Quicktime Streaming Server Live broadcast Issue

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Quicktime Streaming Server Live broadcast Issue

Hi All,

If someone could please help me with this, I have a Quicktime Streaming server set up in our DMZ with Nicecast being used to broadcast up to the server. When I enter the URL of the station in Internet Explorer Windows Media Player launches without any issue and plays the live broadcast. When I try to launch the URL in Firefox or Google Chrome for some reason the Quicktime plugin attempts to play the broadcast, plays about 10 seconds and stops. Any thoughts to why that is?

Thank You,
Brad

Message was edited by: Brad1313

Mac OS X (10.5.7)

Posted on Jun 26, 2009 6:26 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 26, 2009 8:23 AM in response to Brad1313

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

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Answer 2

Brad1313 Author

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Jun 26, 2009 9:06 AM in response to Mabel O'Farrell

I receive a message Error 45:invalid URL() when opening the URL from Quicktime Player. If I take the same URL: 'http://radio.durhamcollege.ca/riotradio' and open it in itunes it loads without any issue. As mentioned before if I hit the URL with Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player launches without issue.

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Answer 3

Jun 26, 2009 12:01 PM in response to Brad1313

Shoutcast streams play in QTP with the 'icy' protocol so change the URL for QTP users, i.e.; icy://radio.durhamcollege.ca/riotradio. You can embed the stream in a webpage to get it to play with QTP or QT plugin.

Also, you have the bitrate set for the stream at 192 Kbps, it doesn't need to be that high, 128 Kbps or 96 Kbps is good enough. Most internet radio stations don't broadcast at anything higher -most are lower. This will give you more available bandwidth and allow more clients to connect.

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Answer 4

Brad1313 Author

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Jun 26, 2009 12:16 PM in response to Mabel O'Farrell

That worked great, I'm not a webpage developer do you have any instructions on how I would embed that into the radio stations webpage? I noticed how to embed a movie into the webpage is in the admin guide but is there one for live broadcasts?

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Answer 5

Brad1313 Author

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Jul 15, 2009 6:34 AM in response to Mabel O'Farrell

Hi Mabel,

We have embedded the stream into our webpage www.theriotradio.com, but for some reason the stream will only play on a Macintosh computer. The browsers on a Windows machine will not load the stream whether it is Firefox, Google Chrome, or Internet Explorer. Any thoughts?

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Answer 6

Jul 15, 2009 1:13 PM in response to Brad1313

The embedded link plays on Windows in IE 7, Firefox 3.5 (Mac and Win), and Safari 4.0.2 Mac, all with QT 7.6.2. Below are some screenshots of the chat window where the stream plays from:

*This is Firefox 3.5 Mac:*

*This is Safari 4.0.2 Mac:*

*This is Firefox 3.5 Win:*

*This is IE 7:*

The issue with Safari and Firefox in the top two images is the code on the page needs to be fixed. This is what's there:

<OBJECT CLASSID="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" CODEBASE="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab" WIDTH="90" HEIGHT="50" >

<PARAM NAME="src" VALUE=" icy://riotradio.dc-uoit.ca/riotradio" >
<PARAM NAME="autoplay" VALUE="true" >

<EMBED PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" SRC="http://www.theriotradio.com/chatbox/riotradio.mov" TYPE="image/x-quicktime" WIDTH="90" HEIGHT="50" QTSRC="icy://riotradio.dc-uoit.ca/riotradio" AUTOPLAY="true" >
</EMBED>
</OBJECT>

and that's why you see the little QT window next to the 'Riot Radio' graphic and why you see the player window with the -2048 error code below it in the Safari screenshot. If the code is changed to this:

<OBJECT CLASSID="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" CODEBASE="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab" WIDTH="90" HEIGHT="50">
<EMBED PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" SRC="http://www.theriotradio.com/chatbox/riotradio.mov" TYPE="image/x-quicktime" WIDTH="90" HEIGHT="50" AUTOPLAY="true">
</EMBED>
</OBJECT>

the little QT box should disappear and the player will display in the area below the 'Riot Radio' graphic. However, the '<OBJECT>' and '<EMBED>' tags are deprecated in favor of using Apple's javascript implementation of calling QT in web pages. This is also the reason that the QT plugin doesn't load in IE 7 (last image) -the 'Q' with the '?' mark on it.

Here's a sample of what could be used:

<head>
<script src="AC_QuickTime.js" language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript"></script>
</head>
<body>
...
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
QT_WriteOBJECT('http://www.theriotradio.com/chatbox/riotradio.mov','310','305',' ',
'autoplay','true',
'controller','true',
'align','middle');
</script>
...
</body>

You can pass this link:

http://developer.apple.com/internet/ieembedprep.html

along to your coder to have him look at what is recommended for QT embedding using javascript to make it work with IE 7/8 -it will also work with FF and Safari. The 'AC_QuickTime.js' javascript, shown in the code sample, can be downloaded from the page linked above and placed on the site.

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