MPEG-2 Streaming Client for Mac?

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?"

Comments

All paths lead to QuickTime 6

[daveschroeder]

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.

Re:All paths lead to QuickTime 6

[daveschroeder]

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.

VideoLan

[jtl]

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/

Re:VideoLan

[reverius]

I have to second this... when reading the story, I immediately thought, "VLC has a Mac version, don't they?" VLC is the best streaming media player I've used, because they remain dedicated to an open source, cross platform streaming media solution.

My only question is whether it can be used to play back the MPEG-2 streams we're talking about... I don't know whether they stream over HTTP or not.

Re:VideoLan

[iomud]

qt6 with divx problems on my system (green interlaced lines), I resorted to using vlc, though I have to use it in thousands of colors as opposed to millions.

Re:VideoLan

[daveschroeder]

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.

Re:VideoLan

[g4dget]

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.

Many people would consider an open source product if they knew about it. The problem with acceptance of open source software in many businesses has to do with lack of a marketing budget for open source software projects, not with lack of either quality or acceptance.

Re:all paths lead to DivX

[0x0d0a]

DivX is a lot more sane. MPEG 2 is designed for really high bitrate stuff...I'd rather *not* have someone streaming it, thank you very much. :-)

Did you try Google?

[Wesley Felter]

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

MPEG-2 *IS* in QT6

[daveschroeder]

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.

Re:'QuickTimeMPEG2.component' from the DR works

[nedron]

"Developer Release" maybe?