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Windows Server Forum / Windows Media Server / December 2007Live Stream - Some users only get audio other only get video
I'm currently streaming a live high-school basketball tournament called the Beach Ball Classic. I've been receiving feedback from users across the country and other countries that some viewers only receive the audio and others only see the video with no sound. The live streams are being encoded at CBR of 530kb/280kb. The streams are being archived so I verified both A/V are being encoded ok and seem to work perfect for me. We use 2 Cisco content engines as caching servers for the WMS. I think these guys are the problem. Any ideas? Has this happened to anyone? Should I configure any special settings on the WMS for this cache servers? Live streams will be broadcast all weekend and archives on-demand. The website is http://www.sccoast.net/beachballclassic Any help!!! I'm stuck! Dave >I'm currently streaming a live high-school basketball tournament called the >Beach Ball Classic. I've been receiving feedback from users across the >country and other countries that some viewers only receive the audio and >others only see the video with no sound. Only getting the audio would typically mean that the 280kbps stream is still too high bandwidth for their players - in that case the server may negotiate with the player to stream-split the audio only and send that. It sometimes happens dynamically when their local network has too much contention with the bittorrent and other downloads they're also running - tell em to turn all that off until they can see the stream content. I can't think of a reason why they're not hearing sound, you'd have to establish whether their PCs make *any* sound, which puts you in the position of being unwitting tech support to fix up their PCs. >The live streams are being encoded at CBR of 530kb/280kb. The streams are >being archived so I verified both A/V are being encoded ok and seem to work >perfect for me. What codecs are in use there ? Unless the viewers have very old machines with WMP6.4, any codec you can create using windows media encoder would trigger a codec download on the users PC if it was anything typical (WMV9, WMA stereo etc). There are some codec conflicting circumstances where *mono* audio only may not be audible, but I imagine you're sending stereo at this point. >We use 2 Cisco content engines as caching servers for the WMS. >I think these guys are the problem. Any ideas? Has this happened to anyone? >Should I configure any special settings on the WMS for this cache servers? I thought this is live video, not on demand. How do you propose the content engines manage the live stream through caching - is this a feature of the Cisco kit ? I've never heard of that before. >Live streams will be broadcast all weekend and archives on-demand. >The website is http://www.sccoast.net/beachballclassic If they can't get them live, then point them to the archived copies I guess, which I imagine you're hosting on a web server for progressive download ? I couldn't see any archived games on the page above. I tried that page in Vista in both IE7 and Firefox 2, and on Windows 2000 using IE6 and WMP7, both without issue. However I was getting the HTC ad, which probably isn't representative of the actual encoding settings you used for the games. So I guess - to eliminate a lot of possible issues - can users now view and hear the ad ? HTH Cheers - Neil ------------------------------------------------ Digital Media MVP : 2004-2007 http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs The Cisco content engine integration of the Windows Media Technology Server can split requests for live streams. A single stream from an origin server will be split at the Cisco content engine to serve each client that requests the live stream. A live stream is configured on the Windows Media Technology Server by creating an alias file that acts as a unicast publishing point. I suppose I can encode at a lower rate to reduce the video loss to only audio, I'm currently using 532 and 332 kbps. I'm going to try it tomorrow. Thanks, Dave > >I'm currently streaming a live high-school basketball tournament called the > >Beach Ball Classic. I've been receiving feedback from users across the [quoted text clipped - 53 lines] > Digital Media MVP : 2004-2007 > http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs >The Cisco content engine integration of the Windows Media Technology Server >can split requests for live streams. OK so it's a difference in terminolgy - you called it caching which would be a different technique than the stream splitting ;-) >I suppose I can encode at a lower rate to reduce the video loss to only >audio, I'm currently using 532 and 332 kbps. I'm going to try it tomorrow. Did you originally say 530kbps/280kbps ? Does that mean you've gone up even higher - or was the 280 just the video portion of the overall 332kbps stream content ? What about if you include a 100kbps steam, say 80kbps video at 192x160ish and 20kbps mono audio - can anybody receive that ? >Thanks, >Dave [quoted text clipped - 56 lines] >> Digital Media MVP : 2004-2007 >> http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs ------------------------------------------------ Digital Media MVP : 2004-2007 http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs Sorry for the term confusion. I ended up using 548, 282, 113 Kbps. Can I use two-pass encoding on the live stream to help the video quality? What about adjusting the Key Frame rate? Any general tips for making a live stream basketball game video look better? Thanks Again! Dave > >The Cisco content engine integration of the Windows Media Technology Server > >can split requests for live streams. [quoted text clipped - 76 lines] > Digital Media MVP : 2004-2007 > http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs >Sorry for the term confusion. I ended up using 548, 282, 113 Kbps. >Can I use two-pass encoding on the live stream to help the video quality? No, because by definition it would no longer be a live stream then ;-) >What about adjusting the Key Frame rate? That would probably help - if it's basketball, you would expect quite a bit of fast action (at least, I hope you would !) Reducing from the default 8 seconds or so to perhaps 1-2 might help - it will *increase* the peak data rate slightly though. Using bit-rate VBR peak with a slightly longer buffer size than the default 5 seconds on the encoder end means that high motion parts of the clip can "steal" bits from the less frantic sections. This only works well if the encoder has enough lookahead time available, which is set by expandng the buffering value. That will also extend the delay between realtime and the server to client end, though I guess you don't really worrk too much that the stream viewer is seeing the clip with a 10 second delay, only that it's well encoded and very close to live. >Any general tips for making a live stream basketball game video look better? >> >> >I'm currently streaming a live high-school basketball tournament called the [quoted text clipped - 48 lines] >> >> settings you used for the games. So I guess - to eliminate a lot of >> >> possible issues - can users now view and hear the ad ? ------------------------------------------------ Digital Media MVP : 2004-2007 http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs |
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