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Clipstream Live Video Streaming Tutorial

Overview

Clipstream is a Java-based playerless streaming technology. It streams video off a Web server. A separate streaming server is NOT needed. Two programs are involved in streaming using the Clipstream technology, Clipstream Live and Clipstream Repeater.1 Clipstream Live provides the streaming operating interface while Repeater is a server-side program for server scaling allowing certain number of viewers to watch the streamed video simultaneously.

Before you start streaming via Clipstream Live, make sure Clipstream Live is added to the Firewall exception. To do so, on a PC, go Start menu > Control Panel > Windows Firewall > Click the Exceptions tab > Check if Clipstream Live is in the list. If not, Click Add Program, find it, and add it. Click OK.

Please follow the following steps to achieve an optimized streaming.

Connecting Devices

  1. You can use a Webcam on your computer to do live streaming. If you decide to use an external digital video camera, you need to connect the camera via a Firewire cable. Turn on the camera and switch it to the Camera mode. If you use an external camera, Clipstream Live can pick up sound from the camera microphone. A separate microphone is not necessary though the use of an external microphone may give better sound quality.
  2. Launch Clipstream Live. If this is your first time to use this program, you need to key in your registration key under Help, which Clipstream provided to you when you purchased a copy. If you already went through the registration key process, click Capture Settings and choose Capture Devices.
  3. In the Video Capture Device pulldown menu, pick the camera you want to use, and make sure "Detect Audio from the Video Device [MPEG cards]" is checked if you decide to use the camera microphone. Click OK. Live image should appear.

Setting up Streaming

  1. Click Server Settings menu and choose "Connection Settings" option. Uncheck "Specify IP for Codebase" and set the outbound port of your live stream to an available port (for example, 8080). Check the box next to "AutoStart Streaming."
  2. Click Server Settings menu and choose Live Stream Settings. By default, three bit rates are there. You can click the Edit button to modify the specifications for each bit rate. If you, however, define a dimension that is bigger than 320x240px, the output dimension won't change. Theoretically, you can do multi-bit-rate streaming, but multi-bit-rate streaming taxes the CPU resources of the streaming computer. Therefore, it is suggested that you use only one to two bit rates. Live256.vcs is the recommended streaming setting: Width: 320px; Height: 240px; Frame rate: 10fps (It is crucial that frame rate is not set too high, like 30fps, or the streaming will buffer and rebuffer frequently.); Quality: 35-70; Audio Bitrate: 32k.
  3. If you wish to record a live streaming session, click Server Settings and choose Archiving/Recording. Check Save To File, designate a folder where the files will go, and click OK.
  4. On the bottom of the Clipstream Live panel, there is a bar for Camera Name. This is more of a session name than of a camera name. So, type the title for your live streaming session.
  5. Press the Start/Stop button. Your streaming is now live. If you have chosen to record the live streaming session, files are being populated now in the designated folder. To check how streaming is going, click the Live Streams menu and choose View Web Page. For your audience to view your live streaming, click Live Streams and choose Email Camera Link. Your default email system, such as Outlook, will launch, and you can send an email to your viewers. If you have trouble with emailing, you can find the IP address and port number directly by the Start/Stop button. The current version of Clipstream Live does not yet include the full-screen viewing feature.

Viewing Stream

A user does not need to have any media player installed to view a Clipstream streaming video. Simply launch any Web browser, key in the IP address together with the port number provided by the streaming media producer. It looks like http://149.166.150.201:8080. Hit the Enter key and the streaming video is on.

Setting up Repeater

To make live streaming a true broadcast experience so that many users can access the same live streaming without crashing your network, you need the help of Clipstream Repeater. Install the Repeater software on a Web server according to the instruction in the manual provided by Clipstream. Use the IP address of the streaming computer together with the outbound port number as the Clipstream Live URL. It looks something like http://149.166.150.201:8080. The inbound port number, which is called Repeater Port, can be different from the outbound port number. After you have set up Repeater, you don't need to make any change to the settings in Clipstream Live. Stream as usual, but you need to tell the public the Repeater server address together with the inbound port number for viewing the stream. It looks something like http://134.68.246.17:8181.

The two programs are available at clipstream.com. As of June 2007, a personal license of Clipstream Live for up to five viewers without Repeater was sold for $199. A commercial license for up to 100 viewers with Repeater for server scaling cost $999. Additional Repeater software packages for even larger audiences were $500 per server.

 

Flash | QuickTime | Clipstream | DVTS | Windows Media | Real | VLC | VX30