playing movies via Media tab in About Land.

[Gandulf Marenwolf]

Are there any restrictions to showing a movie in SL using the MEDIA tab in About Land?

I did everything according to knowledgebase, but when I click the camera top right in my viewer screen (Firestorm) the picture just turns white and no movie shows.

I use the IP address from my own site and direct to a .mov, .mp4 or .flv movie i uploaded there.

Are there resolution restrictions or any other restrictions to movies to be shown in SL? My bandwidth I set to max in preferences. my max upload speed is 10 Mbit/sec and download is 150 Mbit/sec.

using the same address in my browser shows the movie without any problem.

I tried to address the movie directly (DomainAddress/movie) and via a website on my domain (DomainAddress/index.htm). All works in my browser, but not in SL.

What am I missing?

 

[pixysticks]

Hi Gandulf, I have a little experience in this area but not a whole lot.. I will try to help you out. To start, direct linking the URL in the parcel settings for media won't work for a movie (I don't believe so). The viewer we use to connect to Second Life would need all sorts of video and sound codecs and software built in to render the video as well (a player). If there's no screen to play the movie on well then you don't get a movie..

Most people achieve what you're trying to do with a media player from the Marketplace. But keep in mind it's even more difficult even with a media player to actually sync whatever movie you want to show with everybody watching it.

For example, if you begin watching the movie at 1:00PM and a friend of yours comes in late at 1:30PM, then without completely restarting the video your friend will begin at the beginning of the movie and not what point you personally began playing it (in other words, there's no synchronization).

So while a media player will make what you're trying to do possible, its still got it's own limitations. I wouldn't recommend buying a media player either, I use one I made myself in about 1 minute lol, and just stream movies to it from Putlocker or Youtube or any other video file sharing website.

Also keep in mind this is a rather gray area, considering most movies are protected by copyright, and while you may not be personally infringing on copyright by making the content available to view in Second Life since the content is hosted outside of the Linden's servers... Linden Labs may frown upon it... it's errr, well, a gray area...

Anything you've made yourself is of course yours to share with as you see fit though..

EDIT:  For typos and spacing, I always forget to enable my javascript lol.

EDIT x2:

 

Oh I forgot to add, there's other 3rd party software needed for video streaming...

 

Flash for Other Browsers

and

Quicktime

 

Although if you buy a media player it should come with instructions of all the extra stuff you'll need to install.  Lots of people already have flash and quicktime installed already, but not lots of people have flash for other browsers installed.   And you need to have the right streaming options enabled in your viewer preferences.

Some of this stuff might not even be needed anymore, I haven't done any video streaming in a while.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

To show movies in SL they need to be streamed in a way similar to the way music is streamed.  You need to rent a video stream and have video streaming software installed on your server.  You don't need a TV at all.  The only functionality they provide is easy channel switching or access to websites that stream video.  All you need is a prim with a texture on it that is the same texture as the media texture in your land tool box where you enter the URL of the stream.

[Gandulf Marenwolf]

Hi Pixisticks,

Thank you very much for your long answer:).

In the meantime i got my VEA-TV working in SL and showing the video from my website. It appears that the .flv version of the video is showing better then the .mov or .mp4 version, so i'll stick to that.

Well, that was the good news. The bad news is that i still cannot get the video showing by the Media tab. However, i notice with the .mov and .mp4 version that the screen turns grey, BUT with the .flv version it then turns black and starts downloading the stream with about 7 Mbit/sec, but no picture or sound, so it must be the video player from SL I guess? Or do i need to change some settings in Firestorm? I think in Preferences i did all settings right, but... perhaps not:). Or do I need to download some other viewer?

The movie in SL Knowledgebase makes it look so easy...

 

[Gandulf Marenwolf]

Hi Amethist:)

Thank you for replying to my question.

As you can see in my answer above, you see i got my VEA-TV running the viseo, however with the help of the maker, it was a setting in the TV itself I apparently missed.

Now you state that for streaming Video to SL you need to hire also a videostream, like an audiostream for music on your parcel.

I have an audiostream in SL and Virtual DJ to stream music to my parcel. Virtual DJ also can stream video. Now is there a way to use virtual DJ to stream video from my domain (server) to my parcel? or do I just need to hire a video strean? Then I guess i better buy another VEA-TV in SL as that's cheaper...

Please comment to what I wrote above:) Thank you