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Anonymous
May 27, 2008
Question

Choppy Video/Audio with FMS 2

  • May 27, 2008
  • 6 replies
  • 808 views
Hello,

My internet group and I have been trying to get the bugs worked out of our system so our Flash Media Server (version 2.0) will work correctly. The latest issue under our load test was choppy video and audio. The load test was to see if our network and hardware could handle 15 concurrent connections and of course something caused the test to fail. Our network and server engineers say their stuff all checked out only used 20% of network bandwidth at the most. The server barely hit 5% CPU usage. It has been suggested a few different times to incorporate a buffer. I don't really want to do this, because it seems to be a patch on a problem somewhere. Plus, I also read that buffers in streaming video are somewhat irrelevant because as soon as the user seeks forward or backward the buffer is dumped, which would put me right back in the boat with choppy video again until the server is able to establish another buffer while streaming the video.

Here is some info on the video we used for test:
- 400kb per second
- On2 VP6 Codec
- Frames per second (same as source) (video was ripped from dvd quality quicktime file.)
- 96kbps audio
- 720 x 480 video size (The reason we went so large on the video is because we wanted to test a “worse case scenario” if a video that size were ever requested we would know if it was possible.)
- Running on Windows 2003 server and FMS v2.0

Here are my questions:
1. Shouldn't the FMS stream a video of this size to 15 concurrent connections without experiencing any kind of lagging or choppy video?
2. Should I incorporate a buffer into the video to smooth over the choppy places?

Thank you for your help!
Eric

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    6 replies

    Anonymous
    May 30, 2008
    Good to know...I have to admit that it is a little difficult to find good tutorials on this kind of stuff. I've spent the past 3 hours trying to find a tutorial on how to get the "dual buffer" technique with FLVPlayback since FLVPlayback seems to be the option that Adobe steers most people to use. Maybe because that's the easiest way to get video up and running for new comers (like myself to flash video) like the Spry stuff in Dreamweaver. I've never used the Spry stuff because I hear it's bulk, plus I already know how to create most of that stuff with only what I need. It sounds like Net Stream is the way to go, but will require more work to get the end result I want.

    Obviously, I don't know much about the whole streaming video stuff, but I guess I'll be considered an expert if I can ever get this FMS utilized properly and my Net Stream up and running. My understanding when we bought this server was that it was pretty much plug'n play and the FMS ensured smooth video playing with no problems. I didn't know I had to do all this...

    Thanks again fmslove!

    Eric
    Anonymous
    June 4, 2008
    I too am trying to figure out how to improve client side playback of streamed video from FMS2 over the Internet. The only thing I could locate on the Adobe Knowledgebase was this very good article on Implementing a dual threshold buffering strategy in FMS. http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashmediaserver/articles/fms_dual_buffering.html

    If anyone has links to additional information or tutorials on how to actually do this, please provide.

    Thank you!
    Anonymous
    June 4, 2008
    Thanks hshapi,

    That is the route I am pursuing now. The only problem is I have never used NetStream because I thought that was the old out dated way to play video. So, I have been focusing my learning on the FLVPlayback Component. Now I have to go back and study up!

    Good luck to you!
    Anonymous
    May 30, 2008
    Both approach have bufferTime settings.

    NetStream approach offer most flexible options(e.g. for dual buffering strategy) as one can monitor the buffer status in real-time ( completely full OR empty).

    FLV playback component should work almost fine except that buffer-status monitoring wouldn't be as refined as with Netstream.
    Anonymous
    May 30, 2008
    Thanks for the reply fmslove! Does it matter if I am using the FLVPlayback component instead of NetStream? I think I forgot to mention that in my original post.

    Thanks again!
    Anonymous
    May 30, 2008
    Yes... the way to go is to increase buffer size to a reasonably large value on flash client side as soon as playback starts.

    Look for API NetStream.BufferTime on client side. putting a big value (3-5) should suffice.
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