STREAMING VIDEO on OSX

What you need

You will need :

• a Apple computer running OSX
• a camera with a firewire output, you can use another type of camera that isnt firewire (a usb webcam for example) but there are so many of these available its impossible to outline how to use each one here. Just try whatever you have and hopefully it will work.
• a firewire cable to connect the two (note there are two different sizes of firewire connectors . If you are in doubt then take your camera to a AV store and ask them which cable you require).

Streaming Server

It is also assumed you have access to a streaming server, wither the Quicktime Streaming Server of the Darwin Streaming server. You can follow a lot of this manual without having access to one but its much more fun if you can actually stream too. If you do have access to a streaming server then we will stream using Automatic Unicast and for this you will need the owner of the streaming server to give you the following :

• username for the streaming server
• password for the same server
• the hostname of the streaming server. This may be on the form of a domain name (eg. stream.streamingsuitcase.com) or an IP Address (eg. 214.22.44.5)

Background

Streaming video on OSX is either simple, or expensive. Thats the nature of using an operating system where non-free software is the norm. The best software, in my opinion, is the Live Channel Pro software from Channel Storm ( www.channelstorm.com/ ). However I am guessing you don't have a spare 900 British pounds? If you do then you should hire a consultant and stop reading this free manual!

Next in line is the usual software from Apple themselves. Its called Quicktime Broadcaster, and you can find it at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/broadcaster/

Its pretty good for a video encoder and integrates nicely into the Quicktime Streaming Server (the non-free version of Apples streaming server and built into Apples OSX server) or the Darwin Streaming Server (the free version of Apples streaming server). More information on these is available from http://www.apple.com/quicktime/streamingserver/

There is also some tutorials available for Quicktime Broadcaster form Apples site but they aren't very good (sigh). If you want to broaden your knowledge a little bit before reading this manual then check them out: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/

Installing Quicktime Broadcaster

You need to goto the Quicktime Broadcaster page and download the latest verion as a dmg file. When you do this if you want to avoid spam give them a fake email addess as the download process doesnt check if the mail address is correct. You will then get a window, like you would have seen a million times, to choose where to download the dmg file to on your hardisk.

So download and save this file like you would normally do. You should get a dmg file on your desktop.

You will now wish to open the dmg file by double clicking on it. If all is ahppy you will see two things, one is a new folder on your desktop looking something like this:

and a window should also pop up which is the same folder opened up so you can access it:

So, now you can get to work installing. Double click on the QuicktimeBroadcasterPackage.pkg (the only file in this folder). You may get the following:

Click continue and then on the next screen

Click continue , you will then get the Quciktime Broadcaster Readme page...click continue ... then you will get the licence page...agree to this otherwise you cant install the software, then you will finally get to the first real step of the installation. You will see something similar to this:

If you have more than one harddisk you will get more than one choice in the select destination window. I just get one choice, so I dont need to do anything here but click continue.

ok! now press install and cross your fingers...if all is good a window will pop up asking you for your username and password...

My username for my machine is radio-astronomy, you will see your username instead. Now enter your password and press ok If all really is ok then a few windows will flash by:

ending in this:

Now you can open the Broadcaster through your applications folder , to find this double click on the icon for your harddrive (on your desktop) and then you will see something like this:

Doubcle click where it says applications and scroll down the newly open window untill you see something like this:

Double click on the Quicktime Broadcaster icon, and if all is good you will see this:

Using Quicktime Broadcaster

From the beginning you can plug in your video camera to the computer and turn the camera on, but before you do this check that your sound control panel has the output turned down otherwise you will immediately get screaming audio feedback. Alternatively just plug in a pair of headphones and you will avoid getting feedback.

Muting the System Sound

To do this you will need to open System Preferences from the Apple Menu

Then click on the speaker icon :

the following window will open....

and make sure the output volume is turned right down (muted) :

Plugging in a Camera

Now we get to some of the good stuff. You will have on hand a dv or firewire camera. Plug in your firewire cable to connect the computer and the camera. Now switch the camera on. The good news is taht OSX will automatically detect your camera and send both audio and video immediately from the camera to Quicktime Broadcaster . So if all is good after a few seconds you will see an image appear in your software:

Server Settings

Now we can try and enter the username and password that the server administrator gave you. Open the settings panel

Then you will get a lovely big window :

Now we want to be sure of a few things. First make sure you have chosen the Automatic Unicast from the Transmission drop down box:

Now enter the username and password that the owner of the server gave you. For this example we will pretend the username is "adam" and the password is "adam1". I enter these into the appropriate fields:

Now enter the hostname of the streaming server . In my case the server is located at 10.10.3.213 so I type this into the appropriate field. note : do not put a leading http:// on the IP Number or hostname you have been given.

Lastly, enter the stream name into the file field. This is a name that users will use to connect to your stream. The administrator of the streaming server may have already told you to use a specific name, if not you can use anything as long as you dont put any special characters in it or spaces. Lets be safe and stupid and use mystream as the stream name

Now you should end up with something like this as a final screen:

Starting the Stream

Well, if all is happy you should just start the stream by pressing the broadcast button :

If all really is well you will get some feedback from the video window:

Notes

• Quicktime Broadcaster is quite back at giving user friendly feedback. If you dont see the Broadcasting text and instead see just Pre-rolling the you are not broadcasting and something is wrong.
• If, when you plug in the camera, you dont see an image in the video window then try unpluggin the camera and plugging it back in. If that doesnt work then quit Qzuicktime Broadcaster, unplug the camera, and start again. If that still doesnt work then if its a dv cam then make sure it is set on camera and not playback.
• If you do get broadcasting and then stop the stream sometimes Quicktime Broadcaster wont let you reconnect. In this case, quit the application and restart it.

Playing the Stream

To play the stream open a Quicktime Player and choose Open URL from the file menu :

Now enter the location of the stream. The location is made by the following components in this order:

• the suffix *rtsp:// *
• the hostname of the streaming server
• the name of the stream
• the suffix .sdp

In the example above my stream location would be rtsp://10.10.3.213/mystream.sdp and I would enter it in the dialog like so:

Press ok and hopefully the stream will show up:

More Help

If you are comfortable with the story so far and wnt to learn more about Quicktime Broadcasting then I thoroughly recommend that you check out SoundScreen http://www.soundscreen.com/