UKNM: Re: Streaming - Advice please

[David Johns]

A few comments on the streaming issue:


Firstly, Real and Windows Media are of roughly equal quality, sound and

picture-wise (proponents of each will argue their corner fervently but to a

large extent they look and sound as good as each other, assuming

same-generation codecs).


A big factor in your choice may be cost - Windows Media has no "per stream"

licence fees but Real does and it's not cheap (approx 7,500 US dollars per

100 simultaneous viewers with no server add-ons - see

http://www.realnetworks.com/products/servers/professional_pricing.html).

However, Windows Media Server only runs on Windows platforms whereas Real

does Unix / Linux as well.


Personally I find RealServer easier to administrate and configure but

neither of them is hard to install and this won't be an issue if you get

someone else to do your hosting.


The other factor against Windows Media is that there are some compatibility

issues on Macs, particularly if you want to embed it into an HTML page; Mac

WM player is also one generation behind the Windows version. RealPlayer runs

on practically any box, though it does nag you to upgrade / pay money /

watch their preferred content.


Whatever you do, I wouldn't recommend Quicktime for streaming (great for

downloads, not so hot on streaming) nor any of the Java-based streaming

systems (bad sound and picture sync in every example I've ever seen and not

such great A/V quality either)


Hope that helps...


Cheers,

David Johns

Visit the streaming media resources directory:

http://www.InternetWebcaster.co.uk



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