[vlc-devel] Streaming wizard issues

[Marian Ďurkovič]

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 09:53:08AM +0100, Rémi Denis-Courmont wrote:
> > It does work, but the procedure is counter-intuitive. You need
> > to uncheck transcoding first, and only then add e.g. RTP output.
> 
> That looks like a bug still.

Yes.

> > Everyone uses udp in the URLs, so the main title should say UDP, maybe
> > a smaller explanation somewhere in the tab saying we're packing it
> > into MPEG-TS will be useful. Same for RTP. 
> 
> The point is that I have witnessed quite a lot of confused users with this.
> If you're saying "screw them", I cannot agree. And if you're saying let
> them use raw UDP when they could do RTP, I cannot agree either.

I haven't said any of the above. In fact, I was among the first people on
this list urging anyone to use RTP instead of UDP. Perhaps we could just
put a big fat warning into the UDP tab, stating that its use is deprecated,
we're keeping it only for backwards-compatibility with some STBs and
everyone is adviced to use RTP.

> > No. Universities typically have global multicast connectivity, and not
> > everyone wants his stream to be publicly visible from the whole world.
> 
> It is questionable that you'd want to use the VLC Qt4 wizard for production
> use. 

No way. In fact we recommend this wizard and its Open Network counterpart
to small teams of people intersted in easy ad-hoc streaming for their
team-limited use. It's far the easiest to explain and get working. 

> AFAIK, people normally use scripts or even DVBlast instead.

Sure, DVBlast is used here for always-on production services.

> is to make the wizard easy, which is how it's supposed to be in the first
> place.

ACK.

> You can always turn SAP off. Universities with multicast are not the
> "benchmark" for the wizard; IMHO, the default should be aimed at the
> majority.

I don't agree here. Commercial ISPs typically also don't have IPv6, yet
it's no argument to adopt incorrect solutions for it. Having said that,
we *must* be aware, that announcing something via SAP might result in
global visibility, and we shouldn't invade users' privacy by making
global announcement behind the scenes.

> > No. We don't know whether the user wants to use global ASM group, GLOP
> > or some of the local group addresses.
> 
> And then what? If you want to do something else, you can always change the
> group address. Putting a default has many advantages:

... and also some disadvantages, e.g. a randomly generated address changes
each time VLC is run. This is major annoyance as it basically excludes
the possibility for manually opening the stream without automated assistance
(RTSP/SAP,etc). It's error-prone for users which want to use a specific
group, since the wizard suceeds even if the user forgot to specify the group.

There are different views regarding the defaults, for example, even the
default RTP port is typically not supported in STBs or some other players:

mplayer rtp://233.10.47.65

Playing rtp://233.10.47.65.
STREAM_RTP, URL: rtp://233.10.47.65
You must enter a port number for RTP streams!


   With kind regards,

        M.