Is It Possible to Stream .AVI Files Over The Internet?

[Hankysmoo]

I want to be able to access my tv show/anime collection at home from my laptop in my apartment. Is it possible to stream the files over the internet rather than having to copy them over? How would I do this and my computer at home has an upload speed of about 40Kb/s, would that be too slow? Thanks.

 

[ScottMac]

You can't (not really).

Multicasts are, by default, blocked by any router not specifically configured to forward them (blocked by the ISPs).

If you sent a streaming unicast aimed at a specific end-point, it would be comparable to a DOS attack on the receiving interface.

Anything else is just on-demand (use an application to connect to a source and request some media).

FWIW

Scott

 

[ColdZero]

It is possible depending on the type of connection you have. The internet is just like any other network connection. Speed may be a limiting factor, but there is no reason why you can't do that over the internet. The internet is run on TCP/IP just like I'm guessing 99% of home networks. If your computer is on the same subnet or a different one, it really doesn't matter.

I don't know what you mean by a DOS attack by sending a stream of unicast messages. When you request a file from a server its sending you a unicast transmission, the only difference is that your computer isn't dropping the packets.

 

[spidey07]

Generally when network guys talk streaming we interpret it to be multicast streaming and as such it is blocked by internet access routers unless specifically setup for multicast forwarding like the m-bone network.

Unicast streaming should'nt be any problem at all.

 

[ScottMac]

Cisco IPTV, for example, has a setting for "smallcast," in which you give the IPTV server an IP address, and it will send an unsolicited unicast stream to that address (whether the client asked for it or not, whether a client is up to receive it or not).

The smallcast has been interpreted as a DOS on some of the firewalls we've tested.

IPTV smallcast is intended to get video from one server to another, where it can be re-streamed to the local LAN. Unicast is used because the Internet (and most intra-nets) do not pass broadcasts or multicasts.

Getting an AVI streaming through the Internet (by any method) may be a trick (unless the video window is fairly small / low res). Much will depend on the uplink speed (most cable / dsl is what? 256 or 384k uplink?). The original post mentions 40kbs ... not much BW there for an AVI.

The are many variables, many of which limit the probablility of success.

.02

Scott