[ILUG] Streaming video

[P at draigBrady.com]

Niall O Broin wrote:
> On 21 Sep 2005, at 08:44, Andres Jimenez wrote:
> 
>> I don't think "Streaming video" is an accurate title for the thread,
>> because you are only exporting a Samba share....
> 
> 
> I did actually think about that, and you're possibly right - but from my 
> POV as a watcher of said video, I'm having problems streaming them from 
> the server, even though reading may be a more correct term. But what is 
> streaming but reading anyway? And what's in a name?

Well a lot really. Streaming is not just reading. There is
generally a streaming protocol that is used to efficiently
fill the network connection and the buffers at each end.
I.E. Quality Of Service parameters are actively monitored.

Over a filesystem interface your player (xine or vlc)
may be making assumptions. I.E. they're tuned for
working with hard disks so the more you deviate from 30MB/s
or so the choppier the video will become.
It may be possible to tune the sizes of the reads/seeks/buffers
in the players to something more appropriate?
Also the samba server will have a lot to do with things,
if it is not buffering and servicing that buffer appropriately.
There are a multitude or things to consider there.

I would start with a simple prog to time
the gaps between subsequent reads.
You could also instrument xine directly with something like:

strace -T -e read xine /pr0n/whatever.ogg 2>&1 >/dev/null |
sed 's/.*<\([0-9.]*\)>.*/\1/' |
sort -k1,1n

Pádraig.