FCS Streaming Inconsitencies - FLVPlayback

Forum|Forum|19 years ago
December 7, 2006
4 replies
778 views

My group and I have developed a website utilizing FCS to stream flvs embedded (using the Flash Video Encoder, FP8 On2 VP6 codec) with cue points. Since its not billable, we've been developing this site on and off for the past 5 months and now that its finally live have received reports of inconsistent behavior. Most people (who have reported back) see the site as intended, however at least 3 users have reported unusually slow load times accompanied by the video pausing and not attempting another load. Each user has experienced this while at work and if they actually get the video to play it buffers unnecessarily. So, I'm assuming its a bandwidth issue. Though they have no issues with other streaming video sites (ie: youTube).

Since I'm just getting familiar with video delivery over the web (this is my 2nd streaming video site) and had initial issues with FCS sending cue points correctly, I decided to use the FLVPlayback component with custom play controls.

Troubleshooting I've tried so far:
1) I've tried dynamic buffering as described in the Adobe FCS article "Optimizing Video Streaming with Dynamic Buffering Strategies" which uses bandwidth to determine buffer time. However my problematic users can't even get the sample app to load.
2) The flvs were encoded at a bit rate for 400kpbs. I've swapped out one of them with a video at a bit rate of 150kpbs. It definitely buffers less frequently, but the load time is the same and the video pausing still occurs.
3) I've trapped video state when these issues occur and found that it returns nothing. I implemented a solution which repeats the connection attempt until video state changes (assuming this would happen). This has not fixed the issue.

So here's my question:
I know I need to start over with my troubleshooting, but where? I'm all up for solving this thing on my own, but I'm not sure where to look because all the methods I'm aware of are not working.

If you have time, check out the site: www.livesconnected.com and tell me if you see any glaring issues. I will send you the code, if needed.

I would really appreciate any help you can offer.

This topic has been closed for replies.

A

Anonymous

Also check ping rate of your clients. If they have a bad route towards your host you can do whatever your want on your site but the results will still be bad.

Besides that you can encode various bitrates of the same video and let the user choose a better or worse quality setting, instead of forcing all your clients to accept a (lousy) 150 kbit stream.

R

rockjAuthor

Participant

Thanks for the tip. Next time we run into issues with a user I'll definitely have them ping the site to check response time.

Since we have talking heads we're okay with the quality at the lower bit rate.

A

Adam_Walsworth

Participating Frequently

A couple other tips for you. You can use bandwidth detection to playback low mid and high bitrate videos. You can also use a dual buffer strategy to allow the player to act more like microsoft fast start strategy. This basically lowers buffer time and allows the player to prebuffer if it has extra bandwidth available.

regards,

Adam Walsworth
http://adamwalsworth.com

stoem

Known Participant

I guess that confirms Jay's assumptions then :-)

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rockjAuthor

Participant

Yes! Jay's comments forced me to think about bit rate vs bandwidth. Thanks again.

R

rockjAuthor

Participant

Thanks for everyone's feedback.

I have made progress with this issue. I've re-compressed these videos using a much lower video and audio bit rate which has given us better playback results.

stoem

Known Participant

nice site.
Really impossible to say what's happening here, seemed to play fine for me. What exactly doesn;t work for these users, back to back playback or playback in general?
If it rebuffers at 150kbps with a big enough pipe at the user end then check your server/host for bottlenecks. Try another server (other host?) if you can to eliminate this as a source of problems.

note: Youtube uses progressive download, not streaming.

Stefan

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rockjAuthor

Participant

i appreciate your help with this and am glad to hear that you like the site - we host with media temple and have been very happy with their uptime and support, so i'm not sure we'll switch without doing a bit more testing - now that i know youTube uses progressive download, i'll have these users test with other confirmed streaming sites so that i can at least find out if its there network having issues with streaming video

thanks again

A

Anonymous

Do you have a dedicated server with Mediatemple, or are you using a shared FCS hosting account? The reason I ask is that a lot of people have misunderstood the bandwidth allowances that come with shared hosting plans, which lead to problems like the one you mentioned.

A lot of people have the misconception that the bandwidth figure for the shared hosting plan is per user, where the figure is actually cumulative (shared amongst all connected users). Let's say you have a Flashcom plan with 500kbps of available bandwidth. With your 400kbps video, you'll use up almost all of your bandwidth on a single client, leaving only 100kbps for the second client, so both connections will be slower than 400kbps requiring constant rebuffering of your 400kbps stream. If your bandwidth limit is maxed and another client connects, that client will be rejected.

That might not be the problem in your case, but I figured I throw it out there.

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