TV "Broadcasting" Over Wireless Networks?

nuggetman asks: "This year we're starting an in-high-school TV network. What we would like to do is be able to broadcast from anywhere in the building using our wireless 802.11b network. In doing some tests at home, I discovered 802.11b has enough bandwidth to allow me to send live video at VHS quality (320x240 29.97fps) w/ FM quality audio when using Windows Media encoder on the sending end, and Windows Media Player at full screen on the receiving end. When applied in school, the receiving computer would simply output the full screen display to a TV signal. Are there any other free (as beer) solutions that would let us do this, other than WMP?"

Comments

several options...

[Pathwalker]

You have all sorts of options:

• If you have access to a Mac, then QuickTime Broadcaster would be an excellent choice, as it supports broadcast and multicast, so you can have several machines playing the same stream without duplicating data.
• If you have access to a Unix like system (Linux, OSX, FreeBSD, Solaris, Irix, HPUX, etc...) then mpeg4ip should let you do much of what QuickTime Broadcaster does, with a bit more hassle.

Some other choices would be:

• Live Channel
• Sorenson Broadcaster
• Real Encoder

and probably many more.

pay up

[karmavore]

You are doing this with computers therefore you are using SCO IP(Idiotic Property). You must purchase a Unixware license for each student and each of their relatives to which they may relate the contents of your brodcasts.

Quicktime Broadcaster

[heldlikesound]

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/broadcaste r/

Buy a cheap iMac DV for like $300, and run Quicktime Broadcaster (it's free, as in beer).

Good luck.

Re:Quicktime Broadcaster

[sakusha]

I'll agree, I've used QTBroadcaster and QTSS (actually Darwin Streaming Server, QTSS is MacOS X Server-only but they are essentially identical) and the results are excellent even using a low end iMac. I used it to stream my DirecTV signal to computers elsewhere in the house. I have an RF remote for the DirecTV so I could change channels from anywhere in the house.
Note that Darwin Streaming Server runs on various platforms, including Darwin OS and Linux.

Quicktime Brodcaster/Streaming Server

[citoc]

Quicktime Products

Darwin Server works on anything....

Use Shoutcast!

[TermAnnex]

Nullsoft developed NSV, nullsoft streaming video.
It can use a regular shoutcast server and winamp to play it.

It's a bit poorly documented, but any geek should be able to figure it out. It can play a set of files in a loop, do live feeds, etc.

http://www.nullsoft.com/nsv/

Re:Use Shoutcast!

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Too inefficient. Shoutcast is just mangled http -- Each client makes a new connection. For broadcasting you really need multicast (everyone gets the signal, but not everyone is 'listening')

Re:Use Shoutcast!

[mad_dog3283]

I don't think the intent is to send streaming video over 802.11 to every PC on the network. The intent is to send it to one PC in the CATV MDF, then modulate the RGBHV/Composite signal from the video card onto the CATV distribution system.

Re:Use Shoutcast!

[TermAnnex]

Filming Box --(NSV Over shoutcast)--> Server --(whatever delivery mechanism)--> Viewers

This is not VHS quality

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

live video at VHS quality (320x240 29.97fps)

Sorry, the best you can say is near VHS quality. And I don't even agree with that. A fresh, first generation tape in a good machine blows 320x240 away any day.

Tell the truth and people will trust you.

Re:This is not VHS quality

[Anonvmous Coward]

"Sorry, the best you can say is near VHS quality. And I don't even agree with that. A fresh, first generation tape in a good machine blows 320x240 away any day. "

Actually if you run 320 by 240 video, even compressed, to a TV it is hard to tell the difference. I used to have a setup like this at home.

Re:This is not VHS quality

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

I have to differ with you. I've *seen* both and there is no comparison. And I don't consider myself to be a technosnob. Sorry you can't see it.

Re:This is not VHS quality

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

"A fresh, first generation tape in a good machine blows 320x240 away any day."

Yeah, and a 128kbit MP3 may not hold a candle to a fresh, properly mastered CD. But most CDs aren't properly mastered: they have their dynamic range compressed so much that they are clipping almost constantly. When most people think of VHS, they think of their own personal recordings or old tapes from Blockbuster, not the full capability of the medium.

Re:This is not VHS quality

[NanoGator]

Actually I've been over to his house, and except for the 60fps down to 30fps and a little bit of artifacting, it's really not that different.

Re:This is not VHS quality

[shibashaba]

Most tv's(especially ones that are a few years old) blur stuff together so much that I seriously doubt you can tell a difference. Then you through in the cheap tv out that'll be on any consumer grade video card at all and the difference will be even less. A few years ago I had the game Janes ATF where the videos were played back at 640x480 skipping every other vertical line, hooked up to a 27" tv it was impossible to tell. If your comparing it to a video being played back on your monitor thats a world of difference.

