[mythtv] iPhone streaming implementation

Chase Douglas chasedouglas.lists at gmail.com
Mon Mar 23 22:24:55 UTC 2009


On Mar 23, 2009, at 5:32 PM, Rob Smith wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 1:35 PM, Chase Douglas
> <chasedouglas.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The iPhone cannot "live" stream a file hosted on a website. It can  
>> only
>> progressively stream a static file. This means the iPhone can  
>> stream a
>> complete transcoding of an episode, but not live tv. The problem  
>> lies in
>> streaming transport. I can tell you for certain right now (assuming  
>> Apple
>> doesn't change their mind this late in the game) that the iPhone  
>> "live"
>> streaming implementation requires more than just throwing up an  
>> encoded file
>> on a website. Aside from Apple's implementation, if hosting a  
>> streaming file
>> on a website adequately dealt with every stream transport issue  
>> then we
>> would have no need for protocols like rtp, rtsp, or mms.
>>
>> Note that everything hinges on the fact that this is "live"  
>> streaming.
>
> Actually it can with 3.0. See the "HTTP Live Streaming" documentation
> on apple's site. It details mpeg2 transport streaming via http. It
> will stream live tv just fine with a small modification of the
> streaming module as mpeg-2 ts done in the recommended 10 second chunks
> is very simple and fast.

Yes, that is exactly what I am talking about. However, the fact that  
you even know of "HTTP Live Streaming" as it's called suggests that  
you have access to the 3.0 dev docs? The only place I've seen a link  
to the actual docs is inside Apple's confidential development forum.  
The fact that the standard is not available outside of their site  
leads me to believe this is covered by the NDA. Because of that, I'm  
still not going to go into specifics yet.

If you can post a link to the docs and it is publicly accessible, it  
would make things that much easier, but I haven't been able to find it.

Now, for those who are familiar with the iPhone's streaming  
capabilities, there are further issues such as: what do you do when  
one tv program finishes and the next one begins? Again, I don't want  
to discuss what problems there are due to Apple's implementation here,  
so if anyone wants to converse about specifics they can e-mail me off- 
list or we can meet in the Apple dev forums. However, I can state that  
ffmpeg can't do it all alone if you want a fully integrated experience.


More information about the mythtv-dev mailing list