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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.
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.
*everything* is Orwellian to cats.
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??
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Darwin sounds really cool. Perhaps it will evolve to become #1? Survival of the fittest streaming servers definitely applies here.
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?
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
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.
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get your war on
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.
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.
This space unintentionally left unblank.
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.
Actually, there is one Microsoft product that beat an Open Source product, hands down. What is it?
Microsoft Product: WindowsNT
Open Source Product: crashme
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I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
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.
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!).
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.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
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.
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.
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.
...of the article was the software ratings compared with the user survey:
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.