Streaming is broken

For several months I have tried and tried to contact DreamHost support in regards to a specific QuickTime Streaming feature. But I have been unable to get in touch with anyone who even has any idea what QTSS or DSS actually IS. So it has been extremely frustrating to be forced to repeatedly explain over and over what is one of the most basic functions of QuickTime Streaming, to someone who doesn't understand what it is and just says "we don't support that" to every question.

Would it be possible for me to speak directly to someone at DreamHost who has actually used DSS and is familiar with the way the server is set up? I have been running my own DSS server for 5 years and I want to migrate over to a professional webhost, but I cannot migrate as long as I am unable to resolve one basic problem because nobody at DreamHost knows how their own DSS server works. I won't bother getting into details until I am convinced I'm speaking to someone who actually knows how DSS works.

At this point, I have spent more than 6 months of service fees just trying to get a basic answer to the simplest, most basic feature of QuickTime Streaming. What do I need to do, to get to talk to someone who actually can solve this problem??

In reply to:
I won't bother getting into details until I am convinced I'm speaking to someone who actually knows how DSS works.

I don't wish to sound negative, but I think you are going to be unlucky in this case. I am not sure why you would expect the hosting company to be intimate with the specifics of QTSS/DSS. I wouldn't expect them to know the ins and outs of a specific PHP feature, for example, but I would expect them to ensure that a stable version of it was running on my system.

What exactly is the problem? Maybe one of your fellow customers can help - I would imagine there are hundreds of forum members who use Quicktime streaming.

I don't expect them to know the intimate details of QTSS/DSS. I DO expect them to be able to tell me why their DSS server does not work when I try to use extremely basic features that I can get to work on other QTSS/DSS servers. As far as I can tell, their DSS server is deliberately misconfigured, and features are stripped out.

To be specific: DreamHost's DSS machine does not support Reference Movies. This is the whole point of doing QTSS/DSS, you encode several different "alternates" which are mov files encoded to match the bandwidth for different connection speeds. On my existing QTSS system, I encode 3 alternates, for 56k, 112k, and 256k, then I create a Reference Movie that links to those 3 movies. Then I put the 3 alternates on the QTSS machine, and the RefMov on the HTTP server. I call up the RefMov in my web page, the RefMov calls up the appropriate alternate that matches my available bandwidth. This is the whole POINT of using QTSS, with alternates, you are able to deliver a mov that is perfect for each user's bandwidth.

But on DreamHost, it is impossible to use Reference Movies, you can only access the file directly via RTSP. I asked DreamHost support why I can't get Reference Movies to work, they said they "don't support advanced features like Reference Movies." Wha? RefMovs are THE single MOST BASIC feature of QTSS.

I guarantee that somewhere at DreamHost, there is one guy who set up the DSS server in the first place, and knows how to administer the server. I need to talk to him, not the know-nothing low-level techs who just say it can't be done. I've been running my own QTSS server for 5 years, I'm an Apple Developer, I could even assist DreamHost in correcting their configuration. But so far I can't even get a thing out of DH tech support.

We've had a couple Honchos (dreamhost Founders) on the Forums rescently, perhaps one of them will stop in here and be able to assist. Past that, you might request that Jeff or Dallas look over your concerns in a support message. While they well may not know about the server setup, they may be able to give you a better answer or direct your message.

--Matttail
art.googlies.net - personal website

I'm on the QT Streaming List with the original poster and there's an exchange going on there about this too. At this point, I can get nothing to work with QTSS/DSS, not even using the RTSP URLs as Dreamhost specifies. And I know this was working last summer, when I tested this.

Can anybody at all get an RTSP streaming URL to work? I mean please go and try it right now, even if it was working yesterday. I hope this is something I'm doing wrong, though I can't for the life of me see what that is.

I think the idea of offering QTSS/DSS support is a great one, but I agree with ceicher that they ned to do some support here, not just leave the server dead with nothing working. And I'm also going to send that to support, who I will say has been good in the past about working on issues I raise.

It's happened to me aswell i have a load of stuff setup in my streaming folders, and since yesterday nothing works, please help i've been working on this stuff for more than a year and i assure u this is very frustrating.

I wrote a DreamHost article about embedding objects a while ago, and I did some testing of streaming files with the Darwin Streaming Server. There didn't seem to be any problems with it, but I didn't try Reference Movies because I wasn't even aware of that feature.

The code for streaming movies still works though: http://wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/Object_Embedding#Streaming_from_the_Darwin_Streaming_Server

The code may work (and it should, from looking at it) but the server is not, at least as of an hour ago (I don't check it every hour). I am submitting this to support, as several people are saying they can't get their streaming to work.

OK, someone rebooted the box or something, as my RTSP URLs now work again. So I'll be looking at reference movies now, getting back to your initial question.

Here's a reference movie that works:

http://www.cabcwaco.org/test300_ref.mov

Granted, this does not support alternates, but the basic concept of a reference movie does seem to be supported by their configuration. I'll try to get some alternate sizes together and make another ref movie with them all in it.

It works on my end too. Just out of curiousity, what did you use as the server path when you created the RefMov? What did you use to make the RefMov?

I'll try creating a new RefMov since I already have 3 good alternates up on the server.

there was a stray process not releasing the port, which was blocking new connections.

I opened the RTSP URL in Quicktime Player. I have QT Pro, so I saved the movie as a reference movie right from there. All was well. Opening the ref movie in BBEdit, it looks like it's just embedding the whole RTSP path in there, just as I've done on another site, where we use PHP to build ref movies on the fly.

Download the file from the link and open it in a text editor; you'll see.

OK, looks like the problem is solved, the DSS server needed a restart, now everything is working. It is still unclear why RefMovies didn't work when I first started experimenting with streaming on DreamHost several months ago. I'm doing nothing different but now it's working. Oh well, at least it's working now.

I will try to document some of this Reference Movie stuff in the support wiki, since it appears that the use of RefMovs isn't obvious.

The embedding using a qtl file is working.
Can anyone tell me how to set up multiple movies in quicktime?
Something like an m3u format for movies

EDIT!!!! Sorry, mis-read your post, yeah, um... I'm not sure, I guess you can just make a playlist in windows mdeia player, save it, link the files to your server, like the vids and upload all the videos, dunno

m3u is a play list, not a format of a movie, like .mov, .wmv .mpg/.mpeg .avi are movie formats, play lists can be .m3u but not an actual movie, just FYI

Edited by aussieferal.com on 07/06/06 00:59 AM (server time).

Is this streaming actually live, so like just say there are 3 people watching the video, person 1 (p1) starts watching at 6PM, p2 6:02PM and p3: 6:20pm, will p3 start watching from the start or does he see what p1 will be seeing 20 mins into the vid?

In reply to:
Is this streaming actually live

No. All users will see video from the beginning, irrespective of what time they begin watching. In this respect, it is little more useful than progressive downloading.