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Darwin Streaming Server Beats Real, Windows Media

Posted by pudge on 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.

4 of 394 comments (clear)

  1. streaming is good but downloading is better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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, for downloading .RM files and ASFRecorder, downloadable here, which lets you download streaming Windows Media files, so that you can time shift those as well.

  2. Re:Hmm... Too bad Quicktime isn't open source. by znu · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

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  3. Getting rid of Quicktime nag by BinxBolling · · Score: 5, Informative
    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.

  4. Not just for video... by jvj24601 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.