Re:This is not VHS quality

[Anonymous Coward]

isn't NTSC 30 (29.97...) Frames Per Second, not 60? Or do you mean the fields that make up an interlaced image?

Re:This is not VHS quality

[nuggetman]

especially on the early-1990s 19" TVs (courtesy of Channel One Communications Corporation) we have in school

But... Beer isn't free?

[jerde]

Are there any other free (as beer) solutions?

This is a stupid question: where on earth did that phrase come from? Beer isn't free, is it? Have I been ripped off all along?

Is there a /. culture FAQ out there somewhere that documents this, the "in Soviet Russia [object] [verb] [subject]" thing, and the "1. xxx, 2. ?, 3. Profit!" spiel?

- Peter

Re:But... Beer isn't free?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you see, it all comes down to the fact that beer can be free in 2 ways. Beer can be free, as in cost nothing (gratuit). Beer can also be free, as in free to make its own choices (libre). And that's the difference between free and free. I really don't understand why we use beer anyways. I'd much rather it be free as in Canadian Rye Whiskey.

Re:But... Beer isn't free?

[Zarf]

Are there any other free (as beer) solutions?

This is a stupid question: where on earth did that phrase come from? Beer isn't free, is it? Have I been ripped off all along?

I was at a German block party a couple of weeks ago for "ascention sunday" or something. The beer was free as in beer there. It cost nothing, the semmel were three euro each, the steaks were three euro, but the beer was null euro... So I guess in Germany the Beer really is Free. But, you had to bring your own mug.

Re:But... Beer isn't free?

[glivings]

Is there a /. culture FAQ out there somewhere that documents this, the "in Soviet Russia [object] [verb] [subject]" thing, and the "1. xxx, 2. ?, 3. Profit!" spiel?
1. in soviet Russia.... a tired Yakov Smirnov bit.
2. the "step 1: xxx, 2: ? 3: Profit!" spiel is from the underpants gnomes episode of South Park. In the episode, the underpants gnomes explain their business model:
Step 1: Collect underpants
Step 2:
Step 3: Profit!

Re:But... Beer isn't free?

[Anonymous Coward]

The beer is free at FSF fundraisers, so long as:

1. You are young and male.
2. Stallman thinks you're kinda cute.
3. You smile back at all the hackers.
4. You're willing to drink LOTS of the beer.
5. You don't vomit after they've got you trussed up in the harness and they're exploring your limits.

Re:But... Beer isn't free?

[His name cannot be s]

And, as for the "free(as beer)" concept, it boils down to the two types of free:

a) liberty -- free to do that as you please
b) gratis -- something for no cost.

Think of the (as beer) as a casting operation to the free word.

People will often say free(libre) or free(gratis), but more often, it is just easier to say free(as beer) 'cause who would turn down free beer?

And finally, how can someone who has such a low slashdot ID not have picked these things up? Have you been pouring hot grits down Natalie Portman's pants? :p

Re:But... Beer isn't free?

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our new tired Yahov Smirnov bit overlords.

Re:But... Beer isn't free?

[lish2]

Sometimes beer is free. Like if you go to a party with no cover. Or at mug night (buy the mug for $5, the beer is free for X hours). Or a barbecue where someone else brings the beer.

It's a way of saying you're getting something for nothing. Of course, it comes with the knowledge that often you get what you pay for (ie, free beer might be crappy beer).

Re:But... Beer isn't free?

[jerde]

Think of the (as beer) as a casting operation to the free word

Of course! It's not clear until it's expressed as a computer science concept, naturally.

It still doesn't feel natural to me, since I can't think of a case where the sense of "free" isn't implicitly understood. In most cases it's an object that is free(beer). Of course, you could talk about it being free(libre) to do something or other... but that would be anthropomorphizing an inanimate object, and they hate it when you do that.

Except, of course, (duh!) the concept of free(freedom/speech) software. Aha. Now I get it. Thanks to the Wikipedia article for spelling that out for me.

And finally, how can someone who has such a low slashdot ID not have picked these things up?

That why it was such a stupid question. I've been here since 1996... and the free beer has confused me for all 7 years.

The rest of it I understand a bit better, though I'm always curious about the etymologies of these things.

I have now also found a good explanation of the Soviet Russia bit, attributing it to Yakov Smirnoff.

And thanks to "glivings" for explaining that the whole "profit" thing comes from a SouthPark episode.

Now I'm just waiting for someone to write their PhD dissertation on /. culture... :)

- Peter

Re:But... Beer isn't free?

