Answer: FFmpeg is a suite of tools that provide users with video manipulation, editing, streaming, and recording capabilities on numerous platforms and multiple formats. As the name indicates, it supports a number of mpeg compression formats as well as other open and proprietary video codecs.

In order to have better than average video conversion and streaming on a website, you need a webhost that has FFmpeg installed on your server, accessible from web scripts, and ready to use. Since the advent of YouTube, many hosts have started offering dedicate FFmpeg server packages completely separate from their shared hosting accounts.

This allows the video conversion, streaming, and other tasks to use as much of the CPU and RAM that it needs to complete the tasks quickly and thoroughly. Normally, such servers will also include other related tools and libraries to support as many codecs and options as possible. Those may include but are not limited to Myplayer, xvidcore, Ogg (Theora and Vorbis), and LAME (MP3 Encoder).

DSS supports RTP and RTSP streaming protocols and will stream both audio and video. It runs as a background service on your Mac OS X Server or Linux server and includes a convenient web-based control panel. You can create playlists, start and stop media, and configure ports for media distribution.

“Both DSS and QTSS are built on a core server that provides state of the art quality of service features with Skip protection and Instant-On, and support for the latest digital media standards, MPEG-4 and 3GPP.

Darwin Streaming Server is available as a free download under the Apple Public Source License.”

Source: Mac OS forge
Photo: Hexley.com

1. Create a new Linux user:

# adduser -c "Shoutcast User" shoutcast
# passwd shoutcast
(enter a password for the new user)

2. Download the latest version of Shoutcast from shoutcast.com. Make sure you download the Linux server version.

3. Login as the shoutcast user

4. Extract the files:

$ tar xfz filename.tar.gz

5. Configure the Shoutcast server. Create a file called shoutcastd. Edit the file and enter the following

#!/bin/bash

./sc_serv sc_serv.conf >/dev/null 2>&1 &

6. Save the file and then enter:

$ chmod +x shoutcastd

7. Start the server:

$ ./shoutcastd

This will get your server up and running. In a future post, we will learn about how to stream media with it.

There are many popular audio streaming solutions, but two of the most common free solutions are Shoutcast and Icecast. The difference between the two is that Shoutcast is proprietary while Icecast is free and open source. If you have your own dedicated server, you can usually install icecast from your Linux distribution’s repository.

If, however, you plan to get a shared hosting account, you should do some investigating to find a web hosting provider that offers pre-existing shoutcast or icecast setups. Many of them have different packages that vary depending on how many simultaneous listeners you will have. Each listener has a unique connection to the server, so bandwidth consideration is a factor. Once you have Shoutcast or Icecast ready to go, you will need to set it up and test it. We will learn about that later this week.

Photo: Flickr

Answer: Setting up an m3u playlist is very easy to do. Once you have it setup, visitors will be able to listen to your site’s Mp3s either by opening the m3u playlist in a music player or by playing it directly in their browsers (if you embed it in your code).

To begin, do the following:

1. Create an empty text file with .m3u extension (i.e. playlist.m3u)
2. Add a list of the mp3 files with the relative path on your server:

/music/song1.mp3
/music/song2.mp3

3. Add comments proceeded with the #. (optional)

Here is an example:

# Reaching for the Hashmarks by Hashy Hash
/music/reaching.mp3
# Hashmarks for Breakfast by Hashy Hash
/music/hashmarks.mp3

Tomorrow, I will explain how to embed the code in your website.

The news company, like most others, has seen viewer numbers plateau over the past few years and is hoping to generate more interest. Couric has already been successful connecting with her viewers via YouTube and Twitter.

“What we’ve realized is that, as opposed to just keeping all your content on your own Web site in a proprietary manner, we are better off pushing our own news content to as many sources as we can,” Sean McManus, the president of CBS News, said.

CBS has been streaming their news from their own web site since 2006 and has had experience delving into New Media in the past. It sponsored a popular news podcast called MobLogic in March 2008 only to abruptly pull the plug on it in December. They also spent $4 million to acquire Wallstrip, an economic news podcast, only to cancel it as well.

Source: NY Times
Photo: Flickr