A whole heap of demanding streaming !!!!!!!!!!!

[p3cca]

Hi there folks, how are you?

This is my first post here so please be patient if I stumble along the way!

Right then my question is:

I have been looking at several of the NAS units as I wish to stream films saved on my drives to other friends in our community.
(Basically a kind of video on demand idea)

The thought of FTP does appeal to me how ever I would like to create a service that is similar to that of the BBC Iplayer.

I didnt really want people to download the file but I prefer keeping all data and then allowing them to choose the film/program of their choice and then click to watch and to ensure that the film is only cached on their machine.

Should I really be looking at something like mac OS X server or is there a small device that allows for all of this?

Ihope this is in the correct post.

many thanks

pecca

 

[scotty]

There's a couple decent streaming applications with fairly good web based interfaces that are out there - many of them freeware. I honestly can't name anything specifically off the top of my head, but there are a lot. A google search like this will get you going. The problem is that these kinds of applications runs on PC's not a NAS. With an off-the-shelf NAS, some of them support various streaming protocols like DLNA (which the PS3 supports, for example), but I can't think of any that have a slick web-based interface which you might be looking for. I'm no expert on the latest and greatest in the NAS world, so someone here like tim might be able to point you in a better direction. But I'm going to guess for what you wan't you'll need a more fully featured program running on a PC.

I've set up this sort of 'iplayer' system before for some clients at a previous job, but it was always using Windows Media Services on Win2K3 server and a custom jsp front end.

 

[p3cca]

Hi there Scotty.

Many thanks for the reply.

The main reason to stream is that I predict that if the files were open to be downloaded then all the local users would just download the whole lot and then there I would be project less!!!! I am banking on supply to approx 10-20 client computers and hopefully more in the near future depending if i can actually get the "stream" to them as it will all be on a LAN prob supplied via wifi.

I guess it does not have to be an actual NAS unit but then I belive the advantages would be greater ie RAID and such a small footprint with so little configuring and set up head aches when compared to a windows specific server or even a mac X server for that matter.

I like the idea of being able to stream to both Xbox 360 and ps3 as not all the folk in my commuinity have laptop/desktop.

Oh sorry guys i should have mentioned that we all live on a runway hence we are in the middle of no where and the backhaul (internet bandwith) coming into camp is very slow for our users hence having a local video on demand service.

What do you mean by a custom JSP front end? I have had a few folk recommend WMS but i am a max fanatic and i have a spare mac mini to which i would like to play with mac server x!

Cheers again Scotty

 

[scotty]

Hi there Scotty.

Many thanks for the reply.

The main reason to stream is that I predict that if the files were open to be downloaded then all the local users would just download the whole lot and then there I would be project less!!!! I am banking on supply to approx 10-20 client computers and hopefully more in the near future depending if i can actually get the "stream" to them as it will all be on a LAN prob supplied via wifi.

I guess it does not have to be an actual NAS unit but then I belive the advantages would be greater ie RAID and such a small footprint with so little configuring and set up head aches when compared to a windows specific server or even a mac X server for that matter.

I like the idea of being able to stream to both Xbox 360 and ps3 as not all the folk in my commuinity have laptop/desktop.

Oh sorry guys i should have mentioned that we all live on a runway hence we are in the middle of no where and the backhaul (internet bandwith) coming into camp is very slow for our users hence having a local video on demand service.

What do you mean by a custom JSP front end? I have had a few folk recommend WMS but i am a max fanatic and i have a spare mac mini to which i would like to play with mac server x!

Cheers again Scotty

There's a few streaming apps out there for Macs as well, so a bit of searching and you can probably find something pretty quickly. In fact, I frequently read Lifehacker and they had a good article on doing this not too long ago. That's probably a good start.

By JSP front end, I basically mean a web based front end with a database full of users. With this particular service, we catalogued media broadcasts and certain members of the company had certain access levels. WMS can do much of what you need, but I think the intent of it is a little different and there's systems like the one I linked to above which could probably do it a little better. But it could work. Since it works well with Windows Media Encoder, you could stream a live radio station or TV station. I've done a fair bit in that realm with a past client as I mentioned.

Your mac mini could probably do it, but settign up a basic PC with RAID is pretty simple. Not quite as plug-and-play as a NAS, but if you can install windows, encorporating RAID is only 1 or 2 extra steps before Windows gets installed. Windows Media Player 11 can be used as a DLNA server right out of the box. That what I use at home to get stuff over to my PS3.

 

[thiggins]

Low bandwidth and lots of streaming don't go well together. Remember that on your end, you will need lots of upstream bandwidth, which for most "broadband" connections is in short supply.

You're going to need really good compression and digital rights management if you don't want users capturing the files. I don't know much about this at all, but I'm pretty sure you won't find it on a NAS. Better think full-fledged computer.