live ogg / webm stream embedding using html5 video tag

[Gerbrand Oudenaarden - Engage!]

hi,

i've done some test recently to embed live Ogg Theora streams (generated in VLC or Theora Streaming Studio) in webpages.

the html5 <video> tag works fine for on-demand video. but neither Chrome, nor Firefox, nor Opera (latest versions) managed to play the live stream.

Either a single frame was displayed, a grey box or nothing at all. 

Is there such a big difference for live and on-demand streaming?

A workaround is to use the Cortado java applet to play the streams, but it's not a perfect solution.

The only working html5 live streaming setup I know is Safari/iPhone/iPad with h264 and live segmented HTTP streaming.

and my main question: can we expect that the browsers will be supporting live WebM/VP8 streams?

If there is no support for live WebM in HTML5 in browsers, we still need Flash Player :-(

Best,

Gerbrand

Gerbrand Oudenaarden | gerb...@oudenaarden.nl
www.engagetacticalmedia.org | regie, productie, webcasting
+31 (0)30-2387516 / +31 (0)6-53151921

[hansschmucker]

Hi Gerbrand

at least as far as Firefox is concerned there is support for WebM live
streams and it is supposed to stay. See
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=566245#c10
and
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=566245#c12

On Jun 16, 9:47 am, Gerbrand Oudenaarden - Engage!

<gerbr...@oudenaarden.nl> wrote:
> hi,
>
> i've done some test recently to embed live Ogg Theora streams (generated in VLC or Theora Streaming Studio) in webpages.
>
> the html5 <video> tag works fine for on-demand video. but neither Chrome, nor Firefox, nor Opera (latest versions) managed to play the live stream.
> Either a single frame was displayed, a grey box or nothing at all.
>
> Is there such a big difference for live and on-demand streaming?
>
> A workaround is to use the Cortado java applet to play the streams, but it's not a perfect solution.
>
> The only working html5 live streaming setup I know is Safari/iPhone/iPad with h264 and live segmented HTTP streaming.
>
> and my main question: can we expect that the browsers will be supporting live WebM/VP8 streams?
>
> If there is no support for live WebM in HTML5 in browsers, we still need Flash Player :-(
>
> Best,
> Gerbrand
>

> Gerbrand Oudenaarden | gerbr...@oudenaarden.nlwww.engagetacticalmedia.org| regie, productie, webcasting

[Sander]

Hello Gerbrand,

Gerbrand Oudenaarden - Engage! wrote (ao):

> i've done some test recently to embed live Ogg Theora streams (generated
> in VLC or Theora Streaming Studio) in webpages.

Can you provide a few more details about your setup?

I would like to show a live stream from a webcam in a browser, but can't
find a good starting point no matter how hard I shake Google.

I've played with flumotion but that was too heavy on the poor
SheevaPlug.

I've experimented with gstreamer and vlc, and can create and view
streams with these clients, but how to make them suitable for
webbrowsers?

I hope your information gets me rolling again.

Sander

--
Humilis IT Services and Solutions
http://www.humilis.net

[Gerbrand Oudenaarden - Engage!]

Hi,

I was wrong in my previous post. Actually, Firefox and Opera do play live Ogg Theora streams from an icecast server. Chrome doesn't (any more?). 

Chrome, Safari and other browsers can play Ogg Theora streams via Cortado.

A live Ogg Theora stream can  be generated by VLC (Windows version only), sent to an Icecast server.

On Linux, there are a number of live encoding solutions. I prefer Theora Streaming Studio, a GUI to ffmpeg2theora and oggfwd. Flumotion also works great as an encoder. All these packages are open source.

Mind you, at least autoplay or controls or a poster image should be enabled in the html5 video tag. otherwise the results are unpredictable and users won't know they can right-click on the emptyness, and select play. This was why I previously thought html5 browsers did not support live ogg streams.

Example web page snippet for embedding the stream:

<h1>html5 video tag - for firefox, opera</h1>
                                                          
<video src="http://icecast02.engagetv.com:8000/stream.ogg" width="512"
   height="288" autoplay controls></video>
<br/>

<h1>cortado applet - for chrome, safari, internet explorer</h1>
<applet name="cortado"
              code="com.fluendo.player.Cortado.class"
              archive="http://www.theora.org/cortado.jar"
              width="512"
              height="288"
   >
   <param name="url" value="http://icecast02.engagetv.com:8000/stream.ogg"/>
</applet>

Best,
Gerbrand

[Ben Moskowitz]

Hey G,

Open Video Alliance has done a few successful events with live Theora streaming—Filmmaker Summit at Slamdance, ROFLcon, a few others. Works great in all three browsers. Here's some instructions with Icecast.

The guys at Fluendo/Flumotion have been super helpful with distribution of open video, and we're planning on offering a stream of the Open Video Conference this October in WebM.

Cheers,

Ben

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[Zaheer Merali]

So yes, we have tested Ogg/Theora/Vorbis live streams from Flumotion in Chrome and Firefox and they have worked in the past fine.
With WebM, Chrome has a bug with live streams currently but Firefox, Opera and gtk-webkit browsers like epiphany play the Flumotion streamed live real-time WebM fine.

Zaheer