LiveStream on Android/Iphone devices

[papachan]

Hello there.

I would like  to start a discussion here around Flash Media server option on Mobile Device.

With the release of the new Air SDK and Air Packager for iphone, it seems to be a good way to test flash features  on mobile devices as Geolocation, 3d api, RMTP protocol, LiveCycle DataServices, Accelerometer, Multitouch Event Api.

Some clients ask me about the possibility to be connected to an RMTP signal from an Iphone/Android device.
My first answer is this protocol is only supported by Flash Api. Maybe some sources or projects bring this protocol to another platform, but never heard about that.

So I have take a look around and see an example in live of a Flash Media Server based service which can be delivered at the same time a Video File in a physic url on the server. So the mobile device can be dispatched to an html5 player and reproduce the live streaming, but nothing like a real netConnection. Maybe your HTML5 player can be stopped for some reason, and never start again.

For exemple on IOS sdk the http live stream inherits from the quicktime sdk. and you can use it with an simple http tag like <video> and you will be connected to simple http stream. you can read more about that on apple developers library:

http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/

In case of android, there is a software solution like the NexPlayer TM SDK , it can reproduce codecs such as  3GPP and Windows Media Codecs, H.264 and WMV/WMA.
http://www.nextreaming.com/ but all solutions requires a Software change on server too.

The android sdk itself can reproduce prefectly 3GPP remote video. ( take a look at the media format supported list here on android platform )
http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/media-formats.html

Some solutions appears around the web, that seem to include the flash media server, i found the case of wowzamedia.com software. but really i didnt experience it already.

With the integration of AIR on multiples devices, it seems the best way to reproduce a  live stream on any devices using the rmtp protocol, do you have any thoughts about that ?

Well if you want to read more about news on Android and Air, here is my blog but its in spanish for the moment.

www.androidda.com


 

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Dan

[Jorge Solis]

Hi Dan

I'm not familiar at all with Android, do you mean the Flash player on this devices doesn't support RTMP?

Jorge

[papachan]

Hello jorge,

Certainly on Android device, an Air Compiled Application is able to use rmtp.
but in case of Iphone/Ipad, a IPA exported with flash export package cannot. why? I think the IPA use the IOS sdk underneath, that it may not authorized the rmtp port and on Android its Air sdk. thats the only explication i have.

[peter_r]

Hi,
connections to a FlashMediaServer app via rtmp (not rtmpe) are possible with ipa generated with the cs5 iphone packager.
A really bad thing is the CPU Performance on an iPhone as described here:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5078062/simple-netconnection-to-fms-raises-cpu-load-to-90

Cheers Peter

[papachan]

Great peter, do you have an example working? maybe some code for sharing here?

the protocol rtsp is working fine too on Android Platform, on native application, i will post a code later here ....