Live Video Streaming

[ripcurlksm]

I have had some experience working with Limelight, Alkamai video streams, but it was always on demand video content, where a user finds a video, and it streams to their computer. Pretty simple.

What I am interested in is a live video stream, where when a user visits a page and they find themselves in the middle of a live stream.

I have ten 30-minute video presentations that I am going to daisey-chain together using XML and have it stream. The reason why I want to use XML as well is because for each presentation, i want to display detailed information about that presentation that is loaded from XML.

There will be 30-40 users viewing the stream.

The stream will start an 9am and I want the users to see the video stream, along with the XML data for presentation name and presentation description. If someone were to log in late at 9:15, they would miss half the presentation (which is fine).

[Eye for Video]

Is cost a concern? Typically live streaming will cost 10 to 20 times that of progressive downloading. Or are you expecting to use a free service of some type? Just remember, you usually get what you pay for.
Do you have the player and have you tested it with your xml file?
A great hosting service for streaming is:
http://www.upstreamnetworks.com/
They had Flash as well as Windows wmv.
Check out some of their help files for more specifics.
EfV

[ripcurlksm]

Thanks for the input, more specifically this is what I am trying to do. There are 11 presentations that stream live. With each presentation, there is a (1)title, (2)description and (3)extra details about the presentation that will change as the presentation playlist progresses.

I know I can do this with Flash and XML.... but can this work with a live stream? So if you login late at 10:30, you miss the first 3 presentations and you see presentation 4 playing. Is this possible with a live stream, and what would it be called?

http://www.webdeveloper.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=12599&stc=1&d=1240939708

[Eye for Video]

The final answer may have to be worked out with your streaming host, but typically it would go something like this.
Arrange all the files in order of playtime and starting with the first, play each one sequentially. Are you "pushing" the files from your local computer to your host or will the files be stored on the host's server? If the files are to be stored on the hosting server, you will have to discuss with them exactly how to configure the playlist. If being pushed from a local source, their server will see the data input as just one continuous stream. Either way, the end result will be just one continuous stream of data coming out of the streaming server, not 10 separate videos.
Then on your Web site you'll need to place a Flash video player on the page to capture and display the publishing point of your stream. If viewed before the stream starts, it will be blank (or better yet, place a message under the video layer in the player letting viewers know the exact time and date of the live stream).
Since this may prove to be a fairly expense project, be sure to do some calculations ahead of time to determine how much bandwidth you are expecting to use. The calculations would go something like this.
First, determine the bitrate or bitrates (if you want to stream several different download speeds) of the video final delivery. For example, lets say you just want one stream delivered at 300kbps.
60 sec = 18000kbps then divide by 8 (for bytes) = 2250KB or 2.25MB per min
2.25MB X 60 min = 135MB per hr per viewer, 135 X 6 for the full monte = 810MB
for 40 viewers you'll need approx 32.4 GB bandwidth from your host.
But for this project to be successful, you need to work directly with your streaming host to configure the playlist and to provide adequate bandwidth. This is not simply setting up a .xml playlist as you might on a progressive download host.
Also, be sure to set up your account ahead of time and test the steam with some sample videos strung together one right after another, starting at a preset time. Test and practice until you feel confident that all is working well.
EfV