QuickTime (.mov & .qt) Streaming Guide

This guide was written for OnyxServers.com customers using a Media Stream web hosting plan.

 

Step 1: Prepare your QuickTime clips

From inside QuickTime Pro:

Select 'File' -> 'Open File' and open the video file you plan to stream.

Select 'File' -> 'Export'

Choose 'Movie to QuickTime Movie' for Export
Click on the pulldown menu next to 'Use' and select your desired data rate.

Click on 'Options' and choose 'Hinted Streaming' under 'Prepare for Internet Streaming'
 

Click 'Settings' and checkmark 'Optimize Hints for Server'



Click 'OK'
Click 'OK'
Click 'Save' to export and save movie.

Your clip will now be encoded using the data rate you selected and saved to your drive as a file with the filename extension .mov.

Upload the .mov clips you created into the helix_stream/ folder. The helix_stream folder is found in your web root folder (public_html/).
 

We recommend you create at least two copies of your clip, one for low bandwith users (select 'Streaming - Low' when saving) and one for medium/high bandwith users (select 'Streaming - Medium' when saving). When creating the reference file in step 3, you will be able to add the different versions of your clip to the reference file. This will result in the most appropiate version to start playing, depending on the users connection speed.

 

Step 2: Create a reference file

A reference file is a small file which tells the users QuickTime player where the clip to be streamed is located. This is the file you will need to link to from your web pages in order for your video clip to start playing (streaming). To create the reference file you will need to download Apple's MakeRefMovie software.

Download MakeRefMovie:

For Mac: http://developer.apple.com/quicktime/quicktimeintro/tools/
For Windows: ftp://ftp.apple.com/developer/Quicktime/Windows_Tools/Web_Tools/MakeRefMovie/MakeRefMovie.zip

Run MakeRefMovie.

You will be prompted where to save the reference file. Enter the name of the reference file (use the filename extension .mov) and click 'Save'.




2. Select 'Movie' -> 'Add URL'



You will be asked for the URL to the video clip. Assuming you have correctly uploaded the video clip(s) to the helix_stream/ folder, the URL will be:

rtsp://host.onyxservers.com:554/<your_user_id_here>/<filename>



If you have created different data rate versions of your clip, you will need to add the URL for the other versions as well. For example, your list of URL's might look something like this:

rtsp://host.onyxservers.com:554/myuserid/myclip_highquality.mov
rtsp://host.onyxservers.com:554/myuserid/myclip_mediumquality.mov
rtsp://host.onyxservers.com:554/myuserid/myclip_dialup.mov

For each URL that you add, MakeRefMovie will show you a window with a few options you can set:



You can assign which clip should play for which type of connection. In the above example, the higher data rate clip is set to play for 112K Dual ISDN or better connections and the low data rate clip for dial up users. You can also specify which clips have priority should the users QuickTime Player have to make a guess.

Select 'File' -> 'Save'.

 

Step 3: Upload the reference file

Upload the reference file created in the previous step to anywhere under your web root (public_html/) folder. Once uploaded, simply link to it from your web pages using HTML. e.g.:

<a href="/myclips/the_reference_file.mov">Play Clip</a>
 

Note that in order for the clip to be streamed, you must link to the reference file and not the actual video clip file. They both carry the extension .mov so be careful not to confuse which is one is which!