The document discusses the hardware, software, and bandwidth requirements for a streaming media server. It recommends a minimum of 2.5 Mbit/s bandwidth for streaming movies and 10 Mbit/s for HD movies. Common audio and video codecs used for streaming include H.264, VP8, MP3, AAC, and buffering helps deal with network congestion.

1. IT2032PA
Content Management
System (CMS)
Nitec in Social Media & Web Technology

2. System Requirements for a
Streaming Server
In this chapter, you will learn:
o Identify the hardware requirement for a media server
o Identify the software requirement for a media server
o Identify the recommended bandwidth for streaming
media
o Identify the audio and video codec used for
streaming media

3. Requirements
• Hardware Requirement –
Enough bandwidth to allow access to that media.
o Depending on the uses and applications
o A media server may require large amounts
of RAM, or a powerful, multicore CPU.
o A RAID may be used to create a large amount of
storage.
o TV tuner cards (Digital or Analog)

4. Requirements
• Software Requirement –
Enough bandwidth to allow access to that media.
o Adobe
o Microsoft
o Apple

5. Requirements
• Streaming bandwidth and storage
o 2.5 Mbit/s or more for streaming movies
o 10 Mbit/s or more for HD movies

6. Requirements
• Streaming bandwidth and storage
Example:
o Bandwidth: 1 hour of video encoded at 300
kbit/s (320 240 pixels window size)
(3,600 s 300,000 bit/s) / (8 1024 1024) storage
= (108000000) / (8388608)
= 128.74 Storage
o Storage: on-demand streaming 1000 viewer
using using a Unicast protocol
300 kbit/s 1,000 = 300,000 kbit/s
= 300 Mbit/s of bandwidth

7. Exercise
• Streaming bandwidth and storage
Example:
o Bandwidth: 3 hour of video encoded at 300
kbit/s (320 240 pixels window size)
(_________ s 300,000 bit/s) / (8 1024 1024) storage
= (__________) / (8388608)
= ___________ Storage
o Storage: on-demand streaming 3500 viewer
using using a Unicast protocol
300 kbit/s _________ = __________ kbit/s
= _________Mbit/s of bandwidth

8. Codec, Bitstream, Transport, Control
• Media: SWMD Video
1. Audio is compressed: MP3, Vorbis or AAC
Video stream is compressed: H.264 or VP8
2. Assembled in a container bitstream such
as FLV, WebM, ASF or ISMA
3. The bitstream is delivered (streaming server to
a streaming client) using a transport protocol,
such as MMS or RTP.
4. Client interacts with the streaming server using
a control protocol such as MMS or RTSP

9. Network Congestion,
Bandwidth Spikes and Buffering
• Network congestion and other problems
are fairly common
• To help ameliorate the interruption of the data
stream, buffering is implemented.

10. Network Congestion,
Bandwidth Spikes and Buffering
• Buffering works by storing a portion of the
video locally, and then playing the video by
retrieving data from the local buffer.
• Buffering can also help encoding videos that
contain spikes of high bandwidth. This can
occur if something in the video suddenly
requires more bandwidth

11. Audio and Bandwidth
• Audio requires bandwidth just as video does.
• The higher the quality of the audio, the more
bandwidth it will consume.
o Media Encoder always use compressed audio.
o PCM uncompressed audio, 22.050 kHz, 16 bit
mono for instance requires 43 kbps of bandwidth
o Lower quality audio such as ACELP.net 8 kHz,
mono for example requires only 5 kbps of
bandwidth.

12. CODECs
• Codecs are compression technologies
with two components;
An encoder to compress the file in your studio or
office and a decoder to decode the file when played
by the remove viewer.
o Streaming space - H.264, VP6, Windows Media
and Sorenson Spark
o DVD and Blu-ray spaces - MPEG-2
H.264 and MPEG-2 are huge in the network and
particularly satellite spaces.

13. Distribution Environments
• Windows Media
• Flash
• QuickTime
Make sure that they have the appropriate player
installed.

14. Commonly used Video CODECS
• Lossless codecs (FFv1)
• MPEG-4 Part 2 codecs (Div X Pro, Xvid)
• H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codecs
(x264, NERO Digital, QuickTime H.264)
• Microsoft codecs (WMV, MS MPEG-4v3)
• On2 codecs (VP6, VP6-E, VP6-S, VP7, VP8)

15. Other Video CODECS
• Sorenson 3 used by Apple's QuickTime
• Sorenson Spark used by Macromedia
• RealVideo used/developed by Real Networks
• Cinepak early codec used by Apple's QuickTime

16. Commonly used Audio CODECS
• Non-compression formats
o Linear Pulse Code Modulation (describe as PCM)
• Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF, audio container
format)
• WAV – Microsoft ”WAVE”
o Pulse-density modulation (PDM)
• Direct Stream Digital (DSD) is standard for Super
Audio CD

17. Commonly used Audio CODECS
• Lossless data compression
o Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC)
• QuickTime
o Dolby TrueHD
• FFmpeg (decoding only)
o Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC)
• FFmpeg
• libFLAC
o MPEG-4 Audio Lossless Coding (MPEG-4 ALS)
o MPEG-4 ALS reference software
o Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless

18. Commonly used Audio CODECS
• General
o Adaptive Differential (or Delta) pulse-code
modulation (ADPCM)
o Adaptive Rate-Distortion Optimised sound codeR
(ARDOR)
o Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC,
used in MiniDisc devices)
o Dolby Digital (A/52, AC3)
o MPEG-1 Audio and MPEG-2 Audio

19. Commonly used Audio CODECS
• General
o MPEG-4 Audio
o FFmpeg (decoding only)
o Windows Media Audio (WMA)
• Windows Media Encoder
• FFmpeg