RTSP support in media players, servers

Last Updated Wed Feb 13 17:13:24 2008

Streaming Media Tests

February 2008

Tests of different spreaming servers, players with different media. Stream URLs (e.g. rtsp://server.exampel.com/stream.mpg) given directly to player or via redirector file (playlist) in Web browser.

mplayer : MPlayer in Linux (also Windows)
WMP: Microsoft Windows Media Player in Windows
realplay: RealPlayer from RealNetworks
Darwin: Darwin Streaming Server from Apple
Helix : Helix Streaming Server from helixcommunity.org
Real : RealServer from RealNetworks
Live555 : Live server from live555.com
Apache : regular webserver from apache.org
QuickTime : Quicktime Player from Apple
415 : Server returns RTSP/1.0 415 Unsupported Media Type
404 : Server returns RTSP/1.0 404 Not Found
NC : Server returns "not configured/licensed for media type"
- : other error

	File	Apache HTTP	Helix RTSP	Real RTSP	Real MMS	Darwin RTSP	Live555 RTSP
MP3/.M3U	mplayer realplay winamp WMP Quicktime	mplayer realplay Quicktime	mplayer realplay	mplayer realplay	-	-	mplayer realplay
Realvideo .RM/.RAM	mplayer realplay	mplayer realplay	mplayer realplay	mplayer realplay	-	-	404
MPEG .MPG/.M4U	mplayer WMP no video Quicktime	mplayer WMP no video Quicktime	NC	-	-	415	mplayer
Quicktime .MOV/.MOV	mplayer	mplayer	NC	-	-	415
Hinted Quicktime .MOV/.MOV	mplayer quicktime	mplayer	NC	quicktime	-	mplayer quicktime	-
Realtext .RT/.RAM	realplay	-	NC	realplay	-	-	404
WMV/.WVX	mplayer WMP	mplayer WMP	NC	404	mplayer WMP	415	404
WAV/.PLS	mplayer realplay winamp quicktime WMP	mplayer realplay WMP Quicktime	NC	-	-	404	mplayer

Darwin Server needs hinted media files, or reference movies produced by e.g. QuickTime Pro. It will not serve unprocessed MPEG or quicktime files.
MP4Box can be used to convert MPEG to MPEG4 and add hints. (thanks, Joern)

Playlists

Since Web browsers like Firefox do not undertand RTSP transport, and typically download an entire file before passing media to a helper application, a playlist or redirector file is commonly used to pass a media URL to a media player. The browser downloads the playlist and passes it to the player.

.M3U, .M4U : MP3, MPEG :
.RAM: realmedia: textfile
rtsp://server.example.com/sample.mp3

.WVX: textfile
<ASX VERSION="3.0"> <ENTRY> <REF HREF="mms://server.example.com:7554/sample.wmv" /> </ENTRY> </ASX>

.PLS MP3 : textfile
[sample] File1=rtsp://server.example.com/sample.mp3 Title1=Sample Length1=-1 NumberOfEntries=1 Version=2

.MOV : quicktime
RTSPtextrtsp://server.example.com/sample.mov
Quicktime requires same suffix for playlist as for movie.

Some information from spartanicus' Web Tips

Since mplayer wants to be told that a file is a playlist and not media, I have the following helper "mplaylist" to handle .RAM, .M3U, .M4U, .WVX:

#!/bin/sh
exec mplayer -cache 32 -playlist $*

To handle Quicktime playlists (.MOV, same as media) and .PLS, this more complicated script works.

A.Daviel