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Portable, Non-Proprietary Streaming Hardware?
bandini asks: "My job occasionally has me running encoders for live webcasts in locations that demand a high degree of portability and flexibility. It's usually required that we provide redundant encoders, so my current setup consists of two rack-mounted WinXP machines and a KVM tray/switch in a very large, heavy, awkward case. In this age of powerful, small-form-factor computers, what kind of new configuration can I seek to relieve myself of some of the headaches of hauling around this giant case?"
"I would use a pair of laptops but we want to keep using the Osprey capture cards that we've invested in, which will take multiple A/V inputs, including XLR balanced audio. We want to keep the setup as modular as possible so that the input devices, monitor, KVM switch, either computer or either card can fail without causing a catastrophe. We want to avoid the highly integrated and very expensive dedicated machines on the market. Ideally, the whole setup would break down into a couple of carry-on sized bags, and any one component could be replaced with readily available parts. Also, I've been looking for a good online community dedicated to live streaming issues, but haven't found anything yet. Any constructive input will be deeply appreciated."
Are you really asking for Non-proprietary hardware? That's extremely uncommon, even for non computer-related hardware. Ever noticed how everything says 'patent pending' on it?
Of course, you probably only care about the software interface being open, not the design of the hardware. Carry on.
I pretend to know more than I really do by mooching off google and wikipedia.
First non-proprietary streaming post
Get some Shuttle XPCs
"Any constructive input will be deeply appreciated."
Ha. I predict a suggestion of a pair of linux powered toasters at some point.
"I would use a pair of laptops but we want to keep using the Osprey capture cards that we've invested in"
I think before you change your hardware you're going to need to change your mindset. The Osprey cards are fantastic (ESPECIALLY their XLR input capability) but anything requiring such a large PCI card wil almost mandate a deep-chassis 2u form factor. I recently broadcast a friend's wedding and had the same problem - it's difficult to get good audio/video with standard laptop hardware. I settled on a good DV camera with an add-on quality microphone connected to a USB ATI TV-Wonder and was VERY happy with the results. At only a few hundred K/second (church broadband), the encoding was the clear bottleneck in the A/V quality. On top of that, I was taping using the DV cam the whole time so I had a very high quality copy of the action for later post-processing and packaging for the bride and groom.
For the professional? A good DV cam (maybe PTZ, audio inputs required though) ouputting raw DV to two sources - a high-capacity DV recorder and a beefy laptop acting as the encoder. The recorder is there to prevent the encoder from seeing the akward minute-long outages you encounter when switching tapes (I ran into this problem last month).
You're not going to get all that much better than what you have. You'll probably be stuck with 2 2U boxes for your computer, since AFAIK, anything 1U that will take a PCI card is gonna be way bigger than your standard portable audio rack. Since you want to keep using your Osprey cards (good choice, btw), you're kind of out of luck for anything much smaller. I'm kind of fuzzy on what you're looking for. It sounds like your setup works. Maybe you just need to look at a case with better handles or casters.
Mod point free since 2001
This brings to mind the issue of quality... what kind of quality are you looking for? HD level? Or would standard TV quality suffice?
As a side topic, for average quality (ie. webclip quality) for in-car video (perhaps with front and rear view so 2 cams required), what software is available? I've been looking for something similar for this, and haven't turned up much. It has to be able to process at least 30fps and encode live, so I'm guessing for 2 cams, the CPU is unlikely to be able to hold up and a hardware solution is required that WILL work with Linux... what are the options?
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There are two devices I recommend for this: The first one is the Edje series encoders, made by http://www.adtecinc.com/Adtec. They offer good quality, and use MPEG-2 streams. If you're going the cheap route, I believe it's under $500 these days. The second is the http://www.vbrick.com/VBrick series of streaming encoders. I've only tested their MPEG2 models, but they have a wide range of MPEG4 available as well. These can also record locally to a HD. They're a bit more expensive than the Adtecs, but quite reliable. While I wouldn't really call either of these machines "open" per se, I am under the impression they both use linux kernels under the hood. They can be controlled either by RS-232 or ethernet with their simple client software (Adtec lets you play directly with the settings in a terminal too.) VBricks also include a remote control. Hope this helps.
If you like this sort of thing, you might consider getting involved with the project.
