How to streaming MPG & AVI files on website?

Question

I have a huge load of 600MB MPEGs and AVIs videos on my unix server and I want to have it streamingly playable on my website.

Flash is a good way but I heard that it can only play .flv files. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

So, what is the best way to do streaming MPEG and AVI files on the website with all browsers & OSs friendly?

Answer 1

1. You can convert it to .flv with free utility

http://www.3wcreations.net/index.php?itemid=45



2. You can embed it with divx. its even better player and better quality then flash. But are you ready for bandwidth? If lots of people try to connect at once you will be in trouble it will take a long time to load a movie. For this you need T1 connection.

http://www.divx.com/divx/windows/webplayer/

Answer 2

>> Flash is a good way but I heard that it can only play .flv files. (Correct me if I'm wrong)



Yes, Flash only plays back the FLV format, and you need Flash Streaming Media Server for it to be played back as a truly streaming file.



>> So, what is the best way to do streaming MPEG and AVI files on the website with all browsers & OSs friendly?



Short answer: You need a streaming media server, and that requires some compromises, some technical skill and strong control over the Web server.



Ffmpg is one option that's free, but it is very complicated to use as a streaming media server, especially because it has not native GUI.



Windows Media Services is a reasonable alternative that gives broad support across platforms and comes free with Windows Server 2003, but it is so poorly documented that you will likely find it as hard as ffmpg to use.



Apple's Quicktime Streaming Server has a open-source option, Darwin Streaming Server, that can be hacked up to run on *nix, but it only supports the MP4 standard, which prevents people who only use Windows Media Player users from seeing those streams. And that constitutes the majority of Web users.



Real Networks also offers Helix, which is an excellent option if you have money and want decent rights management. But it, too, requires a non-WMP player; while many users have Real Player, not all do.

Answer 3

Firstly, You need to know what is flv?

FLV (Flash Video) is a proprietary file format used to deliver video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player (formerly known as Macromedia Flash Player) version 6, 7, 8, or 9. FLV content may also be embedded within SWF files. Notable users of the FLV format include YouTube, Google Video, Reuters.com, Yahoo! Video and MySpace.



Commonly FLV files contain video bit streams which are a variant of the H.263 video standard, under the name of Sorenson Spark. Flash Player 8 and newer revisions support the playback of On2 TrueMotion VP6 video bit streams. On2 VP6 can provide a higher visual quality than Sorenson Spark, especially when using lower bit rates. On the other hand it is computationally more complex and therefore will not run as well on certain older system configurations.



so you need to get a flash video encoder to encode video like mpeg , avi to flv to put on your personal website, you can use this software to help you,

http://www.flash-video-soft.com/flash-video-mx-std/

convert video to Flash (SWF), Flash video (FLV) Flash Player ,Provide skinnable & auto-adapted SWF PLayer

Answer 4

most of them will be able to use quicktime player as a viewer in the browser but you would have to provide a direct link to the files but that allows ppl to download the file instead of just viewing it... if you want to run the risk or dont care if they are able to download your videos then that is a good easy way to stream them...