Roku Developer Program

[dnet]

I'm new to the forum and to streaming. I looked earlier on what platforms were being used for streaming. I ended up setting up Wowza. However I'm having an issue where by longer videos will just stop after 5-15 minutes of play. This happens with videos that are say 30 minutes or longer. Short video's which are 10 minutes or less play to the end. I can see in the logs that the TS files and playlist is created for the longer ones, but the videos stop at around the 95th chuck with an "application context error" in the Wowza logs. I've been working with the Wowza support, but just seemed to be spinning my wheels now. So here is the question(s): What applications/methods are you folks using to stream with? I've tried FFMPEG server for a bit, but wasn't able to get anywhere other than creating the TS files and converting formats. I also looked at the Darwin streaming server, but opted for Wowza due to the fact that I was able to start streaming fairly fast.

Another question is what other protocol can one use to stream to the ROKU, It seems that HTTP is the preferred method, what was the "old way"? I see questions on RTSP and understand that is not possible. I have been hunting through the forum but haven't been able to find these answers. Sorry if its been mentioned before, seems like it would have been. I've spent way to much time on Wowza and I'm a little frustrated right now at having to switch to some other method. Thanks again

[retrotom]

What platform/OS are you running on?

[dnet]

I have Linux(ubuntu server) and W2K3 running. apps for either os is fine, thanks

[retrotom]

"dnet" wrote:
I have Linux(ubuntu server) and W2K3 running. apps for either os is fine, thanks

If your talking about using an existing channel/app to stream your own media, then there are Roksbox, Chaneru and Gabby that you can use on a Windows box. There are pros/cons to each one. When you look at maturity, ease of use, and cost you will find what's best for you. If you're talking about streaming for you own channel, I don't believe there are any "apps" that will support what you're looking for. Typical streaming server applications (typically) don't serve media in one of the formats the Roku supports. I think that's why you see everyone "reinventing the Tversity wheel". If you want to stream media, the requirement are fairly simple. You need an HTTP server that supports byte range requests -- you can use IIS, Mongoose, Apache, or roll your own. You also need properly formatted media -- for the most part that means MP4s (encoded with H.264/AAC), WMVs (encoded with WVC1 or WMV3/ WMAv2), MP3s, and WMAs. You also can deliver streams via HLS transport streams -- that is, encode videos with H.264/AAC and deliver it MPEG-2 Transport Stream (DVB) by way of HLS.

[TheEndless]

In addition to Wowza, there's also:

Inlet Technologies - http://www.inlethd.com/?q=products
Apple Stream Segmenter - http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/ ... aming.html
IonCannon Segmenter - http://www.ioncannon.net/projects/http- ... stributor/

The Apple and IonCannon solutions are free. IonCannon is open source.

[astudios]

"dnet" wrote:
I'm new to the forum and to streaming. I looked earlier on what platforms were being used for streaming. I ended up setting up Wowza. However I'm having an issue where by longer videos will just stop after 5-15 minutes of play. This happens with videos that are say 30 minutes or longer. Short video's which are 10 minutes or less play to the end. I can see in the logs that the TS files and playlist is created for the longer ones, but the videos stop at around the 95th chuck with an "application context error" in the Wowza logs. I've been working with the Wowza support, but just seemed to be spinning my wheels now. So here is the question(s): What applications/methods are you folks using to stream with? I've tried FFMPEG server for a bit, but wasn't able to get anywhere other than creating the TS files and converting formats. I also looked at the Darwin streaming server, but opted for Wowza due to the fact that I was able to start streaming fairly fast.

Another question is what other protocol can one use to stream to the ROKU, It seems that HTTP is the preferred method, what was the "old way"? I see questions on RTSP and understand that is not possible. I have been hunting through the forum but haven't been able to find these answers. Sorry if its been mentioned before, seems like it would have been. I've spent way to much time on Wowza and I'm a little frustrated right now at having to switch to some other method. Thanks again

funny you should mention this. because it is the EXACT problem we are having. we use wowza for our server-side streaming solution. and we deal with videos that are typically an hour-long. they always seem to stop after 15-20 minutes of playback using the HLS streaming method. we eventually had to resort to the MP4 (http progressive download) method until this issue could be fixed. i feel the fault may lie with the ROKU'S implementation of HLS.

another issue seems to be that the ROKU is not maintaining the 4:3 aspect ratio of videos streamed through wowza (and displayed on a 16:9 screen). but i talked about this in another thread somewhere at some length and no solution was found for that either. again, it could be ROKU's implementation of HLS.

oh well, nice to know we're not alone.

steven

[charliegood]

We are not sure where the problem lies. We have been streaming live streams to the Roku that have latested hours. It is important that segment size is a consistent 10 seconds. For this to be possible the key frame interval must be multiple of 10 seconds (2, 2.5, 5...). If the segments sizes vary too much there could be an issue with the session timing out. Of course the session timing out does not necessarily indicate that the problem is with Wowza. Dnet, I think we have suggested that you increase the validSessionTimeout for the cupertinostreaming entry in conf/HTTPStreamers.xml. If you set this value to 50000 or more you should alleviate the problem of the stream timing out due to inconsistent segment sizes. Not sure if the Roku guys have looked at this from their side to see if they can sort out what is going on.

Charlie (The Wowza Guy)

[astudios]

"charliegood" wrote:
We are not sure where the problem lies. We have been streaming live streams to the Roku that have latested hours. It is important that segment size is a consistent 10 seconds. For this to be possible the key frame interval must be multiple of 10 seconds (2, 2.5, 5...). If the segments sizes vary too much there could be an issue with the session timing out. Of course the session timing out does not necessarily indicate that the problem is with Wowza. Dnet, I think we have suggested that you increase the validSessionTimeout for the cupertinostreaming entry in conf/HTTPStreamers.xml. If you set this value to 50000 or more you should alleviate the problem of the stream timing out due to inconsistent segment sizes. Not sure if the Roku guys have looked at this from their side to see if they can sort out what is going on.

Charlie (The Wowza Guy)

charlie, good to see you patrolling these forums. i tried what you suggested "validSessionTimeout=50000" in the right section of HTTPStreamers.xml -- and it stops streaming at the same spot still (18-minutes or so into video). sorry, but i'm still not sure what the problem is. btw, we are able to stream just fine to the ipad, iphone, ipod the exact same video.

if we do a LIVE stream using cupertinostreaming (HLS), it works just fine for a 1+ hour stream.

roku, do you have any suggestions?

thanks,
steven

[dnet]

Thanks for the comments. The last suggestion from Wowza was to play with my encoding. I'm not sure what the magic formula is but still can't Stream vids over 15 minutes or so in length. Thanks Steve on the progressive download suggestion. It's the way to start out on this. Apparently the Roku's video player will start playing progressive vids immediately. I thought you had to do true steaming for this to work on the Roku. Progressive download couldn't be easier, aside from its limitations.

[SolveLLC]

"TheEndless" wrote:
In addition to Wowza, there's also:

Inlet Technologies - http://www.inlethd.com/?q=products
Apple Stream Segmenter - http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/ ... aming.html
IonCannon Segmenter - http://www.ioncannon.net/projects/http- ... stributor/

The Apple and IonCannon solutions are free. IonCannon is open source.

IonCannon does not follow the Apple pantos spec. It creates segments that are not of equal size and ignores key frames when segmenting which works with the iThings but causes random issues with the Roku. I assume the author understandably wrote and tested with the Apple devices and said "good enough".