Fake video streaming

Report · Mar 31, 2009

I am building a video based demo and of course I have been asked to make it like youTube and give users the ability to drag the playhead to any point in the video. The system that this is going into can't support streaming and so I am trying to fake the effect using progressive download.
As far as I know youTube is PD based but you are able to drag to a point past your current load progress and start playing from there. You can see though that when you release the playhead it tracks back a bit so you always start from one of several set start points in the video. I have come close to achieved this by cutting my video up in to small chunks and then loading and playing them in sequence from multiple video player instances within an FLVPlayback component based on where the user drags the playhead to but my main problem is that while the visual switch between files is pretty seamless there is a pretty noticeable glitch in the audio.

Does anyone have any insights in to how youtube deliver their videos or how I can achieve a smoother transition between the audio tracks of two video files?

If anyone has any thoughts on the subject at all it could be useful as it seems to be something that people are asking about more and more all the time.

Cheers all

Report · Mar 31, 2009

YouTube uses a streaming server, which is why you can jump directly to any
point in the video and the download begins from that point. The playhead
readjusting itself is likely simply moving to a keyframe.
If you don't use a streaming server, you use progressive streaming - which
is pretty good you just can't jump to a point before it's been downloaded.
The cut-up method you're trying to achieve sounds like a lot of work, for
probably something that will never work quite right...

--
Dave -
www.offroadfire.com
Adobe Community Expert
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/

Report · Mar 31, 2009

Cheers for the reply.
I had always assumed that youTube would use streaming but several people I'm working with have told me that it is not the case and that I should therefor be able to reproduce their player. Is there a hard and fast way I can prove that they are streaming and so maybe steer this job to a different conclusion as you are right to say it sounds like a lot of work for a possibly sketchy solution.
YouTube vids don't appear to cache. I don't know a lot about video delivery but isn't that a sign that they are streamed rather than downloaded?

Report · Apr 01, 2009

The fact that you can jump anywhere and the download begins from that point
is a sure sign they are coming from a streaming server.

--
Dave -
www.offroadfire.com
Adobe Community Expert
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/