Advise for streaming desktop, to a server, to a web page

[n_skid11]

To expand a little I'm trying to work out the best way to stream my desktop to my server, and to have my server provide that stream to a html5 video tag so it can be displayed in a web page and so that the server is handling the data load.

I've got the first bit done, being able to transcode and stream my desktop to my local area network, but I can't find enough information to make a decision on what's the best way to get that stream to a server so it can put it on a page. I've found a page that said video tags can support rtp streams and that they might be able to support html streams as well, the problem with rtp streams is that according to the VLC feature page rtp doesn't support Ogg or WebM muxes, and firefox doesn't support mp4 muxes.

Basically what I need to know is, is what I want to do possible, or should I scrap the idea of using the html5 video tag, if it is possible what is the best way to go about it, I'm completely new at streaming although I know a fair bit about encoding and encoders, but any help is appreciated. At one point I did find a page that showed how to stream to a server then use the server to stream to the rest of the internet, but I can't find it again.

[n_skid11]

Allow me to explain better what I'm trying to do, might be I'm approaching it wrong, basically I have a multi-monitor computer running 3 screens at 5040x1050 that I use for gaming. I want to be able to stream my games but maintaining the aspect ratio of my screens (48:10), now I know there are streaming sites out there and I've seen one example of a user claiming to run an Eyefinity steam, but that stream is still bound into the 16:9 window the site normally uses.

What I want to do is stream my desktop to my server and create a webpage that displays the video in a window of the correct aspect ratio, that goes across most of the screen. The reason I latched onto the html5 video tag is just because I know how to work with php, html and javascript, but if I have to use a different method that's not to much of a problem it just means I have to learn something else from scratch.

My current progress is I can create a stream and transcode it to the correct aspect ratio, bit rate etc, but don't know how I should be sending it to my server, or how to get that to appear on a web page.



An unrelated idea I had was wounding if it was possible to stream the raw footage from my PC to my laptop, have my laptop transcode it, then send it to the server, effectively splitting the recoding and transcoding onto two different PC, I thought it might improve overall performance.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Desktop streaming is slow. It is fine for sharing of slidesets. It is not going to work for high-FPS video games.

[n_skid11]

Desktop streaming is slow. It is fine for sharing of slidesets. It is not going to work for high-FPS video games.

Well the basic tests I've done so far haven't come out to bad, I'll be happy to get a 20-25 FPS output, currently I'm using the filter from this page, http://betterlogic.com/roger/2010/07/ho ... playon-tv/ which is a little coppy in games but its workable atm, I believe the coppyness is down to the transcoding atm.

But finding a decent streaming program that can handle eyefinity resolutions and encoder it to a smaller size is extremely hard, hell finding cheap video editing programs that will work with resolutions over 1080p and 4K it hard enough. So I would rather try and get vlc to work first before starting from scratch again, unless you can point me in the direction of a better option.

I did ask for advice, but no offence ,effectively only saying it can't be done, isn't very helpful.

Edit: Infact how I'm getting the stream of my desktop is immaterial to the question I was asking, I was asking how to stream something from my pc, to a server and get that to display on a web page.

[n_skid11]

Nevermind I've managed to get it working, all parts, with varying degrees of success, so now its just a matter of optimising when fibre comes to my area next month and I don't have to work with a 40KB/s upload limit

Edit: It's a little flaky atm, hopefully a better connection and some optimization on the encoder will sort that, unfortunately to get it working if firefox without transcoding it twice I have to use http streaming from my computer to the server, which isn't the best as its tcp and not udp. That's the biggest problem with using the html5 video tag, that said, damn is the ogg codecs do a damn good job with the encoding, given how little bandwidth it has to play with.

[alexferri]

Why don't you use free services available such as UStream.tv and others whenre you can broadcast your desktop to there and from there get embeded code to put on your web page? VLC or ScreenCamera to send video to UStream or LiveStream or Blog.tv and then get the embedded code and put it in your page. Just an idea.

[n_skid11]

It's a fair idea and it is one I considered first, unfortunately information on how free some of these services are, or what limitations are imposed on free accounts, isn't easy to find. There is also the fact the services are designed to stream 4:3 of 16:9 content, so there no information on if they can support 48:10 aspect ratios, if they can record from a 5040x1050 screen, or whether it would stream a 1920x400 at HD quality, without letter boxing it, in other-word if someone hit fullscreen on an Eyefinity computer would the video stretch across all 3 screens like they should.

Because of the lack of information and the fact I already had my own dedicated server I decided it would be intentionally just as much effort to see if it could be done without the use of an existing service. I now know it can be, but the last issue is getting it onto a web page (it'll stream to VLC fine no matter what I do), the best solution is probably to make my own player using flash rather then using the video tag. So atm I'm looking to see if there is a legal free editor for flash (as I don't want to pay for something I'm only planning on using once).

It might be that one of the streaming service would do the job nicely but since I'm this far along I want to try and see it to conclusion. That and I like doing things myself rather then relying on other services, as I only have myself to blame if I can't get it to work or something goes wrong.

Edit: Or I could look for an existing flash video player to use, like FlowPlayer or something.

[jmrunge]

Hi,
Im trying to do something similar... Would it be too much asking to post the command line you're using for doing this, and the HMTL5 code for displaying it?

Many thanks in advance!

Juan Martin