[vlc-devel] video seeking via rtsp server

[Ross Finlayson]

>live555 looks interesting. In what way does it differ from the rtsp
>server side support built into VLC?

They 'differ' primarily in that they're completely different 
implementations of a RTSP server.

In short, though, the LIVE555 implementation is a bit more complete 
and somewhat more standards-compliant.  Also, it has special support 
(using 'index files') for seeking and 'trick play' operations when 
streaming pre-recorded Transport Stream files.

The big benefit of the VLC implementation, however, is that - because 
it is embedded within the VLC application - it can take advantage of 
the many other features of VLC.  For example, because VLC includes 
encoding software, the VLC RTSP server can combine encoding and 
streaming, rather than merely streaming pre-encoded files.  (The 
LIVE555 RTSP server implementation can also be combined with an 
encoder, but it requires more work to do this.)


>Also, how hard would it be to support windows media as a stream vs. MPEG?

This is unlikely to happen, because Windows Media streaming is not 
standards compliant, but instead uses proprietary protocols.  (To the 
extent that it uses RTSP and RTP, it does so in non-standard ways.)