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Video sharing/streaming/?

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Freedom Kira:
Again, let us steer away from the ridiculous solution that you keep pushing forward. The original mention was clearly meant as a joke. If you seriously want to spend a few hours assembling a dish and aiming it so that it's accurate within a tenth of a degree in order to get the accuracy needed to beam a signal over 3 km, go ahead. But the project should be either for fun or for developmental purposes for a greater goal, not for something like this, where there likely exists a more practical solution using the existing Internet connection.

Seriously, you guys are suggesting something akin to bringing in a crane to drop a giant block of stone onto a car in order to crush it.

Bob2004:

--- Quote from: Freedom Kira on October 02, 2011, 11:11:02 AM ---Again, let us steer away from the ridiculous solution that you keep pushing forward. The original mention was clearly meant as a joke. If you seriously want to spend a few hours assembling a dish and aiming it so that it's accurate within a tenth of a degree in order to get the accuracy needed to beam a signal over 3 km, go ahead. But the project should be either for fun or for developmental purposes for a greater goal, not for something like this, where there likely exists a more practical solution using the existing Internet connection.

Seriously, you guys are suggesting something akin to bringing in a crane to drop a giant block of stone onto a car in order to crush it.

--- End quote ---

I thought we'd already agreed that his best option, if his internet can handle it, is just to stream it using that? We were only discussing satellite dishes as an alternative if that fails, because honestly, other than the initial cost, it probably would be the most efficient solution if the upload speed of his home internet connection isn't up to streaming video. I have a friend who lives on a farm who set up something fairly similar to allow him to get internet access from one of the farm buildings, which is a good way from his actual house, and it works brilliantly for him.

If it's possible to just stream the video to the clubhouse over the internet, then that would be the best option, of course, but if the internet speeds aren't up to it, and the factors I mentioned in my last couple of posts aren't a problem, then I actually think a wireless link would be the most efficient (though also probably not the cheapest) option. Unconventional, yes, but potentially the best option.

But this is coming from someone who would massively enjoy building a pair of directional wireless antenna to set up a long-distance wifi connection, and if I had the money and the need for one, would do it even if it wasn't the best solution, so... :D

It's not nearly as extravagant as you make it sound, either. Wireless connections like this are actually very common, they're pretty much the standard solution for small businesses etc who need to stream data between two sites.

As for the difficulty of aiming it accurately, it shouldn't need to be perfect. The dish would probably have a 40 degree angle or so, which means it wouldn't need to be spot on at all (though the closer the better), so long as it points in roughly the right direction.

Mcgreag:
Yes the radiolink was a joke, hence the smiley. It 's not something I am considering even as a worst case scenario.

Anyway been doing some testing of VPN with mixed results:
I haven't got the windows 7 built in VPN server to work, keep getting error 720 when connecting suggests something is misconfigured. I am fairly sure the problem is on the server side but all help I can find assumes that the server is correctly configured and that it's a client error.

Got TeamViewer setup and working but I am seeing the same speed problems that I had with hamachi. 2 computers on a local net with a gigabit connection. When I copy a file without the VPN tunnel I get 30 mbyte/s, speed most likely limited by the writespeed of the receiving harddrive. When I use the VPN link the speed is reduced to just 2 mbyte/s. Similar behavior using a 3g connection, with a direct connection (ftp server) I get 400kbyte/s. Through the VPN tunnel I only get 180kbyte/s. These speed reductions are too large to be just overhead, there got to be something else limiting. If I can't get these speed problems fixed then even a 24mbit/s connection might not be enough.

MediaTomb. I checked up on this program and it seems it uses UPNP exclusively and this only works on a local net. For over the internet usage you need to tunnel through a VPN. But if have to set up a VPN then what is the point in using MediaTomb? Might as well use windows shares instead.

I have also looked a little bit at other streaming software like Llink but haven't tested anything yet. The major issue I have here is that everyone is saying I should use VLC with these and well let me put it like this: If the choice is between keep carrying the drives and being forced to use VLC I rather keep carrying the drives. If they can work well with MPC they are an option but otherwise they are not.

The other option suggested with an ftp server at home and pre-download anything we want to see does not work very well with our usage pattern. The reason to have this large collection in the first place is to be able to just browse the list and see if we find anything that looks interesting and quickly determine if it is interesting or not by watching a few min of it.

As for the tumbdrive "solution". Not sure of 120 of those with accompanying usb hubs to be able to connect everything is actually going to weight less than the current harddrives :) Also with the cost of those it would be cheaper to get a fiber connection. Only 7-8k$ for that while the thumbdrives would cost at least 10k$.

Bob2004:
Mediatomb is fully UPnP, it's true, but you don't actually need to use UPnP to stream any content from it. It has a web interface accessible through http, which you can access with any web browser, and from there it can stream the file through http too. Or, if you are accessing it on the same local network, UPnP can be used instead with VLC or a compatible device. No need for a VPN, it's just accessible on the server's IP adress on whatever port you assign - regardless of what network you connect from.

You could just use a shared folder instead, and that might be better since it requires less setup, and should (in theory) stream just as quickly. Mediatomb has various advanced features relevant to media streaming which may or may not make it worth the effort to set up, depending on what you want. Things like on-the-fly transcoding of video, which can come in handy if the player your using only supports limited formats.

Re. the error 720, make sure that your router, firewall, etc aren't blocking the connection. As far as I can tell, that error means the client was unable to establish a connection, so there's probably something blocking it in between somewhere. Forward the correct ports/protocols, and make sure to allow incoming connections from the internet.

Freedom Kira:

--- Quote from: Mcgreag on October 02, 2011, 09:31:48 PM ---As for the tumbdrive "solution". Not sure of 120 of those with accompanying usb hubs to be able to connect everything is actually going to weight less than the current harddrives :) Also with the cost of those it would be cheaper to get a fiber connection. Only 7-8k$ for that while the thumbdrives would cost at least 10k$.

--- End quote ---

Your response makes me think that you're actually carrying your entire collection back and forth. What's wrong with just bringing what you want to watch on a single stick, and deleting and replacing files on the stick as you go? Do you never go home or something?

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