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VB4000-5000-6000 Series
Network Video Appliances
VBrick v4.2 WM Appliance
Admin Guide
March 18, 2008
4410-0151-0004
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Copyright © 2008 VBrick Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. 12 Beaumont Road Wallingford, Connecticut 06492, USA www.VBrick.com This publication contains confidential, proprietary, and trade secret information. No part of this document may be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or reduced to any machine-readable or electronic format without prior written permission from VBrick. Information in this document is subject to change without notice and VBrick Systems assumes no responsibilit
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Contents WM Admin Guide Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Getting Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii Getting the Best Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii Font Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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ASX Rollover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Creating Publishing Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Configuration: Encoder > Archiver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Progressive Download . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Confi
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Status: JPEG Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Status: Hard Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Status: Hard Drive > General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Status: Hard Drive > Archiver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Cable/DSL-300K, High Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Cable/DSL-300K, Low Motion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Cable/DSL-128K, High Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Cable/DSL-128K, Low Motion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Modem 56K .
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WM Admin Guide This VBrick WM Admin Guide is written for anyone who will be using or configuring a VB6000 Series WM appliance. This includes system administrators, network technicians, and anyone who will be using or configuring a VBrick network video appliance. The VBrick WM Appliance is compatible with Microsoft Windows Media and converts analog video and audio from any source into digital Windows Media streams. It attaches to your network and delivers the streaming video and audio direct
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Stream Prioritization describes the Windows Media Player logic that determines what stream the player will select and play when multiple bit rates are configured. Getting Help If you need help, or more information about any topic, use the online help system. The online help is cross-referenced and searchable and can usually find the information in a few seconds. Use the tree controls in the left pane to open documents and the up and down arrows to page through them. Use the Search box to fi
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Font Conventions Arial bold is used to describe dialog boxes and menu choices, for example: Start > All Programs > VBrick Courier fixed-width font is used for code elements (C++, HTML) as well as filenames, directories, etc. Black Courier fixed-width font is used to indicate user input in keyboard commands, scripts, etc. Folder names and user examples are displayed in this sans serif font. Folder names and user input are displayed in this bold sans serif font. Italics are used to emphasize sp
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x Preface
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Chapter 1 Introduction Topics in this chapter Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Typical VBrick Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 VBrick Reflecting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Using Multiple Bit Rate Streams . . . . . . .
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• Microsoft Windows Media Player 7.1 (Windows 98 or 2000 only); Media Player 9, 10, or 11 (Windows XP only). Standard Features The VB6000 WM Appliance supports approximately 40 Mbits/sec total throughput via the Ethernet/IP connection. This bandwidth can be used for any of the standard features shown in Table 1 but the overall performance of any one of these features can be affected by the sum total. For example, you can download more content from the hard drive when the encoder(s) are not
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Introduction applications at the same time. One of the major benefits of the VBrick WM Appliance is it's compatibility with the Microsoft ecosystem; this makes it easy to integrate with existing Windows Media installations. Table 2. Typical VBrick Applications Application Description Standalone Multicast Streaming video and audio can be multicasted from the VBrick WM Appliance directly to Microsoft's Windows Media Player on an unlimited number of PCs. Standalone Unicast Streaming video and
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The Microsoft Windows Media 9 product suite divides transport functionality between two distinct products—the encoder and the server. In some applications the VBrick WM Appliance provides the same functionality as the Microsoft encoder in that it can encode live video and audio and provide a unicast stream to a Microsoft Windows Media server which then may relay the stream to the many players using various transport protocols. In other applications, the VBrick WM Appliance replaces both the
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Introduction • Use an HTTP or RTSPU URL to get the unicast stream. You can create a web page that links to the HTTP or RTSPU stream directly or you can open the HTTP URL or RTSPU URL using Windows Media Player or a web browser. • Use an HTTP URL to access the .asx file on the VBrick. You can create a web page that contains an HTTP link to the HTTP or RTSPU asx file on the VBrick or you can open the asx URL using Windows Media Player or a web browser. • Use VBrick StreamPlayer Program Guide.
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Reflecting from VBrick Appliances This section provides more information about how to use VBrick appliances in reflecting applications. For more about the specific configuration settings on the VBrick, see Configuration: Encoder on page 23 and Configuration: Reflector on page 57. A VBrick Reflector can reflect an HTTP Push from a VBrick Encoder, a VBrick Reflector, or Microsoft Encoder or it can pull an HTTP stream from a Microsoft Server, a Microsoft Encoder, a VBrick Encoder, or a VBrick R
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Introduction Push Reflecting from a Windows Media Server The VBrick WM Appliance can push its Windows Media stream to a Microsoft Windows Media Server or to a RealNetworks Helix Server which can then reflect the stream to players or other servers using any of the protocols supported by the server. To reflect a pushed stream through a Windows Media or Helix server: Create a broadcast publishing point on the Windows Media or Helix Server and configure it for a "Push" source. In the WM Applianc
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Other Considerations Keep in mind these additional details. The VBrick Pull Reflector: • Supports up to five redirects. • Supports the first (or only) HREF entry in an .asx file. Additional entries in the file are ignored. • Only pulls streams via HTTP. It will accept an MMS URL but will use HTTP for streaming from that URL. • Cannot pull multicast. • Cannot pull from a server-side playlist. Using Multiple Bit Rate Streams A VBrick WM Appliance (v4.0 or higher) has three internal video enco
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Introduction combinations of audio and video rates for multicasting, HTTP and RTSPU serving, HTTP Push, and Archiving. See the Configuration: Encoder pages for more information. The following drawing shows the selectable output streams from a WM appliance. (Note that the Archive output on the right is actually a .wmv file rather than a stream.) Depending on your requirements and what you select, the VBrick will produce any or all of these outputs. Each output can be configured with different
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Output Description HTTP/RTSP Unicast streams are provided via the VBrick internal server. In order to use Unicast this feature, you first create up to three groups, each of which consists of an audio stream at a selected rate and video stream at a selected rate, and optionally closed captioning and metadata. Some or all of these groups are Enabled on the Configuration: Encoder > Server page. The end-user client then determines whether to pull a specific group from the server or to negotiat
