All things related to multicast

[Tim Ward <>]

Quoting Marshall Eubanks 
():
> On Thu, 3 Oct 2002 17:46:30 -0500
>  Tim Ward 
> <>
>  wrote:

> Cool. Can they get our content that way ?

Nope.  Although IPTV had this concept of local and remote content, where
it displayed standard SDR information.  So there could be a place to
go for that kind of thing.  Problem is we need to keep the client small,
so adding a bunch of codecs to it might not work really well.  
(Sorry for the thinking out loud on this...)

> I do not really see how this helps to _announce_ content, however.

>From the user perspective it's a URL.  Very easy to edumacate the users.
Go here, click, watch.

> A few technical questions come to mind :
> 
> Are you using a Java media library, like JMF ? Which one ? How is the
> performance - is it optimized ? Is the code open source?

No.  The only part of the code that is java is the smart starter, which
determines what platform you are on so the correct platform specific 
binary can be downloaded to your machine.

> I haven't booted into OS9 in months, but tomorrow I will try it out.

Relize that we don't have any world watchable content on here *yet*.  
The URL is for the front page of our virtual set-top-box entertainment
TV project for our student dorm rooms.  

We're thinking of moving the CSPAN feeds off of their existing 
hardware into this solution, but that is a couple of months away.  
Target is to be able to do some of that late fall or early winter.

What I was addressing is the peculiarities of client operation.  You
need x from this company and y from that company and z from here and
then maybe it will work this time.  But next time the client changes....

It's just too much for the average users to do.  

We're working on the technical overview document of the system.  Be
happy to circulate it to those of you who are interested.

Tim