OT: Live streaming with Windows Media Encoder

richard-courtney wrote on 12/29/2005, 6:39 PM
Anyone have experience using WME for streaming live event? Have 4 sites
that will need a connection.

Trying it out with a cable modem/router to pass request to proper internal IP address.
Remote sites using "mms://xx.xx.xx.xx:2000" to access using windows media player.
(xx'sare the assigned IP from cable company)

Input is from a switcher that has DV (firewire) out.

What settings should I use to get best results for these 4 locations?

Thanks for your suggestions.

Comments

GlennChan wrote on 12/29/2005, 7:51 PM
On the router, you need to setup port forwarding to your machines. Each router is different, so you should probably look in its documentation.

2- Are you streaming from one location to 4???

3- The way I've done this is to have two machines:
One on location. This is the encoder.

One in a data center or somewhere with lots of bandwidth. This is the server, and pulls from the encoder. The latest version of windows server can have the encoder machine push the stream to it, to get around firewalls. The server needs the pricey server edition of windows.

The advantage of this setup is that it can support multiple streams of viewers, without being bottleneck by the encoder's internet connection. Most forms of broadband don't have much bandwidth upstream... you can test via one of the bandwidth tests online.

Unfortunately this setup is pricey.

richard-courtney wrote on 12/30/2005, 6:26 AM
1. D-Link and is passing in my case port 2000 to the internal
192.xx..xx.xx address. A laptop.

2. Yes. The laptop will be streaming using the Live profile.

3. That is the question, can I get these locations from one stream
less than 256K? Will not have both 200K and a 150K stream.
The link is told by the cable rep to be 1.5M in both directions.
If I am streaming from a laptop running the WME going to
four locations does that imply I need 4 times the streaming rate?
Don't have a Windows Media Server, have not looked at a hosting
site.
GlennChan wrote on 12/30/2005, 12:17 PM
If you're feeding that laptop to four remote sites, then you need 4X the bandwidth of a single stream. Plus you need to leave a little extra space for overhead and contingency.

If your network supported multicasting then you would need less bandwidth, but I don't think it's common at all.

2- You can go to dslreports.com and likely figure out the actual upload speed. There are various speed tests online.

3- Maybe it's possible to test things out beforehand?