Linking to live QuickTime and RealMedia streams
NOTE: Understanding links to on-demand streams builds key knowledge that will help you in linking to live streams. We recommend that you review this page on linking to on-demand clips first, and then go to the page on linking to live events.
Users who don't have QuickTime installed may find a link helpful.
Sample text: If you do not have the Quicktime Player, you can download it free here: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
http://www.duke.edu/~NetID/yourMovie_ref.mov
You can create a link on your Web page that will open the external QuickTime player automatically and start playing your video. To do this, you must create what is called a "reference movie." (See Creating Reference Movies).
Once you have created your reference movie, you must upload it to your website with your Web pages – not to your streaming folder in AFS with your media files. The link on your Web page will point to the reference movie, as in the example below:
Click here to view QuickTime video in external player
The link above points to a reference movie named "servertest_ref.mov" on the Digital Media Solutions website in the same directory as this Web page.
The video below uses a poster frame (an image of your own choosing) to stand in for the actual QuickTime movie. When a viewer clicks on the poster frame the video will begin streaming.
NOTE: You may need to click twice on the poster movie, once to activate the QuickTime window and once more to begin playing the movie.
<object classid="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" codebase="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab" width="320" height="256">
<param name="src" value="servertest_ref.mov">
<param name="qtsrc" value="poster_frame_cover_controls.mov">
<param name="controller" value="false">
<param name="href" value="rtsp://quicktime.oit.duke.edu/dms/servertest.mp4">
<param name="target" value="myself">
<param name="autoplay" value="false">
<param name="controller" value="false">
<embed src="servertest_ref.mov" qtsrc="poster_frame_cover_controls.mov" width="320" height="256" type="video/quicktime" controller="false" autoplay="false" href="rtsp://quicktime.oit.duke.edu/dms/servertest.mp4" target="myself" pluginspage="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/">
</object>
1<object classid="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" codebase="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab" width="320" height="256">
2<param name="src" value="servertest_ref.mov">
3<param name="qtsrc" value="poster_frame_cover_controls.mov">
4<param name="controller" value="false">
5<param name="href" value="rtsp://quicktime.oit.duke.edu/dms/servertest.mp4">
6<param name="target" value="myself">
7<param name="autoplay" value="false">
8<param name="controller" value="false">
9<embed src="servertest_ref.mov" qtsrc="poster_frame_cover_controls.mov" width="320" height="256" type="video/quicktime" controller="false" autoplay="false" href="rtsp://quicktime.oit.duke.edu/dms/servertest.mp4" target="myself" pluginspage="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/">
</object>
line 1: Change pixel dimensions of your video
line 2: Point to your reference movie--could be a relative or an absolute link. An absolute link to a file in your personal webspace would look like this: http://www.duke.edu/~NetID/yourMovie_ref.mov. Instructions on creating reference movies are here: http://www.oit.duke.edu/web-multimedia/multimedia/dukestream/reference_movies.html)
line 3: Point to your poster movie via either a relative or absolute path. An absolute link to the poster movie in your personal web space would look like this: http://www.duke.edu/~NetID/yourMovie_poster.mov. Instructions for creating a poster movie are here: http://www.oit.duke.edu/web-multimedia/multimedia/dukestream/poster_movies.html
line 5: Enter the rtsp url of your actual media file. An sample link would look like this: rtsp://quicktime.oit.duke.edu/folderName/yourMovie_streaming.mov
line 9: Point to your ref movie and poster movie (relative or absolute path). Modify the pixel dimensions to match your file, and enter the rtsp url of your actual media file again
<object classid="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" width="320" height="256" codebase="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab">
<param name="src" value="servertest.mov">
<param name="qtsrc" value="rtsp://quicktime.oit.duke.edu/dms/servertest.mp4">
<param name="autoplay" value="false">
<param name="loop" value="false">
<param name="controller" value="true">
<embed src="servertest.mov" qtsrc="rtsp://quicktime.oit.duke.edu/dms/servertest.mp4" width="320" height="256" autoplay="false" loop="false" controller="true" pluginspage="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/"></embed></object>
NOTE 1: When the "autoplay" parameter is set to "false" as in this example, the default QuickTime plugin may not match the size of the video. Setting "autoplay" to true will resolve this issue.
NOTE 2: The link to servertest.mov above implies that servertest.mov resides in the same directory as this web page. You will need to substitute your own relative link here. It doesn't matter what .mov file you use--this could be a one-second clip with any name--but it must be a valid QuickTime movie.
Providing a link to the RealPlayer download site may be helpful for users who may not have RealPlayer installed.
Sample text: If you do not have RealPlayer, you can download it free here:
http://www.realnetworks.com/products/media_players.html
Linking to RealMedia files via the external Player is much easier than creating similar links via QuickTime. A sample link to a file in DukeStream calling the external RealPlayer looks like this:
http://realmedia.oit.duke.edu/ramgen/yourdirectoryname/anysubfolder/filename.rm
This process is so easy because Real automates the process of creating reference movies through the function you see referenced in the URL above called "ramgen." Like reference movies, ramgen translates between RTSP, the protocol used by streaming servers, and HTTP, the protocol used by Web servers. This allows you to type links into a Web browser that will reliably call up and play your file via a designated media player.
The above video is embedded using the following code, which you can copy into the source code for your own HTML file and alter to reflect the link to your own video:
<OBJECT id='rvocx' classid='clsid:CFCDAA03-8BE4-11cf-B84B-0020AFBBCCFA'
width="360" height="240">
<param name='src' value="rtsp://realmedia.oit.duke.edu/dms/servertest.rv">
<param name='autostart' value="false">
<param name='controls' value='imagewindow'>
<param name='console' value='video'>
<param name='loop' value="false">
<EMBED src="rtsp://realmedia.oit.duke.edu/dms/servertest.rv" width="360" height="240"
loop="false" type='audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin' controls='imagewindow' console='video' autostart="false">
</EMBED>
</OBJECT>
<OBJECT id='rvocx' classid='clsid:CFCDAA03-8BE4-11cf-B84B-0020AFBBCCFA'
width="360" height='30'>
<param name='src' value="rtsp://realmedia.oit.duke.edu/dms/servertest.rv">
<param name='autostart' value="false">
<param name='controls' value='ControlPanel'>
<param name='console' value='video'>
<EMBED src="rtsp://realmedia.oit.duke.edu/dms/servertest.rv" width="360" height='30'
controls='ControlPanel' type='audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin' console='video' autostart="false">
</EMBED>
</OBJECT>