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MPEG-2 Streaming Client for Mac?

Posted by Cliff on from the that-age-old-question-of-availability dept.

foobar104 asks: "Macintouch posed an interesting question: is there any MPEG-2 streaming client software for the Mac, either for OS 9 or OS X? According to Kasenna, maker of the MediaBase streaming video platform, there isn't. You'd think Quicktime 5 would be able to stream MPEG-2 content, but sure enough the data sheet lists MPEG-1 only. Is Kasenna right?"

"Because I can't seem to figure out how to link directly to a story on Macintouch, here's the entire question.

David Hannah asked this interesting question about streaming video support on the Mac:

'I am a developer for the SGI and Linux Platforms, and have begun working with a product called MediaBase from Kasenna; it is a MPEG 1|2 Streaming Server. They are preparing to release MediaBaseXMP, which will support MPEG 4 as well. I was told by them that they do not support MPEG 2 streaming on the Macintosh, because there is no existing player that will accommodate this, including QuickTime 5. They said that QuickTime 6, when it releases will support MPEG 4, but until then, I cannot stream to a Macintosh without also having a QuickTime streaming server like the one provided by the Darwin project. Any truth to this? Are you aware of an MPEG-2 capable player that will stream on the Mac?'
Since there are a number of MPEG-2 software decoders for Windows, some of them plugins for Windows Media Player, it seems reasonable to think that something similar would exist for the Mac. Can anyone help?"

7 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. All paths lead to QuickTime 6 by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Informative

    QuickTime 6 handles MPEG-2 (and MPEG-1 and MPEG-4) decoding in software, and will also be able to handle streamed content. Our university is embarking on a large Cisco IP/TV deployment (we'll be streaming a dozen or so TV channels on the campus network), and a requirement was support of Mac clients. The IP/TV gear creates standard rtsp MPEG-2 streams, and we've been told by Apple that QuickTime 6 will handle this (QuickTime 4/5 handles MPEG-1 rtsp streams from IP/TV hardware now, so MPEG-2 rtsp streams, should, in theory, be no problem for QuickTime 6). The current QuickTime 6 Public Preview does NOT include MPEG-2 decoding, but the final release will. So there ya go.

    1. Re:All paths lead to QuickTime 6 by daveschroeder · · Score: 4, Informative

      I should also add that, until QuickTime 6, NO version of QuickTime has done MPEG-2, streamed or not. This has been an annoying thing to many people about QuickTime for quite some time. But this should all be solved by QuickTime 6. MPEG-4 is great, sure, but for the time being most enterprise streaming solutions will still be be MPEG-1 or -2. And QuickTime's support for even MPEG-1 has not been the best, historically. QuickTime 6 is tons better with MPEG-1 as well.

  2. VideoLan by jtl · · Score: 5, Informative

    VideoLan Client is available for Mac OS X, can play MPEG-2 streams (either transport or program), and can play while straming from a VideoLan server or an HTTP server.

    http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

    1. Re:VideoLan by daveschroeder · · Score: 2, Informative

      There's 2 problems with VideoLAN:

      1. People want a commercial, supported product when they depoly an enterprise streaming solution. Right or wrong, most people won't consider vlc a large-scale solution.

      2. The larger problem is that vlc doesn't currently handle the type or stream generated by commercial MPEG-1/2 streaming servers (rtsp or rtp), so it can't be used for this application.

      QuickTime 6 solves both of these problems.

  3. Did you try Google? by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 4, Informative

    MPEG-2 streaming client Mac gives you VideoLAN as the first hit.

  4. MPEG-2 *IS* in QT6 by daveschroeder · · Score: 4, Informative

    MPEG-2 is in QuickTime 6, just not in the public preview.

    From http://www.apple.com/quicktime/preview/quicktime6/ faq.html:

    I thought QuickTime 6 included MPEG-2 decoding. Where is it?
    The QuickTime MPEG-2 decode component is not available during the preview period but will be available when QuickTime 6 is final.

  5. 'QuickTimeMPEG2.component' from the DR works by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    'QuickTimeMPEG2.component' from the DR works perfectly in QT 5. Size is 660 KB, dated 2002-05-02 and i just put that one file in /Library/QuickTime/, no further installation necessary.

    Finally i can Watch SVCDs with QuickTime Player an ddon't need to rely on this awkward vlc.