Bugzilla – Bug 4046
would like option to choose between direct to player and served from server streaming
Last modified: 2009-09-08 09:20:04 UTC
my understanding is that subsequent to slimserver version 6.3, streaming to multiple clients from one slimserver was changed such that the stream goes directly to the player rather than served multiply from the server to all the clients. i realize this choice was made in part to accommodate slower machines and in part to match the squeezenetworks implementation. however, this means that twice as much bandwidth is used if one wants to listen to the same stream on multiple players. i'd like to suggest an option to choose between the two in settings somewhere. thanks. -rachel
Hi Rachel, I'd just like to clarify that by "streaming" you mean listening to Internet radio stations and such? streaming from Internet sources, not just from Slimserver to devices? Also, cc'ing Andy because I'm sure he knows the details of radio-related changes better than I do.
Dean, Dan, any thoughts about this?
Yeah - I had Rachel file this bug. It's definitely something that people will ask for if they are bandwidth constrained.
Subject: Re: would like option to choose between direct to player and served from server streaming Why not just automatically do server-proxied streaming if more than one player is synced on a given stream? Would love to find a way to not add a new preference.
Yes I think we can disable direct streaming when synced. I did some testing on mp3, ogg, and flac streams and it works OK. One side effect of this is that all players will receive the same format. This means that streaming an Ogg or FLAC file to synced players where an SB1 is involved will result in all players receiving transcoded WAV. If it's just SB2 or higher players, they all get native Ogg. Also note that WMA will always be direct streamed. The MMS protocol handler is only setup to handle direct streams or the use of wmadec, not to proxy the raw stream. The protocol handler/direct streaming/remote streaming code is a mess and could probably use a rewrite. Also, when not using direct streaming, the connections are made synchronously, which is bad, but will require a complex async overhaul of Source to fix.
Fixed in change 9478, please test.
Subject: Re: would like option to choose between direct to player and served from server streaming FYI, Rachel had one hardware player, and one HTTP player (via Winamp). Since we can't sync with HTTP players..