More amateur video production
I started working with streaming video at least 15 years ago. I still have souvenirs from before RealVideo, of Intel DVI and VivoActive. By the late 90s RealVideo seemed preeminent. It had been plausible to continue to think of RealVideo that way, even with the competition from Windows Media and QuickTime. But with the popularity of Flash Video, particularly with YouTube, but in many other places, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Flash Video is now preeminent.
“Karl Z. Wog” is continuing with amateur video production, so I’ve felt the need to bring my video server capabilities into this century. Last week I started surveying the software options that would make sense with the available hardware and operating system platforms. My thoughts quickly progressed from better solutions with the copy of RealServer I purchased in 1998, to the Apple’s Darwin Streaming Server and QuickTime Streaming Server (QTSS), to wondering how to deal with Flash Video.
I thought briefly about Windows Media, as well, since I do have some old MSDN discs with Microsoft’s software for Windows Media serving, but that seems less interesting.
Though Darwin on Linux seemed plausible, running QTSS on OS X Server seems more pragmatic. I’m assuming that is a simple matter of configuration and de-prioritized QuickTime for now.
That left RealVideo and Flash Video. I tried lots of combinations for RealServer and have most of them working well, so I’ll write another note about those experiences.
Now I’m mostly beginning to understand Flash, but it seemed I should write about the rest before immersing further in Flash exploration.