[vlc] Re: Cannot stream via RTSP from Bitband VOD server

[Paul Rae]

Whilst I fully understand Ross's point of view I have to disagree slightly. (I never thought I would actually argue to support non standards compliancy!!)

However whilst having a standards compliant client is a wonderful thing, that is of little use to a most users as they will be unable to use it against 90% of servers. Nick's instance is a perfect example of this. Whilst I fully understand your views of keeping it completely standards compliant you need to look at the user base, and the majority of them are going to be looking at using and testing it against commercial products such as Kasenna, Seachange, Entone, Eona, Bitband, etc ... I wasn't suggesting you drop the RFC compliant client, just offer different modes to allow functionality with other servers.

>>Sorry, but that's just not going to happen.  (It was bad enough 
>>having to hack the RTSP client code to try to work with the 
>>non-standard 'Kasenna' server.  There's just no way we can continue 
>>to hack the code to support every little fly-by-night server that 
>>chooses to arbitrarily violate the RTSP standard.)

"fly-by-night servers" is a tad harsh I believe, Kasenna is a fairly big player in the VoD market and whilst their products have their quirks they are certainly not fly-by-night.

>>That's all well and good; however, there's just one RTSP 
>>standard.  Apart from QuickTime Player (which is also 
>>standards-compliant), VLC is probably the most widely-deployed RTSP 
>>client in the world.  We have the power to insist that servers comply 
>>with us - not the other way round.

I agree however the counter argument could be considered. What is the value of the most widely deployed client, that cannot be used against a wide number of servers? Whilst I wish your sentiments were true, you have to look at the reality that they will not listen to you. It is in ever server vendor's interest not to be completely standards complient from a comercial point of view. In addition to this a lot of the functionality people need, automatic failover, each of these all break the standards a little bit, but that doesnt prevent customers wanting it. IMHO the stanards are in long need of a update but that is a different matter all together.

-----Original Message-----
From: vlc-bounce at videolan.org [mailto:vlc-bounce at videolan.org]On Behalf
Of Nick Hart
Sent: 09 November 2005 01:48
To: vlc at videolan.org
Subject: [vlc] Re: Cannot stream via RTSP from Bitband VOD server



Thanks for the quick reply Ross, I appreciate it and I agree with the standards compliance point.  I have actually forwarded your response to Bitband support in hopes it might give them a bit of a kick in the pants.  Unfortunately, they claim that with the configuration changes I mentioned earlier, they do support VLC and im stuck in an 'it works for us' tech support hole.

I also understand Paul's point about speaking each server's dialect, only because that seems to be the precedent set so far in the industry.  Our set-top-box vendor (Amino) did exactly what he suggests and when you give a call to play a video, you specify the VoD servertype in the request.  For them its a selling point that they can interact with all of these different server vendors.  For me, having these servers and these STBs installed already means I am married to Bitband and have to find a PC client that works with them.  Obviously this isn't an easy task  :)

Enough rambling from me, but if you decide to add some code to support Bitband, id buy ya a box of chocolates.

-nick


-----Original Message-----
From: Ross Finlayson [mailto:finlayson at live555.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2005 5:22 PM
To: vlc at videolan.org
Subject: [vlc] Re: Cannot stream via RTSP from Bitband VOD server



>I know a lot of the developers are not keen on this, but in reality 
>if they want to use VLC with the widest range of VoD servers, then 
>the client will need to be adapted so you can specify what "flavour" 
>of RTSP you want to talk to a particular server.

Sorry, but that's just not going to happen.  (It was bad enough 
having to hack the RTSP client code to try to work with the 
non-standard 'Kasenna' server.  There's just no way we can continue 
to hack the code to support every little fly-by-night server that 
chooses to arbitrarily violate the RTSP standard.)

>  Just about every server i have ever seen has done things slightly 
> differently from setup to trickplay support.

That's all well and good; however, there's just one RTSP 
standard.  Apart from QuickTime Player (which is also 
standards-compliant), VLC is probably the most widely-deployed RTSP 
client in the world.  We have the power to insist that servers comply 
with us - not the other way round.


	Ross Finlayson
	Live Networks, Inc. (LIVE555.COM)
	<http://www.live555.com/>

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