Streaming

Audio and Video Streaming

The server can stream RealAudio and RealVideo files through the http protocol. While this method is not as robust as using the fully-featured RealAudio Basic Server, it does provide a reasonable method for streaming RealAudio and RealVideo content.

To accomplish Streaming, you will need to create a .ram file that calls your real audio/video file. The .ram file is a text file with an absolute URL. This URL will need to be:

http://full.domain.name/directory/filename.rm

While uploading the real media files you should take care of the following steps.

A) If you choose to FTP this file and edit it on your local machine with a text editor (such as Notepad), be sure you FTP it in ASCII mode since it is a text file.

B) Copy your encoded RealAudio and RealVideo files (files with the .rm and .ra extensions) to your Virtual Server using FTP. Be sure to FTP these files in Binary mode.

C) Use a text editor to create a metafile containing a RealAudio or RealVideo URL. For example, the contents of your metafile should be in the following form:

http://YOUR-DOMAIN.NAME/path/filename.ram

Save the metafile as a text file with the .ram extension. For example:

filename.ram

Then FTP this file to your Virtual Server in ASCII mode (because it is a text file).

In your HTML document, reference the metafile in a hyperlink. For example:

You can use relative or complete paths. If you use complete paths, you must include both the hostname and the complete path.

When a user clicks on the link, the audio/video file(s) begin to download. The RealPlayer begins playing after a few seconds; it does not need to wait for the entire file to be downloaded.