Saving a Tandberg Stream

[rob1971]

I've recently been doing some testing with the streaming feature of the Tandberg codecs and think it might be rather useful to our organisation.

So far I've just been viewing the stream in a web browser with the Quicktime plugin, however I'd like to be able to save the streams for later viewing.

Unfortunately we don't have a budget to buy a hardware appliance or even software to do this, so I was looking at using VLC to transcode and save the stream, only I've not even been able to view it live using VLC yet.

Has anyone managed to get VLC working with streaming and if so would you mind giving me some pointers? I'm guessing I've mis-configured it somewhere, but can't see where. :(

Are there any (free) alternatives that I could try that would allow me to save the stream in a commonly used video format?

[robertk]

It is suposed to work with the DARWIN server... but i have never tested it myself.

http://developer.apple.com/opensource/server/streaming/index.html

//Robert

[rob1971]

Unfortunately we're a Windows-only organisation Robert, and the Darwin option appears to be MacOS only.

[robertk]

I managed to google a Whitepaper from TANDBERG describing streaming and also that it is possible to use the quicktime server as a "reflector":

http://www.ivci.com/pdf/whitepaper-tandberg-streaming-video.pdf

//Robert

[robertk]

Unfortunately we're a Windows-only organisation Robert, and the Darwin option appears to be MacOS only.

I don't think so, DARWIN is the open source project of Apple Quictime Streaming server, and should be possible to run on different platforms.

"Darwin Streaming Server is an open source project intended for developers who need to stream QuickTime and MPEG-4 media on alternative platforms such as Windows, Linux, and Solaris"

//Robert

[rob1971]

Apologies Robert, I'd not dug deeply enough on the right website to find the Windows version of the Darwin server. I have now located it and am currently downloading...

http://dss.macosforge.org/post/41/

I also located that PDF, which does have some helpful pointers, although it does seem to be a little out of date looking at the units mentioned... ;)

[tr7ster]

Have you tried Windows Media Encoder (http://http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx)?

[tr7ster]

A little bit of thread resurrection - if you didn't have success with DARWIN, have you tried Windows Media Encoder?

I was going to link to it, but seeing as this is my first post the forum rules won't allow it...

I've not played with the streaming options within VLC, but have successfully streamed and captured with WME a few times, using an output from a Tandberg 6000MXP. It's straightforward, Windows-based (obviously...), and free.

Ben

[DRI]

Keep in mind the quality of the stream as well, i.e. Transmit = Call Rate128kbps, video protocol H.261, audio protocol G.711 and Video Format CIF.

Not all that great but if quality is not an issue, then by all means go for it.

Just my 2cents :)

[nordal]

Ben, I have reinserted your post above with the link inside. It was wrongly tagged as spam - normally users cannot post links in their first three posts (it very effectively keeps of spammers). Anyway, yours was obviously genuine :)

/nordal


A little bit of thread resurrection - if you didn't have success with DARWIN, have you tried Windows Media Encoder?

I was going to link to it, but seeing as this is my first post the forum rules won't allow it...

I've not played with the streaming options within VLC, but have successfully streamed and captured with WME a few times, using an output from a Tandberg 6000MXP. It's straightforward, Windows-based (obviously...), and free.

Ben

[rob1971]

.. but have successfully streamed and captured with WME a few times, using an output from a Tandberg 6000MXP.

Hi Ben

Can you confirm how you captured the output from the Tandberg?

Did you physically connect an S-Video/composite video output on the MXP to a capture device on the PC running WME or did you somehow manage to connect to the WME server to the IP stream generated by the Tandberg?

I'm trying to do the latter, as we don't have physical access to the location, so the remote connection menthod is much more suitable for our purposes.

Have you got any pointers, as I'm struggling to find a way of using the Tandberg generate stream as the source for WME. I may have missed something blindingly obvious however!

Cheers, Rob

[tr7ster]

Physical S-Video output from the back of the codec I'm afraid, into a USB video capture device. I'm yet to play with the Tandberg streaming options but I intend to sometime soon. Hopefully you'll have worked things out by then so I can pick your brains for info!

Ben

[JFCOMEngineer]

Hi Ben

Can you confirm how you captured the output from the Tandberg?

Did you physically connect an S-Video/composite video output on the MXP to a capture device on the PC running WME or did you somehow manage to connect to the WME server to the IP stream generated by the Tandberg?

I'm trying to do the latter, as we don't have physical access to the location, so the remote connection method is much more suitable for our purposes.

Have you got any pointers, as I'm struggling to find a way of using the Tandberg generate stream as the source for WME. I may have missed something blindingly obvious however!

Cheers, Rob

Rob,

Is the reason that you want to use WME so you can play the stream using Windows Media Player? If you use the streaming function of the CODEC, then you don't need to use WME, as you are already generating an encoded stream. The problem is that WMP won't play it. You have to use QuickTime or Real. I prefer RealPlayer because it doesn't surreptitiously attempt to install iTunes as a critical security update, but either will work. If you want to use WMP, then the best way I have come up with is to capture and encode the video. I use an Osprey card instead of a USB capture device, but it's the same solution using (maybe) better hardware, there are supposed to be some pretty good USB capture devices out there. I actually did an IP television distribution system like this once, using sat receivers as the source and a media server as a reflector. For the time it was pretty spiffy.

Regards,

[rob1971]

Rob,

Is the reason that you want to use WME so you can play the stream using Windows Media Player? If you use the streaming function of the CODEC, then you don't need to use WME, as you are already generating an encoded stream. The problem is that WMP won't play it. You have to use QuickTime or Real. I prefer RealPlayer because it doesn't surreptitiously attempt to install iTunes as a critical security update, but either will work. If you want to use WMP, then the best way I have come up with is to capture and encode the video. I use an Osprey card instead of a USB capture device, but it's the same solution using (maybe) better hardware, there are supposed to be some pretty good USB capture devices out there. I actually did an IP television distribution system like this once, using sat receivers as the source and a media server as a reflector. For the time it was pretty spiffy.

Hi JFCOM

Fortunately I'm not too fussed about which media player is suitable for viewing the stream, although, personally, I prefer WMP to either Real or QuickTime.

What I'm wanting to do is capture the video stream produced by the Tandberg and save it as a file on my own PC, for later upload to a server for archival/time-shifting purposes.

It did look as if VLC would be able to do this, by transcoding the live Tandberg stream into a suitable file-format which would be saved locally on my PC. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get it working, hence my original post.

Basically I'm after a something akin to a free version of an IPVCR/Tandberg Content Server, as budgets are too tight to be able to purchase the 'real thing'.