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Darwin Streaming Server Beats Real, Windows Media
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.
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..
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
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.
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.
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An AC wrote:
;) Microsoft's developers don't seem to mind the sky high cost of Visual Studio.Net. Lets see Microsoft give that away for free!
> Its a classic Bait and Switch. Apple will always charge money for
> video compression deliverred stock in their normal Quicktime, and
> will never offer source to the compressors.
Apple doesn't have the rights or the ability to give you the source to the compressors of others that they license to use in QuickTime. Good Grief! The whole reason they are not releasing QT6 is because the MPEG-4 people are demanding that content creators pay them a tax to use it, over and above the $2 million Apple will be paying them to license it. Apple is going to bat for its users here, and you have the gall to blame them for not giving you someone else's source code!
> Apple charges (GOUGES) its dwindling developer base.
Oh yeah, right! A whole twenty bucks to get a CD of their developers tools FedExed to your doorstep. Wow, that's highway robbery!
The old Apple was greedy and stupid, sure. Their greed nearly killed them. The new Apple, born in December 1996, is on the whole, wiser and more compassionate. This is the Apple that:
- Based the core of their new OS on open source (and gave back the source, which was not required by the license).
- Slashed the price of their Web Objects from $50,000 to $699.
- Gave away their OS X developer's tools for free download ($20 for CD).
- Went to bat for their users to avoid extra end user charges (for MPEG-4 content creation) for Quick Time Pro users.
- Opened the source of their Darwin Streaming server.
- and a lot more.
> Developers have priciples... and the number one priciple is that they
> HATE being exploited.
No, you just hate having to pay to get anything in life.
> They expect Apple to PAY THEM to read new manuals, not the other
> way around.
>
> They expect Apple to PAY THEM to adapt and ebrace new proprietary
> system technologies, not the other way around.
Actually, that is what your *employer* pays you for, and expects you to do if you want your salary to continue going up. If you are programming as a hobby, it is its own reward.
> They always give long marketing-speak excuses why they wanted 895
> dollars for newton programming manuals
>
> They use excuses such as : default IBM OS/2 programming manuals
> from IBM cost 5000 dollars in March 1987.
>
> Sigh.......
>
> OS/2 is dead, Apple.
So's Newton, so why are you expecting to be able to get programming manuals for it, at any price? Anyway, IBM OS/2 didn't die due to the price of the programming manuals (actually, last I heard, another company was still developing versions of OS/2).
> Offer some video compression source code (pay your consulting
> suppliers if you need to) or shut the hell up.
It's two million dollars (plus content creating costs) just to put MPEG-4 in QuickTime. Do you really want Apple to go broke to give you free source code?
If you want the source that badly, go gripe at the MPEG-4 people.
> I hope Darwin crap dies as well as slow buggy MAc OS X.
> (Mac-O-Sux)
Oh, go argue point with Aqua Mothra! Grrr...
On December 14, 1996, Mothra resurrected an apple tree.
On December 14, 2001, she returned to see its fruit:
OS X, the Apple of Mothra's Aqua eye.