report Card:
    QuickTime 4.1
    Real 3.7
    WMP 2.5

    In what format do you provide content to your users?
    QuickTime 22%
    Real 31%
    WMP 42%

    In other words, with quality being the most important factor, WMP wins - despite being the lowest quality of all. (Both QuickTime and Windows Media solutions are free) Hmmm... sounds like other familiar Microsoftian stories.

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