Internet Broadcasting Phase III

Fixing the Movies for Streaming

Yesterday we copied some old quicktime movies to the osx server but they would not stream. We think the problem is that they are not ready for streaming because they are not 'hinted'.

What is hinting? It appears that streaming quicktime movies need a hint track to tell the QTSS server exactly how to package the data for the network.  So let's try and hint. Our first effort will be on the dual G5 using quicktime pro.

We just dropped the movie by mistake into the safari window. Interesting - it posts as a picture right to the blog. Way to go! Ok we open the movie in quicktime.

1. Select File, Save As from the menu

2. Choose Self-Contained Movie and click Save

3. Select File, Export from the menu

4. Select Movie to Hinted Movie from the Export: pulldown menu

5. Select Default Settings from the Use: menu and click SAVE

This creates a movie ready to stream. So let's test it out. We copy it to the server and put it into Library/QuickTimeStreaming/Movies. Back to the dual G5 and in Quicktime we select File, Open URL and enter:

rtsp://gnickers/book.mov

and it doesn't work. We get the 'live broadcast paused' error. So we re-load the original back into Quicktime.

1. Select Movie to Hinted Movie from the Export: pulldown menu

2. Click the OPTIONS button

3. Place a tick in the Optimize Hints for Server option

4. Click OK, SAVE and replace

Ok we copy it to the server and stick it in the broadcast media directory.  Open the file in quicktime again and...error 32xx - disconnected - live broadcast paused. Ok load the original back into quicktime. This time lets set it up manually.

1. Select File, Export

2. Select Movie to Quicktim Movie in the Export: pulldown

3. Select Streaming - medium in the Use: pulldown

4. Click the OPTIONS button

5. Place a tick in the Prepare for Internet Streaming box

6. Select Hinted Streaming in the settings menu

7. Click the SETTINGS button

8. Put a tick mark in the Optimize Hints for Server box

9. Click OK, OK, Save and replace

This take a bit longer to convert. Copy it to the server and...error 3285 disconnect again! Just to confirm we test out the sample_300kbit.mov and it plays fine. So what is error 3285?