[Feztaa]

Well, think about what beer would have to be like in order to be free of charge: it would have to be crappy. In fact, it would have to be so bad that nobody would pay for it.

So, when people say "it's 'free as in speech', not 'free as in beer'", what they're really trying to say is "it's free as in freedom, not free as in 'no charge'". In that context, "free beer" basically means "no charge, and it's really crappy", while "free speech" basically means "no restrictions, it's really good".

Unfortunately, as the term "free beer" has become more popularised, it's basically come to mean "no charge" and "free speech" is just "no restrictions". That's why you'll see some people describing their pet projects as "free as in beer and speech", even though the beer/speech aspects are mutually exclusive in their original meanings.

Anyway, that's my take on it. "free beer" is like shareware you find on tucows. Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Outlook Express are "free beer" (as in, costing $0, and being of low quality), while "free speech" is GPL'd stuff that you'd find on gnu.org. Mozilla's browser and mailer are "free speech" (as in, having no restrictions and being of high quality).

Re:But... Beer isn't free?

[nuggetman]

This is a stupid question: where on earth did that phrase come from? Beer isn't free, is it? Have I been ripped off all along?

It's simply a way to differentiate the types of free.

If something is free (as in beer), it's free in the sense you don't have to pay for it, but you don't have direct access to the recipie so to speek.

If it's free (as in speech), it's related to liberties.

Re:But... Beer isn't free?

[Oaktree_b]

Try wikipedia.org, it's the Free Encyclopedia on the net. They have a slashdot section where they explain all this stuff.

Re:But... Beer isn't free?

[tigersha]

Well I live in Germany and no, the beer isn't free but its very cheap. A litre of beer costs less than a litre of milk and also in some case than a litre of bottled water.

And its very good too!

Re:But... Beer isn't free?

[Zarf]

The beer was free only at this particular block party. It was just ironic that the beer was indeed free as in beer.

Re:But... Beer isn't free?

[ogre2112]

Your user ID is too low to ask a question of this sort!

Re:But... Beer isn't free?

[jerde]

I know... sorry. I'll immediately go cancel this account and get me a new one past the half-billion mark. That'll teach me. :)

- Peter

Re:But... Beer isn't free?

[cgranade]

Then I must deserve an ID at the 12th order of magnitude.

Re:But... Beer isn't free?

[Anonymous Coward]

it's the Free Encyclopedia on the net

But is that free as in beer?

Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Just what we need, to have our wireless network bandwidth saturated so that someone can watch TV remotely. Expand the acronym: T stands for Tele... it's supposed to have its own reception already built in. PLEASE use this only for stuff that can't be gotten via a regular broadcast.

Re:Great

[demmegod]

Our bandwidth? Unless you share his wireless network, I'm a bit confused... What do you care what he does with the air waves in and around his skool?

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

>Our bandwidth? Unless you share his wireless network, I'm a bit confused... What do you care what he does with the air waves in and around his skool?

At your "skool", did you ever hear of something called a copycat?

The point is any single use of technology has the potential to become widespread. This is usually a good thing. It's always interesting to see emerging uses of technology. Trust me, this will not be the only person in the world to do this, contrary to what you suggest. I'm actually quite surprised you would think he will be the only person in the world to ever do this.

BTW I live next to a school... as do many people, in case you are for some reason still convinced this will be limited to schools; even if you were right, I would still have reason to be concerned.

Re:Great

[demmegod]

I still don't see an issue. If it becomes more widespread, it's only because it's a good idea, and it works. You are sounding like someone who wishes to halt free flow of ideas. What's more, the more people use wireless (and need more bandwidth), the faster the technology will develop and the more bandwidth will be available (to stream higher quality video :), and it's even possible that a greater range of frequencies could be alloted to wireless technology.

Personally, I think's it's a good idea to transmit most if not everything over the same media, such as 802.11x. It offers far superior flexibility. Hell, if he's already streaming it digitally, he can just as easily make it available over the internet for students who may not be in school.

And why are you posting anonymously?

Try a real TV transmitter

[SchnauzerGuy]

You'll probably find that, even with light traffic, 802.11b is going to be too slow and unrealiable for 30fps streaming video...

Since you are going to output to a TV anyway, why bother with computers/802.11b and broadcast directly using a small TV transmitter. I would have expected Ramsey to have a transmitter kit, but all they seem to have these days is a semi-cheesey 'cube' transmitter. Even so, the high powered version might be good enough for what you are looking for, especially with a good antenna.

A quick Google search turned up some other kits. Most of these have a fairly short range, but with good antennas, they'll easily transmit further (and with higher quality), than compressed video over 802.11b. Plus, if you get a kit, building it can be a nice little project for an electronically minded student.

