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Using JWPlayer with Broadcam server flash player stream possible?


I have a live video feed using the Broadcam video server. It works "some" of the time but the Flash Player is ugly and un-customizable. JWPlayer seems a much better solution?

Currently I am using the javascipt below to embedded it (and this works a lot of the time), but I an having a hard time figuring out how to make JWPlayer use this. I know the scope is "BoardCam" and the streamName is "live" and these two things are all you need to know (in theory) to play a flash stream? Can anyone help with how to embed JWPlayer to use this same stream? Any assistance would be much appreciated.

<script type="text/javascript">

var flashvars = {
'provider': 'rtmp',
'host': 'myhost.no-ip.biz:1935',
'scope': 'BroadCam',
'streamName': 'live',
'bandwidth': '1',
'src': '1',
'autostart': 'true',
'image': 'http://myhost.no-ip.biz:1935/start_frame.jpg'
};

var params = {
'allowfullscreen': 'false',
'quality': 'high',
'allowscriptaccess': 'always'
};

var attributes = {
'id': 'player1',
'name': 'player1'
};

swfobject.embedSWF('nchplayer.swf', 'mediaplayer', '750', '500', '9', 'false',
flashvars, params, attributes);

</script>

15 Community Answers

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Do you have a link?

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

You mean a link to the site where I would love to replace the ugly duckling flash player with JWPlayer?

Yes, I do have that but was reluctant to post it as Broadcam doesn't seem to be much of a video server (sometimes the video just doesn't display at all, other times it works perfectly) and I didn't want to overwhelm it or announce it until I get something better. Oddly when it fails to display video, I can often capture traffic arriving at the client running the flash player so I'm hoping the problem is mostly the NCH flash player and can be solved by changing it out with JWPlayer.

It's at:

http://kittycam.vexxis.com

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

You should be able to use our player for this, since this is just using rtmp.

Here is some information – http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/jw-player/28854/using-rtmp-streaming

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Yes, I agree. I've already been though the documentation you so kindly pointed me to and tried a couple of the examples adjusted as best as I could for my streaming server. I guess I just don't understand how to map the scope and streamname into it. In any event, after much experimentation I wasn't able to get it to work. If you are and can send me some embed code that works with it then I'm sure I can customize that to my purpose (e.g. the player doesn't need controls as there is no audio, etc.) Thanks for the help.

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Can I see where you tried to run this on your site?

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Sure. I've been using the file indexjw.php for testing purposes. I tried many various permutations based on the documentation but it just isn't "clear" how to access a rtmp stream on port 1635 when the scope is "Broadcam" and the stream name is "live" (which should be pretty simple and probably is). Several of my attempts did bring up the player but it companied it was unable to connect to the server. It's probably quite a bit further away from what it should be now due to experimentation. I'm sure it will work if it is setup (invoked) correctly. I've also been considering switching to C++ RTMP Server (as BroadCam) doesn't seem very reliable or robust. A couple of threads I've been reading with people doing similar things (using rmtpd server), and many mention JWplayer and then having had more success with FlowPlayer. Seems to me that JWPlayer is superior but the documentation isn't as clear and those going to Flowplayer are doing so only because they can't get it to work but I really believe it will work and is superior, just not well documented or clear to someone unfamiliar with it.

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Can I see a link?

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Well, obviously that would be http://kittycam.vexxis.com/indexjw.php, it does reach the server and the server responds that I am asking for the wrong scope or stream name and switching everything around I never seem to be able to get the right combination to make the server happy.

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Have you tried:

rtmp://vexxis.no-ip.biz:1935/BroadCam.mp4

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

I have now (just adjusted the rtmp URL to exactly as you suggested) and verified with view page source.

Packet capture show that the server responds:

Real Time Messaging Protocol (AMF0 Command _result('NetConnection.Connect.InvalidApp'))
description No scope " " on this server.

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

What about this:

rtmp://vexxis.no-ip.biz:1935/BroadCam/live?bandwidth=1&src=1

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

Might be getting closer! That caused:

JWPlayer says: Handshake C2 | connect('BroadCam/')
Server says: Real Time Messaging Protocol (AMF0 Command connect('BroadCam/'))
Server says: _result('NetConnection.Connect.InvalidApp')

and then says no more, now when we capture the Flash Player connecting successfully, it does:

Handshake C2 | connect('BroadCam')
and then after a little more clucking back and forth it streams...

the most obvious difference is 'BroadCam/' versus 'BroadCam'

I think if we can get this working a lot of folks (any with BroadCam) are going to throw out the non customizable player that comes packaged with it and replace it with JWPlayer.

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Does the stream has an extension?

JW Player

User  
0 rated :

That's a good question. Broadcam is pretty short on documentation and certainly anything of a technical nature. The original embed code was simply:

<embed src="http://vexxis.no-ip.biz:86/nchplayer.swf?host=vexxis.no-ip.biz:1935&scope=BroadCam&streamName=live&bandwidth=1&src=1&autostart=true&redirect=&textOnOver="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">

but I have since adapted it to use SWFObject v2.2 (http://code.google.com/p/swfobject/) and copied the nchplayer.swf file to my web server so it isn't reliant on the rather pathetic embedded web server in BroadCam that runs on port 86 any longer.

I've now just taken delivery of a video encoder that will convert the camera composite video to H.264 (the existing one only does motion JPEG, MPEG-4 Part 2/H.263) so I'm thinking I will give C++ RTMP Server or Red5 a try and abandon BroadCam entirely if it works out for me as I'm having lots of reliability problems (crashes often, video doesn't start for no good reason, seems to be much more of a CPU hog than it needs to be, etc.). I also tried hosting via a couple of CDNs but it seems we loose the uplink stream from time to time and they all want their uplink software to run under windows as well. Without buying specialized hardware I wasn't able to find a reliable way to stream to them. Of course if I am successful in getting an alternative video server working, I am still very interested in using JWPlayer in the final solution.

I suppose it must go over the wire in one form or another but there are a lot of packets to look through, most of them encoded in one form or another. Is there any easy way I can find the stream extension?

Ethan Feldman

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Hi,

Hm, I do not know much about Broadcam. I would try to add .flv , .mp4, to see if that helps.

Best,
-Etahn

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