Deciding to do some much overdue cleaning (due to the necessity of needing to swap out TVs and I couldn't get to the one I needed until I moved a bunch of stuff), I decided to put together another server.
This should come as no surprise, as what I currently have Darwin running on right now is an older, somewhat slower, but certainly very reliable Ubuntu box. I figured at some point I'm going to need about three servers to start with: One to run Darwin, one to run a web server (likely Apache), and one as an FTP server. I thought of actually getting the FTP server done first, but decided to build another streaming server instead because I have the parts for it and if it works, then it's going to be a much faster box. Even if it's slightly faster, we'll be money ahead.
I've heard that the new Celerons are so poor compared to the Pentium 4 that it's as much as a 60% drop in performance compared to a P4 of the same speed. The old Celerons are only 10% from what I understand. We'll find out. It might wind up a total wash for all I know seeing that the current streaming server is running on an 866MHz PIII in a Dell Precision 420 and I'm about to build up an old eMachines box with a 2.2GHz Celeron. 60% of 2.2GHz comes out to 880MHz, which would only be slightly faster but with faster RAM and much more of it (the old server RAM is kind of slow and pricey in comparison).
So if it works, and I've got about three more eMachine motherboards if it doesn't (one of which is rumored to work but needing a video card), then I'll build it up with Ubuntu and Darwin and the old Dell will run Apache. The FTP server will likely be an older box that will run something more utilitarian that I can set up and access from the other computers on the network. I don't need a fancy GUI with that one.
In any case, it's late, it's been a long day, and I'll write more tomorrow...
Stay Tuned!
ICTM,
Chuck, MI
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
OK...So that's a good sign...
OK. I have my wife's FluxBuntu laptop hooked into the same local network which is running my Darwin Streaming Server, and currently, I can actually stream the test clips from the server to the laptop, which again is within the network. This is a positive thing. This means that Darwin is, in fact, working.
However, I can't seem to stream anything I've actually transcoded myself, nor can I stream to my other internet circuit.
While I think streaming outside the network is a port forwarding issue that I need to look at deeper tomorrow, I'm still not sure why I can't stream anything that I've encoded with MediaCoder. What I've done was sent myself a couple of the sample files so I can pull them down and open them up with MediaCoder to see what the settings are, then I can use those settings to transcode my clips.
I'm not thrilled with reverse engineering, but whatever works, right?
Either way, another victory tonight. I'm happy that the DSS is at least talking with another computer inside the network.
"I said WOO! HOO!" - Homer Simpson
Stay Tuned!
ICTM,
Chuck, MI
However, I can't seem to stream anything I've actually transcoded myself, nor can I stream to my other internet circuit.
While I think streaming outside the network is a port forwarding issue that I need to look at deeper tomorrow, I'm still not sure why I can't stream anything that I've encoded with MediaCoder. What I've done was sent myself a couple of the sample files so I can pull them down and open them up with MediaCoder to see what the settings are, then I can use those settings to transcode my clips.
I'm not thrilled with reverse engineering, but whatever works, right?
Either way, another victory tonight. I'm happy that the DSS is at least talking with another computer inside the network.
"I said WOO! HOO!" - Homer Simpson
Stay Tuned!
ICTM,
Chuck, MI
The Switch to Darwin
No, I'm not opening up THAT can of worms...
I'm talking about Apple's open-source project, the Darwin Streaming Server. I finally got it running on Ubuntu. It's currently been up for about the last 15 minutes or so, and I don't have any videos on there as of yet, but I got the sucker running.
This should be an improvement over VLC as far as a VoD server goes. VLC, while a virtual Swiss Army knife of media programs, just doesn't quite have the bugs worked out of their server portion yet and as a result, I've went ahead and switched it over to DSS. DSS is supposed to be a Red Hat/Fedora Core thing, but after searching through the Ubuntu forums, I found that someone actually came up with a way to get this thing going on Ubuntu.
So now we know what the next two things to do are...
1) Move the videos into the movies folder.
