Motorola TrueStream Brings Video Upstream
By Allen Hutchison
Lazin' down a river can be enjoyable but with Motorola's TrueStream, the water could get a little choppy. TrueStream is a new product designed to stream audio and video over a TCP/IP-based network. The beta version I tested came with three pieces: a server that runs on Linux and SunSoft's Solaris, a client that runs on Windows95, and a plug-in for
Adobe Systems' Adobe Premiere that creates video files. The TrueStream client can run standalone with Netscape Communications Corp.'s Netscape 3.0 or later and Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer 3.0 or later.
TrueStream reminded me of similar products, specifically, Precept's IPTV software and R
ealAudio's RealVideo: All offer streamed video and audio over a network or the Internet. However, RealAudio and Precept can serve live feeds from a video capture card, and TrueStream cannot. The initial release of TrueStream also lacks Windows NT server support (which Precept and RealAudio provide) and MacOS
client support (which RealAudio offers).
If you are looking for a product to serve speeches, advertising or video without fine detail, TrueStream is a port in the storm. However, if you want to provide a computer-based class or detailed video, it will leave the natives restless and confused. As for quality, TrueStream is at the lower end of the scale.
Testing the Waters
The server is implemented only on Solaris 2.5 or higher or Linux, and its features are a little light. There is no configuration utility, and the only diagnostic utility is the ability to turn on logging. Installing the server wasn't difficult. I installed it on a Sun Microsystems UltraSPARC 1 running Solaris 2.5.1.
I
then edited the configuration file for my Web server so that I could add the TrueStream Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) types. After moving the example Web pages to a public directory, placing the sample shell scripts in the cgi-bin and making a few modifications to the TrueStream configuration file, I was sailing.
To make a video that you can use with the TrueStream server, you must use a free plug-in for Adobe's Premiere.
The voyage is much simpler on the client side, thanks to a helper app for Netscape. All I had to do was run the setup, and it integrated perfectly with Netscape Communicator 4 preview release 2. Once everything was installed, I began watching the fascinating videos that came with this beta. The video and sound are well-integrated, and the product didn't appear to absorb the resources on the test machine I used.
The transport for TrueStream runs over User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and uses a proprietary real-time protocol, which is extremely efficient even over a 28
.8-modem connection.
The video can run in two modes: postage stamp (QCIF 176x144) and two times the postage stamp size (CIF 352x288). Neither mode is detailed enough to make TrueStream useful for computer-based training, but with the extremely efficient transport this product may be the choice for low-bandwidth ne
tworks.
Allen Hutchison is the senior emerging technologies engineer at Indiana University, where he manages an ATM network and evaluates new and emerging technologies. He can be reached at allen@hutchison.org.
|
FAQs