Re:Try a real TV transmitter

[Zarf]

Out of all the suggestions on this page, I like this(See the bottom of the page) idea the best. The reason I like SchauzerGuy's solution best, is because it's actually TV. That means that All those school TV's can just tune to the right channel... no 802.11b muss and fuss. That means the solution can leverage the existing infrastructure of the school giving it larger effective coverage.

I know it's not free as in beer but it's definately the best solution for the ultimate application. Thirty-five bucks isn't bad though.

And think, nuggetman, you do this and you'll be the demi-god who brought your school it's own TV station. Woof! Later projects could incorporate sending that signal to a website or what not... encoding the school TV programs as movies that could be accessed via a web page. A webpage on the school's internal network maybe.

I like it because it's simple. It's simple because it's just TV.

Re:Try a real TV transmitter

[Anonymous Coward]

why bother with computers/802.11b and broadcast directly using a small TV transmitter

for starters, how about "doing your won TV transmission is illegal where as 802.11b legal!!"

Re:Try a real TV transmitter

[sporktoast]

I wonder if the cheapest and most expedient solution is to just sign up for Channel One and then cancel it after a year. TV's for every classroom and free CCTV wiring to boot! No messing with open RF broadcasting. No pissing off the neighbors with interference.

Re:Try a real TV transmitter

[nuggetman]

We've got that already. We have the equipment and do broadcasts live every morning from the same room as the channel one box. The thing is we want to be able to broadcast from another room, thus be able to get the signal from the camera to the box.

Huh?

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

So, let me get this straight:

1: You use Windows Media Encoder/Player, and it works fine
2: You come to Slashdot asking for a free (as in beer) alternative.

Huh? You already have a free (beer) solution, so long as the server and client are running Windows (as they most likely already are). Now you want to find a free (beer) solution that's different? Why? Want better quality? Cross-platform support? Just hate Microsoft? These are important details overlooked in your post.

BTW: With 802.11g, you can get around 5mbits/sec of actual throughput. That's enough for near-DVD quality video if you use a smart codec.

VideoLAN

[harakh]

Try VideoLAN. Superior multiplatform support. They have two applications, VLS - Video Lan Server and VLC, Video Lan Client. Very nice and flexible.

Open source and everything too :).

Re:VideoLAN

[torpor]

Too bad there's no vlc client for PalmOS yet, because VideoLAN rocks ass.

What's limiting you?

[Wonko42]

It's 802.11b, so at best you've got 11Mbps to play with, and at worst 1Mbps. Why limit yourself to crappy 320x240 "VHS-quality" video? Windows Media is a good solution, I agree, but you could probably get away with 480x360 encoded at 768Kbps, plus a 128Kbps audio stream for a total of 896Kbps, which still puts you under the minimum 1Mbps speed of your 802.11b network and gets you much more bang for your buck. Of course, I'm not accounting for TCP overhead, but I know I can stream 1600Mbps DivX video from the 802.11b base station in my bedroom to the QCast in my living room without any problems.

In any case, bandwidth considerations aside, if you want a WMP alternative, try Nullsoft Streaming Video and Winamp 2.9x (as a few other commenters have suggested). It's good stuff.

Re:What's limiting you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect. You do not get 11Mbps. You get 5.5... full duplex. Or so. You end up with at most about 4Mbits of usable bandwidth with 802.11b in my experience.

Re:What's limiting you?

[Wonko42]

Still, 4Mbps is more than enough for high quality streaming video. Most people won't notice any difference between 2Mbps DivX/XviD video and DVD video unless they look really hard.

Oh man WMP streaming...

[curious.corn]

... goto videolan.org and enjoy. I've streamed a divx @ 150Kb/s by just pointing to an http location; you on the other hand can't do that or you won't be able to stream more than 2~3 clients. You want broadcast and videolan does just that! Check the link ASAP, it was designed for you.

Let's pretend you have linux...

[Zarf]

just because I like linux so much I'll pretend that you have linux...

Check out: http://www.videolan.org/


The player works on lots of platforms including windows but the server has to be linux. Now that's fine with me. I'm wondering about Digital Video and digital editing too...
You may also look at these links:
http://cs.uhh.hawaii.edu/~jeschke/links/video.html
This fella has made a pretty good collection of links that he's researched. Hey, I'm interested in this idea now... I think I may have an idea for a project.

Why waste bandwidth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of broadcasting brain-rotting television, you should be saturating your radio waves with this.

Re:Why waste bandwidth?

[polyp2000]

Dude its too early in the morning for a stiffy !

