[vlc-devel] Smooth Streaming

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 00:19:11 +0200, David Glaude <david.glaude at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Is anybody working on VLC code relative to Microsoft Smooth Streaming?

Not that I know, but I don't read people's mind.

(...)
> What would it take for someone to work on this?

On the receiving side, if the protocol were popular, some volunteer would
surely end up doing the work for free. But is this protocol yet used at
all? On the streaming side, I doubt anything will happen without serious
money.

> Microsoft to pay for the developpement this feature the same way
> Anevia did pay for LiveHTTP?

Anevia is not Apple, and it does not need to be Microsoft.

> Could that be a Gsoc project and would there be a mentor for that?

I would be wary about what is assigned as GSoC.  RTMP through GSoC has not
been successful for instance. This is best done by an experienced
developer.

> PS: I do not believe Microsoft would be interested in seeing VLC
> starting to approching their new protocol/format, so they are less
> than likely to work/pay for that developpement.

There are many aspects to this. If Microsoft realizes that their protocol
is a "challenger", they _might_ want to help third parties implement it.
This increases the chance the protocol gets traction. After all, they
helped Mono with Moonlight. If it becomes dominant and they want to screw
their would-be former allies, they can always extend the protocol in
incompatible ways later.

On the other hand, this also raises the question whether VLC should even
implement this. I am starting to loose count of mutually incompatible
HTTP-based streaming protocols. We have already had plain HTTP, and
Microsoft WMSP ("MMS over HTTP") for a long time. Now VLC 1.2 adds Apple
HLS. A DASH plugin (3GPP, MPEG) is in the work at Klagenfurt university. So
unless Microsoft is very cooperative, maybe we should ignore them?

-- 
Rémi Denis-Courmont
http://www.remlab.net/