All things related to multicast

[Frank Fulchiero <>]

Hi Richard, thanks for the detailed and informative answer. You must  
be busy getting ready for Infocomm.

Now, how can a Mac detect your H.264 SAPs for multicast streams, if  
not with VLC?
QT is great technology, in my opinion, though there is always room  
for improvement and it's hard to read Apple's tea leaves. But it does  
not detect SAPs.

BTW we do have multicast throughout the academic network, but only  
the admins and I know it...  :-)
Not ready to advertise it. I am amazed a student fooling around with  
VLC has not yet discovered SAPs.

Good luck with your products, I'm sure they will be a good ones.

Frank

On Jun 12, 2008, at 7:32 PM, Richard Mavrogeanes wrote:

> Frank,
>
> MPEG-4 part 10 delivery is the same as MPEG-4 part 2 delivery:  RTP  
> via RTSP or via multicast/SDP.  It means you can use any player or  
> STB that supports standards (ISMA 2.0). Players include QuickTime  
> player, VLC, etc.  Transport Stream is what carriers use for "IPTV"  
> to leverage their previous investment in TS muxes, etc.   
> Ultimately, we'll support TS too so that certain consume-class  
> "IPTV" devices can be provisioned.
>
> QT has some advantages, as it will support the mandatory Closed  
> Caption (mandatory per ADA and US Sec. 508), while VLC does not as  
> far as I am aware (although CC is not in our very first firmware  
> release).  More importantly, QT player has the mandatory royalty  
> for decoding both the video (MPEGLA) and the AAC audio (Dolby- 
> spinout Via) paid while VLC remains illegal to use at least in the  
> United States (again, I have no axe to grind here...I frankly don't  
> care what someone uses to receive and decode our audio/video as  
> long as they are happy...but I do want our customers to be safe).
>
> Everyone will have lots of opportunity to play with the live 7x24  
> HD and SD broadcasts I'll have up soon.  In addition to advertising  
> the stream via SAP, I'll point you to the automatic SDP file  
> generated and hosted by the device which you access via HTTP.  I'll  
> also provide RTSP address for those unable to join the  
> multicast...a problem that continues to plague desktops in  
> virtually every institution I visit (does Connecticut College allow  
> multicast to reach every desktop?)
>
> /rich