Capped.TV's Younger Sibling, Phlix.TV
category: general [glöplog]
Hi all.
A bit ago I was thinking of a way to make Capped.TV easier to upload too. Nothing really got far with that, but I did manage to make a spin-off project with that idea:
Phlix.TV is basically another crappy flash video site, except without any of that uploading and encoding wait stuff. Basically, you put in a video url in whatever format [as long as it supports streaming], and it spits out a flash video version of it on the fly. Downloads, Encodes, and Serves all at once. No waiting. [Some codecs that don't support streaming will timeout, but besides those few, it should be quick]
The idea is: For all the non-flash videos on the internets that you're too lazy to download and watch, or download and then search for a codec for several hours to watch it.. you can alternatively use Phlix to do all that for you. All you need is a web browser with flash installed.
In a attempt to simplify what it for the masses: It's a media player. Let's call it that.
So, for example, the many video links around here.. You can typically shove them into Phlix, and after a few seconds, it'll play them in 700 kbps flash video format. [At least it's somewhat better than youtube..] Except for some wilds that are in .zip files.. but that's a rant for another day. Videos are cached for about a week once encoded. Live streams don't work right, but technically can be supported.
Right now, the quality suffers massively due to the low bitrate and the flv codec. I'm working on a on-the-fly h.264 encoder, but that'll be a little bit.
Till then, give it a try, and tell me what videos/video formats don't quite work properly.
Some Examples:
HBC Donuts (my own ftp)
Into the Pink (scene.org ftp)
Animal Attraction (Unterground ftp)
PS: Yes there's a ad box shown at the end of the videos. May or may not keep it, just little low on funds at the moment.
A bit ago I was thinking of a way to make Capped.TV easier to upload too. Nothing really got far with that, but I did manage to make a spin-off project with that idea:
Phlix.TV is basically another crappy flash video site, except without any of that uploading and encoding wait stuff. Basically, you put in a video url in whatever format [as long as it supports streaming], and it spits out a flash video version of it on the fly. Downloads, Encodes, and Serves all at once. No waiting. [Some codecs that don't support streaming will timeout, but besides those few, it should be quick]
The idea is: For all the non-flash videos on the internets that you're too lazy to download and watch, or download and then search for a codec for several hours to watch it.. you can alternatively use Phlix to do all that for you. All you need is a web browser with flash installed.
In a attempt to simplify what it for the masses: It's a media player. Let's call it that.
So, for example, the many video links around here.. You can typically shove them into Phlix, and after a few seconds, it'll play them in 700 kbps flash video format. [At least it's somewhat better than youtube..] Except for some wilds that are in .zip files.. but that's a rant for another day. Videos are cached for about a week once encoded. Live streams don't work right, but technically can be supported.
Right now, the quality suffers massively due to the low bitrate and the flv codec. I'm working on a on-the-fly h.264 encoder, but that'll be a little bit.
Till then, give it a try, and tell me what videos/video formats don't quite work properly.
Some Examples:
HBC Donuts (my own ftp)
Into the Pink (scene.org ftp)
Animal Attraction (Unterground ftp)
PS: Yes there's a ad box shown at the end of the videos. May or may not keep it, just little low on funds at the moment.
neat!!
micksam7: Wow man, this is friggin' AWESOME!
very cool and effective execution, and i like the idea alot.. i'd be curious to see how well, if atall its picked up and used by the masses... i'm sure you already realise this has potential application beyond the demoscene, i was wondering what plans you might have for it in a wider context? :)
This is just a few "Dude, check this out!"-mails away from getting Slashdotted/Digged to death btw, so I hope you have some cool servers..
Did you offer Google your technology? Wouldn't surprise me if they would like to use that for their video search. ;-)
I mean: One single frontend/database for all video streaming platforms out there.
gloom - Well, I guess I better invest in some infrastructure.. :) Fortunately, the code is all contained and can simply be copied server to server. Right now runs on the capped.tv server, a quad-core xeon. My host does have automatic server provisioning [2 hours], so just a few credit card maxings + a load balancer away. ;P
Keito - First I'd like to iron out the kinks, and then I think as soon as people figure out -what- it is, I think it will launch pretty fast..
