Quicktime Streaming Server Configuration

What I have noticed is if we use the IP address in a browser with the port and mount point on some workstations it will launch an media player whether it's itunes, windows media player. Do they not connect to the stream through the URL as well?

Make sure that your server has a FQDN so that listeners do not have to use IP addresses. Don't run another webserver on the QTSS machine -that way you can stream over port 80 and won't have to configure firewalls for other ports, it also makes the URLs simpler. You should be able to listen to .mp3 streams from Nicecast to QTSS in any browser that has QT installed in the OS, in QT player, or in alternative players like VideoLAN Client.

Other times the connections are just refused and I am not sure why. Some individuals are getting a message when attempting to connect on the Quicktime Server that there is no more connections even though I have the server set to a 1000 connections. It shows on the server only 3 connected.

You are probably running out of available bandwidth for your network connection. It doesn't matter how many connections you have specified if you are pushing high bitrate streams -once the bandwidth is gone, clients won't be able to connect. You can reduce the bitrate of the streams to increase the available client bandwidth.

QTSS has the ability to stream over any network interface that it is configured to use in Server Admin. You can install another multi-port NIC in the server and round-robin DNS the IP addresses to the interfaces to increase bandwidth/connections. You can bond the interfaces together into one big pipe to allow more clients to to increase bandwidth. You can configure QTSS to stream over Multicast to your LAN. All of those will require that you work with the network admins at your site to make that happen.

QTSS has the ability to deliver multiple streams via QTSS relays. You can setup a relay at a live site and send the stream back to the campus QTSS so that it streams from your campus server. Any number of Nicecast streams can be configured to be relayed through QTSS as long as you have enough network bandwidth and processor to throw at it.

Many of the answers to your questions will be here:

http://images.apple.com/server/macosx/docs/QTSSand_Broadcasting_Adminv10.5.pdf

The Server Administration v10.5 manual describes link aggregation better than a post here. The PDf of the manual is here:

http://images.apple.com/server/macosx/docs/ServerAdministration_v10.5_2ndEd.pdf

Take a look at pages 165-170. You will need the assistance of the people at your campus who manage the switch configurations to set this up correctly -they should already know what to do.

If you open the URL in Quicktime Player, does it exhibit the same behavior?