2) Read how to configure it for VoD.
After those two things happen, we'll worry about the port forwarding if it's necessary at all (which it may be) and firewall issues (again, if it's necessary at all). After that we may actually have a worthwhile beta test to do...
Also, I've finally found a good banner to use for Ubuntu, so I've added that to this blog too. Check it out. Ubuntu is free and easy to use and stable. It beats the hell out of spending $99.00 on an operating system, and even that's on the cheap.
Stay Tuned! I think we're finally close...
ICTM,
Chuck, MI
I'm talking about Apple's open-source project, the Darwin Streaming Server. I finally got it running on Ubuntu. It's currently been up for about the last 15 minutes or so, and I don't have any videos on there as of yet, but I got the sucker running.
This should be an improvement over VLC as far as a VoD server goes. VLC, while a virtual Swiss Army knife of media programs, just doesn't quite have the bugs worked out of their server portion yet and as a result, I've went ahead and switched it over to DSS. DSS is supposed to be a Red Hat/Fedora Core thing, but after searching through the Ubuntu forums, I found that someone actually came up with a way to get this thing going on Ubuntu.
So now we know what the next two things to do are...
1) Move the videos into the movies folder.
2) Read how to configure it for VoD.
After those two things happen, we'll worry about the port forwarding if it's necessary at all (which it may be) and firewall issues (again, if it's necessary at all). After that we may actually have a worthwhile beta test to do...
Also, I've finally found a good banner to use for Ubuntu, so I've added that to this blog too. Check it out. Ubuntu is free and easy to use and stable. It beats the hell out of spending $99.00 on an operating system, and even that's on the cheap.
Stay Tuned! I think we're finally close...
ICTM,
Chuck, MI
Friday, June 6, 2008
I'm Not Dead Yet...
...although this is where Terry Jones of Monty Python fame would say "...but I was coughing up blood this morning" in a falsetto voice meant to be imitating a female...
So anyway, I've spent the last couple of months in rediscernment of my calling to this apostolate (that and kind of busy with a multitude of other things, such as job hunting, getting the TLM going with my Una Voce chapter, now known as the St. John Bosco Latin Mass Community, and other things not to be discussed here). Anywho, I was getting frustrated and asked God to give me a sign. Afterwards, I went on eBay and saw that someone was selling another reel of "The Catholic Hour".
This was too easy, so I asked Him again for one more film, JUST to be sure...
No more episodes of "The Catholic Hour", but there were THREE films there that would be of use to MDTV.
I guess that answers my question. The answer was simply God saying "Back to work, Dummy..."
In addition to that, we have our first videotaped TLM in the can! The only issue with it, however, is that the lighting was awful and I only used one camera on it. Actually, the lighting was alright as long as I didn't zoom in to where Fr. Roberts was giving his homily. The lighting from my position wasn't good. If I had a camera in the back of the chapel where I was taping, it would have been better. Perhaps next time...
Also, I may have come up with another theory as to why VLC isn't working well as a VoD server. I've got my wife's laptop (with FluxBuntu loaded on it) hooked up to the same router. I thought I'd read on the VLC forums that there was no problem using it with intranet, but it didn't work well over the internet. I'm going to test this to see if it's true. If it is true, I'm going to look at possibly using a VPN in order to connect outside the network. If we use something like OpenVPN, then people just connect to the network and view videos that way. At least for the time being, that might be the best way to go.
Stay tuned...
ICTM,
Chuck, MI
So anyway, I've spent the last couple of months in rediscernment of my calling to this apostolate (that and kind of busy with a multitude of other things, such as job hunting, getting the TLM going with my Una Voce chapter, now known as the St. John Bosco Latin Mass Community, and other things not to be discussed here). Anywho, I was getting frustrated and asked God to give me a sign. Afterwards, I went on eBay and saw that someone was selling another reel of "The Catholic Hour".
This was too easy, so I asked Him again for one more film, JUST to be sure...