FFMpeg

[Yarn]

I've used ffmpeg so I can watch sports events at work. I record them at home and stream at realtime to my work machine over http.

Just noticed their page is closed due to the patent thing. Try here

Re:FFMpeg

[zztzed]

I don't think it's really 'closed' if they give a link to the original page.

Im saddened

[redog]

Noone mentioned Mplayer and Video-4-Linux
You should find great helpon both the mailing lists and Mplayer is portable to windows so if your school mates are alarmed at the diffrence in Linux you can make them feel more at home.

Agreed - Do it the right way

[Andy Dodd]

See if you can get a grant for funding.

When they renovated my high school, they installed a closed-circuit TV system in the building. Every room had a cable drop and a ceiling-mounted TV, and in the administration building there was an equipment rack that contained a number of RF modulators so that the A/V people could transmit up to 4-5 different channels of custom content on any arbitrary channel they chose. One was used for live feeds (Assemblies in the auditorium, Friday-morning school newscasts), and the rest were for displaying prerecorded content. We had a couple of upstream feeds from various rooms (Auditorium, gym, cafeteria) to the distribution center, and one could easily make one of these a wireless link. (So just one receiver/transmitter pair rather than many.)

Fre RealVideo producer

[braddeicide]

Realvideo Helix Producer Basic is free for non-profit to a max of 1mbit.

http://www.realnetworks.com/products/producer/ba si c.html

Digression - Wireless Cable TV

[DonK]

(Sort of related . .) It would be nice to have my cable TV come to the outside of my house, and then all the internal wiring (3 boxes for 3 sets) be replaced by wireless communication. Presumably this is possible now in various ways, but is it easy? Should I be pestering my cable service to offer it as an option?

Solution looking for a problem

[maggard]

There's this awesome way of broadcasting TV wirelessly - it's called "TV broadcasting".

Seriously, by the time your get all the software set up, the players in place, everyone knowing how to click on the right thing, the bandwidth straightened out (you didn't actually think you'd get what the spec claimed it could max out at did you?) plus dealt with network congestion, codecs, encoding servers, weird antennae patterns, dead spots, hand-offs, enabling multicast... You'll be graduating.

Buy a small TV transmitter. Or get it donated. Or try for a grant. Get the local TV station staff involved, not the anchordroid but the behind-the-scenes folks. Heck they might have just what you folks need sitting in their to-be-replaced bin. Tell them you're their role models, inspiring today's youth, yada yada yada.

Or, if you're like many schools, check to see if there already isn't coax installed in the building at some point as some educational initiative or cable TV license package deal.

In any case streaming video reliably across a wired network is tough enough, across a wireless one you're really asking for problems. Unless there's some really compelling reason use TV equipment for TV-style transmissions.

Re:Solution looking for a problem

[nuggetman]

We have TV equipment. There is a box in the library to broadcast to a TV in every classroom over a closed circuit system. No one would be clicking on anything. It would go from a computer w/ a firewire camera on it at location A, to a computer in our studio. The computer connects to the broadcast box via RCA. DOne.

It depends on latency requirements really...

[Mentorix]

xhost +<ip_of_machine_with_cam>
ssh <ip_of_machine_with_cam>
export DISPLAY=<ip_of_machine_with_tv>
xawtv

As far as I know this is the only way to minimize the delay to something between 20ms and a whole second.

You could try something like Helix from real but you will experience a delay anywhere between 10 and 30 seconds. Mainly because the player wants to have a buffer to buy time if the network craps out. Probably every streaming technology has this but maybe there's one who can cope without needing a buffer.

One thing

[nuggetman]

I'd like to clear up one thing.

The purpose of this setup is to get the video from the camera to a transmitter we already have, courtesy of Channel One. The problem is you need to be directly connected to the box with RCA cables, so obviously we can't be running RCA cable all over the building. Therefore we would just use computers to relay the signal from a computer the camera is on to a computer with RCA output

Using existing coax

[mad_dog3283]

I am assuming that your school has a CATV drop in every classroom, including the one you want to broadcast from, correct? If the splitters used to distribute the RF signal from the MDF (Main Distribution Frame, where the box with RCA's currently is) are hybrids (read: also combiners), all you have to do is connect the RF modulator to the CATV drop in the room you want to broadcast from, and you're set. If that isn't the case or, for some reason, you need to send the signal to the MDF room first (like for effects or switching purposes), and there aren't any IDF's (splitters) in between the MDF and the broadcast room, just connect a modulator to the drop in the broadcast room, then connect a demodulator to the other end of that coax in the MDF room, then run it through your processing equipment, then back into the modulator in the MDF which will send it on to the CATV system.