Unreal Media Server

[potpal]

Hi,

If I broadcast a live stream from the media server, the ultimate bit rate delivered to the client is determined by the encoding at live server, or it is something the media server negotiates with the client machine based on client's connection speed or the client's preference.

Thanks.

[Admin]

Nice question, and the answer is: the first, however disappointing it may look to you.

Whatever Live Server produces is streamed to every client.

The client experience depends on whether your stream is Real-Time or Buffered. In case of Real-Time, client with significantly lower connection speed than stream bitrate - such client will have choppy, frame-dropped sound/video with preference to audio;
In case of Buffered, such client will have periodic buffering but smooth playing.

Therefore most of broadcasers use two (or more) cards/cameras and create two (or more) encoding profiles for each audience type - Broadband and Modem (and more).

Admin

[Bundy]

This is a problem I have now is the quality, when more then 5 or so connect to the stream it starts to buffer all the time and it is not watchable. The stream setup I have is 275k buffer deliverly, but when a few connect it goes to 40k per sec with a lot of buffering, how should I fix this?

My connection speed is 8mb download and 500k upload.

Cheers

[chrissinc]

Well your problem is the 500Kbit upload speed. If only a fewpeople are watching it it's going to buffer. What we are doing is using a 10+ Mbit connection at 256Kbit video at 8 kbit mono and we can get about 70-80 people before it goes all wonky. You need more bandwidth. At that bit rate the download speed is around 35Kbytes per sec per person. 500K is about 62.5kBytes upstream So after 2 people it's going to get some buffering on there. You need real bandwidth to properly stream live. 500K isn't going to cut it.

[Bundy]

Its not possible to get that sort of bandwidth from a home connection here, 500k upload is the fastest you can get. So my time has been wasted doing this . I thought the Unreal media server takes the bandwidth hit not my connection.

Cheers Chris anyway..