Thanks to the release of the iPhone OS 3 back in July, HTTP based streaming was made possible. This type of streaming requires a custom encoding and segmentation setting. We’re happy to announce that Ankoder supports HTTP iPhone streaming files segmentation out of the box.

If you are not sure how HTTP streaming works, here’s a good explanation from Apple Dev Center. There’s a similar feature by Microsoft called “smooth streaming” which works with silverlight. That will be supported in the near future.

Here’s how you can transcode and segment 3 different qualities of a mp4 for iphone in one go. Before you start, of course you would need to register an Ankoder account.

Step 1. Storage Setup:

Step 2. Formats, Recipes:

• Clone your own Format:

• Format type: “mpegts”, iPhone screen size is: 480×320

• Segment the video

• Create your recipe: (or we already have one) The supported bitrates for streaming are: 100 Kbps to 1.6 Mbps
  • Low – 128 Kbps video, 64 Kbps audio
  • Medium – 500 Kbps video, 64 Kbps audio
  • High – 1000 Kbps video, 64 Kbps audio

Step 3. Upload or use API to send a download request.

Our system will automatically transcode your video, cut them up into segments, and upload them back to your server. For more information please look at our API documentation.

Here’s the result:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/iphone.stream/53.m3u8

Note, paste the link on your iPhone or on Mac, you need the iPhone SDK emulator.

For more HD video source: http://orange.blender.org/download

Related Posts:

Here’s a few good articles, credits to Carson:

• iPhone HTTP streaming with ffmpeg and open source segmenter
• iPhone Live Streaming using S3 and Cloudfront

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Apple announced the new features of the iPhone OS 3.0, that the iPhone would be capable of streaming video and audio directly over HTTP. Apple also advertised HTTP streaming as a feature of QuickTime X, the update of its media architecture coming in Snow Leopard. What it failed to explain, at least publicly, is how this streaming would be accomplished. Fortunately, Apple submitted its proposed protocol last month to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in the hopes that it will become a ubiquitous standard.

The basic mechanics involve using software on the server to break an MPEG-2 transport stream into small chunks saved as separate files, and an extension to the .m3u playlist specification (.m3u8) to tell the client where to get the files that make up the complete stream. The media player client merely downloads and plays the small chunks in the order specified in the playlist, and in the case of a live stream, periodically refreshes the playlist to see if there have been any new chunks added to the stream.

The traditional Real Time Streaming Protocol originally developed by Netscape and Real has big issues with its necessary ports blocked by routers or firewall settings, preventing a device from accessing the stream. As the standard protocol for the Web, though, HTTP is generally accessible. Furthermore, no special server is required other than a standard HTTP server, which is more widely supported in content distribution networks, and more expertise in optimizing HTTP delivery is generally available than for RTSP.

The real benefit to HTTP Live Streaming is that the server can maintain multiple versions of the clips in different formats. This allows an iPhone user with a WiFi connection to negotiate a higher quality version of the video than if only EDGE were available. Even better, the phone can renegotiate a higher or lower quality dynamically if it improves or loses signal. This enables the watcher to experience the best video quality possible at the current bandwidth available, continually optimized as new segments are requested.

Unlike Microsoft’s Smooth Streaming trojan horse for Silverlight, HTTP Live Streaming works with any playback client on any platform and does not involve a layer of DRM, although it does support encryption, allowing broadcasters to limit access to their content. Because support is built directly into the iPhone’s embedded QuickTime player, users don’t even need to download apps, content creators can simply publish their feeds within a standard website, and iPhone can access them just like a desktop client.

We’re working hard to support this feature, so look out for this in the near future.