Playing web hosted SDP files causes delayed video start

[dhirwinjr]

All,

In my particular setup I used VLC to decode both MPEG2 and MPEG4 multicast video. In some cases I use SDP (session description protocol) files to define an MPEG4 stream. Because all clients need access to these SDP files and they may get updated from time to time I thought the easiest way would be to host the SDP files on a webserver (Apache 2.2.8 on Win32).

Everything works fine if a client views just a single video stream at a time. If, however, the client attempts to view a 2x2 quad consisting of four MPEG4 SDP defined streams two of the four streams will immediately start playing, however the remaining two don't. Exactly two minutes later the remaining two streams start to play.

My initial hunch is that it's not a VLC issue because if all four SDP files are located on the local machine there's no problem loading and viewing all four streams at the same time. I'm guessing it's an Apache issue although I haven't tested a different webserver yet.

Does anyone have any idea what the issue is (either VLC or Apache)?

Thanks,
Dave