The big problem was getting systems on the other side of our firewall to see the stream properly. The best MPEG4 player is Quicktime, and it couldn't find the stream. Real Player could run with the QT plug in and find it, but that was clunky and forced people to actually use Real Player (spit)
The solution was to use Powerstream as a reflector. They are fairly cheap, and if you are broadcasting to a ton of people off site you want to do this anyway to save your bandwidth. All you do is download a config program, click some buttons and you get a URL that works in every browser I can find- IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc. Haven't tested Linux since I only use that on the server side.
If you're looking for a cheaper solution, try StarValley They sell some dirt cheap MPEG2 and 4 encoders and decoders. We have an MPEG2 encoder that's the size of a paperback book- the decoders are even smaller. We use it for a sign system around campus since running cable would have been really expensive. We do get occasional crashes with this (~1/week while running 24/7), but I'm not entirely sure it's Starvalley's fault- the signage system has been a real nightmare. I've got an auto-reboot script to reset it if it dies- a reboot takes about ten seconds, so it's not a big deal.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
I've been racking my brain (and the Internet) over the past week, trying to get a simple Linux streaming solution working. It should take a live video stream from a Firewire IEEE1394 consumer camcorder, encode it on a laptop, and send it to a streaming server for mass broadcast.
I've found several interesting F/OSS programs and utilties (like MPEG4IP and GStreamer), and have kept a list of all software combinations I've tried. Right now it's pretty detailed, so hopefully it can help others. E-mail me if you have any suggestions.
First, thanks for the comments - lots of good stuff. I feel like I should explain myself a bit more. In the interest of making my question short and to the point, I left a few things out: -We do have the rackmounted machines in a SKB-type case - I forget the make, but it has 5" casters. So it rolls. But it's still very big, heavy, clunky, and far from easy to travel with. -We are using a 1U tray Keyboard/trackball/monitor + KVM switch unit to control both machines. The thing is, it's less than a year old and a pin has already gone on it somewhere, taking out most of the keyboard, which makes me think that maybe the whole integration thing is not so hot. I think I'd rather have a petite standalone screen, input devices, and KVM. -When I said "non-proprietary", I was being imprecise - I just meant that we want to use PC-type devices, not dedicated appliances, so that we can use them for SCP, editors, browsers, etc. -Both encoding machines run Windows XP, which I'm *really* not crazy about, especially since they often have to get plugged into networks that I don't know anything about (hotels, studios, other venues). One has already picked up something tenacious and will probably need a a reinstall of the OS soon. However, my options are limited - I'm usually a Mac user and a burgeoning Linux noob (run Ubuntu on my laptop [blush]) and I'm not confident that I could get these machines to do what I need them to do under Linux. -The two machines are 1) a 2U Niagara (Viewcast) machine similar to this one, and 2) a very plain Visionman 1U machine. Both have Osprey 560 cards mounted, though I don't think that we need the full capabilities of the 560 -we've used the 230 and 300 for other jobs and they work just as well for our purposes (more on our purposes below). The 230 and 300 cards could fit in an XPS-type case, I think. The 560s are rather large. -We mostly need these machines to simultaneously encode multi-bitrate Windows and Real streams, and send them to a distribution network (Akamai) for streaming over the Internet, while archiving a local copy on the HD. This is why we like the Osprey cards; the 'Simulstream' feature (add-on)allows two encoding apps to feed off the same capture. The bitrate settings are generally quite modest by broadcast standards, though the multiple bitrates x double streams x redundant backup encodes can add up. -The audience is usually the world at large (or rather some tiny fraction thereof) so we're bound to use WM and Real almost exclusively. FWIW, I actually like the Real product - the encoding quality is distinctly superior to WM at low bitrates - but their player has been stuffed with so much marketing poison over the years that many of our clients are now opting for WM only, which is kind of depressing even if there's a good reason for it. I am interested in working with Flash more in the future, as 2006 has proven to be the year that Flash video broke wide. It's just that not enough people are running version 8 yet, which supports the first decent FLV codec. I think I'll be taking a close look at a pair of Shuttle XPS machines, at least for a traveling kit. The goal is full redundancy, all the capabilties I mentioned above, and - the holy grail - being able to fit the whole kit in an overhead compartment.
Give people tools that guarantee their right to work with independent efficiency. - Ivan Illich
Do you have any examples of non-proprietary hardware? It would be interesting to check out.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
Get a couple of Dell laptops...
...with hot swappable components...
