How do I create a streaming movie in QT Pro??

Question

I have a Darwin streaming server and I'm trying to figure out how to stream movies on it.
I've got QT Pro and I understand that I need to use this, somehow, to encode videos correctly for streaming.
How do I do this?
Do I need a ".sdp" file, and if so, how do I get one?
Darwin Streaming Server appears to require one as a playlist option, 'mount-point'.

Answer 1

When you encode your files you must make sure that they are hinted. Here are some general directions for creating sutable media. This is taken from a ducument that I am writing for a university at the current time so the applicable copyrights apply.
There are many codecs which can be wrapped in a Quicktime Move but only several codecs which can be wrapped in a Quicktime Movie, can be streamed. Several of the compatible streaming codecs include MP4, H.264, AAC and Sorenson. Additionally the Quicktime files MUST be hinted. The easiest way to create compatible files is with either Quicktime Pro or with iMovie. Neither of which are free. Free tools exist but they are very difficult to use. One way to create a compatible file is the following. Please note that the following directions will cause you to create a standards compliant file. In Quicktime Pro choosing export and in iMovie by choosing Quicktime Advanced export. Choose Movie to MPEG4. Click Options. File format should be MP4. Change the video format to H.264 and set the data rate to 1000 kbs. You can use any value that you wish but 1000 kbs looks very nice also note that this file probably will not be playable for anyone outside of the LAN unless they have an extremely fast internet connection. Your total kbs of both the video and audio must be less than that of the end users internet connection. For example for anyone unfortunate enough to still be on 56k would need the file to be under 56 kbs, 44 kbs would be a good bitrate to use for them. You can use any image size that you choose but note that the movie will usually look better at a smaller size. You can leave the frame rate at 30 but if you do not have any fast action sequences you can easily reduce it to 15 without much loss. Click Video options. If you don't mind spending more time encoding the file then change the encoding mode to Best quality but if you don't have the time to spend encoding then choose Faster encode. Change video to Audio and make sure that the audio format is AAC. You can reduce the data rate if you wish but if you have any music then it will sound terrible if you reduce the quality much below 128 kbs. If you only have someone speaking in the video you will most likely want to change the movie down to one channel (mono). You can also change the output sample rate but 44.1 kHz works well. You can also increase the encoding quality if you want better sound. Change audio to streaming. Make sure that the box is checked for enable streaming (if that is not enabled then no matter how you encode your file it will NOT work on the streaming server). Also make sure that you click the chick for optimize for server. Click OK and save. Some time later your movie will be encoded. To link to the file first place the file on the streaming server. After it is there play the file using Quicktime. The formula for the address to open it is rtsp://servername/path-to-file/filename.mp4 (or rtsp://servername/path-to-file/filename.mov). If that works without a problem in Quicktime Pro click save. Choose the option to save a reference file and press save. Place the reference file on the web server and link to that reference file just like you would any other file. (If you used iMovie there is a free tool made by apple for mac os x to create hinted files. The tool can be found here: http://developer.apple.com/quicktime/quicktimeintro/tools/index.html .)