The goal of this project is to provide an efficient streaming media server, based on open standards and open media formats (see below). The server should be capable of delivering audio and video on demand to several hundred concurrent clients. It is intended for environments where the stored content is huge, i.e. complete DVD-quality movies, and the network is not the limiting factor. The server will likely be released under the GPL, though I am still considering a BSD-style license.
The project started out of growing frustration with Apple's QuickTime streaming server and other commercial solutions, which so far have been unable to satisfy our requirements. It appears that they focus on Internet streaming, i.e. serving small, heavily compressed video and audio clips to DSL or dial-up users, where the network is the most important limiting factor.
The latest release is available as
In its present state, the server is already fully useable: It compiles and runs on Linux-i386, Linux-ppc, FreeBSD-i386 and Darwin-ppc (aka Mac OS X), and it is already quite useable for production systems. For more details see here. A performance evaluation of the server will be posted here very soon.
The server is intended to comply with the following standards and media format definitions:
© 2004 Helge Bahmann <hcb@chaoticmind.net>