No more episodes of "The Catholic Hour", but there were THREE films there that would be of use to MDTV.
I guess that answers my question. The answer was simply God saying "Back to work, Dummy..."
In addition to that, we have our first videotaped TLM in the can! The only issue with it, however, is that the lighting was awful and I only used one camera on it. Actually, the lighting was alright as long as I didn't zoom in to where Fr. Roberts was giving his homily. The lighting from my position wasn't good. If I had a camera in the back of the chapel where I was taping, it would have been better. Perhaps next time...
Also, I may have come up with another theory as to why VLC isn't working well as a VoD server. I've got my wife's laptop (with FluxBuntu loaded on it) hooked up to the same router. I thought I'd read on the VLC forums that there was no problem using it with intranet, but it didn't work well over the internet. I'm going to test this to see if it's true. If it is true, I'm going to look at possibly using a VPN in order to connect outside the network. If we use something like OpenVPN, then people just connect to the network and view videos that way. At least for the time being, that might be the best way to go.
Stay tuned...
ICTM,
Chuck, MI
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Good Old Forums...
Seeing that I'm still having the same trouble that I had during my last post, I decided to post it on VLC's forum page and see what actually happens. These open source forums are generally pretty good, so I figured it'd be a good idea. I checked it with an MPEG1 file also, and it's still doing essentially the same thing. I think the linux firewall needs to be tweaked, so I may be asking for some help on that one from a friend of mine.
Stay tuned...AND KEEP PRAYING!!!
ICTM,
Chuck, MI
Stay tuned...AND KEEP PRAYING!!!
ICTM,
Chuck, MI
Thursday, March 13, 2008
SOME Progress...
Well, that was fruitful...
After setting the port forwarding and whatnot, I started VLC up with at nice little test clip (in the case, I used "The Trail of Fr. Kino"), and it was actually coming through to my other internet circuit and I could see action on the terminal window of the Linux box. On the Windows box, VLC even started up with 9:06 on the clip duration time.
It just didn't play.
It's frustrating in some ways, but I have to admit: We're further along than we were yesterday. This is good news in some ways. Now, I'll just have to get into the forums and figure out why...
Stay tuned! We'll get this up and going yet!
ICTM,
Chuck, MI
After setting the port forwarding and whatnot, I started VLC up with at nice little test clip (in the case, I used "The Trail of Fr. Kino"), and it was actually coming through to my other internet circuit and I could see action on the terminal window of the Linux box. On the Windows box, VLC even started up with 9:06 on the clip duration time.
It just didn't play.
It's frustrating in some ways, but I have to admit: We're further along than we were yesterday. This is good news in some ways. Now, I'll just have to get into the forums and figure out why...
Stay tuned! We'll get this up and going yet!
ICTM,
Chuck, MI
Monday, March 10, 2008
Port Forwarding Finished
While still not at 100% health with the cold that I had after my flu subsided at the beginning of February, I finally got a chance to get down here and get the port forwarding done on the main VoD server. In other words, what I did should allow people to access the video files up there. Now, we'll just have to see if it works.
I'll write something more with Catholic content one of these days! I promise! I'll have to write about the little recon we did down in downtown Indy where there's an old Catholic Church that's basically been sitting abandoned since 1949. I wish we could get in and save it, but I think it's about to be turned into some apartments. Never know, though; the guy who owns it is planning on selling a bunch of the items inside, so perhaps my local Una Voce chapter will be able to pick some up and restore them. We may have to buy a few of them for MDTV too.
More later...
ICTM,
Chuck, MI
I'll write something more with Catholic content one of these days! I promise! I'll have to write about the little recon we did down in downtown Indy where there's an old Catholic Church that's basically been sitting abandoned since 1949. I wish we could get in and save it, but I think it's about to be turned into some apartments. Never know, though; the guy who owns it is planning on selling a bunch of the items inside, so perhaps my local Una Voce chapter will be able to pick some up and restore them. We may have to buy a few of them for MDTV too.
More later...
ICTM,
Chuck, MI
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