Salinga - Heh. :) We'll see where this goes..
Keito - First I'd like to iron out the kinks, and then I think as soon as people figure out -what- it is, I think it will launch pretty fast..
Salinga - Heh. :) We'll see where this goes..
micksam7: I seriously seeing this becoming mad popular, especially if you offer embedding. Like: if I could put up a DivX/XviD of my demos, and just submit the URL to you, get embedcode back, and put that on my blog.. holy scheisse.. I'd use it ALL THE TIME. :)
For Pouet, I can most certainly see this being used here -- just some simple that looks at prods that have [video]-links, sees if it is linked to an AVI or MPEG or MOV-file, if so: add a [stream from phlix.tv]-link under it. That would _rule_.
For Pouet, I can most certainly see this being used here -- just some simple that looks at prods that have [video]-links, sees if it is linked to an AVI or MPEG or MOV-file, if so: add a [stream from phlix.tv]-link under it. That would _rule_.
hund!
SCHEISSE!
Superb idea and execution. Thumbs up!
micksam7: If you wanted to support it with something else than ads -- allow people to purchase a subscription (like, $20 for a year or something), and as long as the person is logged in when visiting the site, the videos get streamed in double bitrate. I'd pay the hell out of that for something like this.
Thank you very much.....this really was a super tool.
however, is there a real particular use for this? i mean, noone really stores videos on the web in non-streamable ways anymore...
Gargaj: Imagine keeping just one file online (in mega-nice resolution/bitrate) and then just submitting resolution/bitrate as a toggle to this service. Serve up, like, three different versions of your video from that one "master" video. That's nice with bells on. :) Also, no more waiting for YouTube or Google Video or Vimeo to "approve" your video and encode it.
that just creates you serverload though, and that's what youtube/etc. are supposed to absolve :o
...that's great and all, but why not just downloading the video?
Gargaj - This service is simply suppose to remove the upload/etc step when the content is already online. [And it's not on youtube due to lazyness, or content owner opinions, or otherwise] Not much more than that. :P
Also think about people with a relatively underpowered machine who want to see a prod but there's only a HD video available. Phlix allow them to watch it anyway. That's pretty cool.
p01: Or people like my mom, who doesn't have a lot of codecs installed.
I guess Phlix.TV could be abused to make the servers store child pornography etc, since it's caching re-coded material...
Quote:
p01: Or people like my mom, who doesn't have a lot of codecs installed.
Yeah, ok. I forgot your mother. ;)
Questions:
1. What is love?
2. Is Phlix.TV responsable for the content it streams from other servers?
3. Is it a waste of energy (CPU-usage) if the phlix.tv server de- and reencodes a stream, that is already encoded on its server, and streams it to client that has to decode the stream also (doubles the stream data amount transported over teh internets)? Power usage could be on of the major problems in the future to drive the internet / world CPU infrastructure.
4. Isn't Phlix.TV basically doing what for example the VLC-Player is doing when the media player opens a file directly and shows it while downloading it in the background? But instead of a server->client->decode-to-screen connection we have a server->server->decode+encode->client->decode-to-screen connection?
I don't know. Maybe a Flash-Player that can eat many Codecs like VLC-Player does and load them directly from a different server (FTP and such) would do the same?
1. What is love?
2. Is Phlix.TV responsable for the content it streams from other servers?
3. Is it a waste of energy (CPU-usage) if the phlix.tv server de- and reencodes a stream, that is already encoded on its server, and streams it to client that has to decode the stream also (doubles the stream data amount transported over teh internets)? Power usage could be on of the major problems in the future to drive the internet / world CPU infrastructure.
4. Isn't Phlix.TV basically doing what for example the VLC-Player is doing when the media player opens a file directly and shows it while downloading it in the background? But instead of a server->client->decode-to-screen connection we have a server->server->decode+encode->client->decode-to-screen connection?
I don't know. Maybe a Flash-Player that can eat many Codecs like VLC-Player does and load them directly from a different server (FTP and such) would do the same?
Salinga: Sure. But Flash only supports two video-formats. Doing the video-decoding in ActionScript would be RidiculouslySlow(tm).