Make sure they have firewire...
Don't forget to get one with a burner...
Of course, I'll probably draw some fire for these suggestions....
www.wavefront-av.com
As long as you're considering the Shuttle based on form factor, you may find the Chenming MATX-118 interesting. You asked to stay away from proprietary hardware and while Shuttles are standard PCs, they use proprietary motherboards and power supplies.
The MATX solves those problems while trying to stay as compact as possible. They take the Micro-ATX form factor motherboard, widely available today. With space for 3 internal hard drives plus 3 external-facing bays, there's plenty of room for storage. There's even a carrying handle on the front! The power supply is smaller than a standard ATX power supply, but will fit a regular one. The only drawback here is that the top drive bay may become unusable.
The plexi-glass window is standard - sorry if it looks too modder for you. It's better than the ones based on this case made by Aspire. Those have more windows, LED-lit fans and power supply, and more windows.
I hope that helps...
I've been googling for prices on the VBricks but had no luck.
Can someone please post some links or prices, particularly for the WM version?
You'd have to contact a reseller (like me) for official Vbrick pricing, especially if you want several boxes. They also make some management software, VOD servers, etc... There is a bunch of stuff you can do, if you're interested in streaming video, you'd want to talk to someone who understands the product lineup.
I don't have access to a price list right now, but a mpeg4 single channel encoder is about $4500, MPEG2 is $6500, WM is less.
Thanks mate, great info. :cheers:
Ball park is good enough for my immediate needs. Guessing you mean about $4K US for a single encoder WM box.
Only looking for one initially but that could change. Had been considering a rack mount server with a high end Osprey card but this sounds like a much more cost effective and simple solution.
The rest of the infrastructure is designed including the Internet facing media server and I think a VBrick could slot in perfectly.
Would be interested in contacting you but not sure what the slashdot ettiquete is for that. Can't work out how to message you but maybe I'm just tired.
Cheers again for the info, it will be very useful.
We ran three Windows Media streams from a tower (with a generator on it also running the judging / scoring system) off a small Fijian island with a small cube-form PC running XP and Raycaster.
We had extra PCs around we could use as backups if it failed, too -- this is obviously a fairly harsh environment (sun, sand, surf, seaspray, and of course theres always the risk of it just falling off the tower in the first place).
This is probably not so much help for your specific requirements, but the system *was* small and portable, which was very important to us for getting it onto the tower, and capable of running multiple streams off a single piece of hardware. Maybe something to consider.
(This was the second year we did this - last year we used plain Windows Media Encoder running three PCs, one to encode each stream -- THAT was a nightmare to manage)
I know you said you want to keep the capture cards you have, but have you considered a MacBook Pro? You could obtain any of a variety of very portable external USB|Firewire audio capture devices (keeps the audio away from the CPU/Motherboard, which is of course good for keeping electronics-induced noise down); (also, see below).
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I've recently switched from Windows back to Mac, and it has been a transforming experience. Everything Just Works. There was very little setup to do, and it runs rock solid. It's a nice compromise between screen real estate and portability.
Of course, if you choose to use MacOS on the Mac (as opposed to running Windows, which does work), your encoding software would have to be switched out. I haven't googled yet for what's available for live encoding and streaming on Macs, but I'm 98.6% sure there are several good choices. I've talked with several local pro musicians (some of whom are audio guys as well), and they pretty much universally use Macs. (I'm guessing, for example, that Apple's program 'Logic' [pro version] has live encoding -- it seems to do just about everything else...)
As for the outboard hardware, check out these two companies' products:
- http://m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.list&ID=
http://m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.list&ID=
- http://digidesign.com/index.cfm?navid=30&langid=1
http://digidesign.com/index.cfm?navid=31&langid=1
http://digidesign.com/index.cfm?navid=29&langid=1
I don't know how to send a message either. Single channel WM encoder is $4595 US list price. I'm not sure what pricing is like for Australia. Shoot me an email, I'll find out. - jeffj AT nessnetworks DOT com.
A rack-mount shelf is available, it's 2U high, holds 2 Vbrick appliances (4 encoder/decoders total).
Thanks again for your help.
This http://www.cappuccinopc.com/expando-f154p.asp seems to be what you are looking for. For inputs I'd go with the smallest LCD monitor you can find (a 10" should do) and a small mouse and keyboard. You could go with a small LCD touchscreen, but it would be annoying.