Iphone & IPad - Watching streaming such as TAR PPV's. Feedback & Testers needed

"CaliRed".

"CaliRed".

High Def Videos!!!
Silver Member
Iphone & IPad - Watching streaming such as TAR PPV's. Feedback & Testers needed

Hi guys,

Since there is so many Apple devices out there, and so much Flash out there, and the fact Apple will never support Flash (it's not being developed by Adobe anymore anyways, for mobile devices), I was hoping to get the skinny on being able to view Flash streaming sites such as TAR.

I would appreciate any info on what works and what doesn't work, and how well it works.

There's a few different things that may work, but I would like to get a definitive list of what does and what doesn't, so I can provide those answers to people that ask while doing TAR Tech Support.

I don't have a MAC and don't feel like building a Hackintosh to find out these answers:D I had a ITouch for awhile that I jailbroke, so I am familiar with the jailbreaking scene, although it's been about 9 months or so since I stopped. I still enjoy reading www.redmondpie.com though.

Now remember, I'm looking for definitive info on if something works or not. It's not helpful to say something should work, or you had a buddy that said this or that worked, or I read somewhere that this worked. I need info from people that use a method personally.

Or what I really need is some people that would be willing to test some of these various methods. Now I don't' expect you to jailbreak your device, unless that is something you want to do. I am not responsible for anything that happens while testing (standard disclaimer):D

Ok.. lets see what's out there, just from doing a quick search.

1. VNC method. Not a ideal situation by any means, but would be interesting to see some comments on this method. Basically you're going to need a Windows PC or a MAC that can run Windows (a virtual machine). The idea is to play the video on a PC that can deal with Flash. That would be any Windows PC. Additionally, a MAC that also can run Windows would work. They all you're doing is connecting to it remotely and watching what is playing on your other PC. Typically you would use 1 of many VNC clients. You can go the app installed locally or go thru a web based one.

Apps such as RealVNC, TightVNC or UltraVNC are the most popular. Add a .com to all of them and you got the URL. These are small apps and you basically install a server on the pc that is hosting and a viewer on the pc that is connecting to the host. Default installs will typically install both. Then the server will run as a service and just sit there waiting for someone to connect to it. Always a good idea to put real strong passwords on the server and if you're comfortable, lock it down to just IP's within your LAN (your network)

So you just fire up the stream on the host pc. Then you fire up the viewer on your device and connect to it. Basically you're looking at the host PC's screen, like you were sitting in front of it.

Other method is to use a Web based Desktop Sharing site. My choice of this type is TeamViewer. Others are ShowmyPC, Logmein or even gotomeeting. This route is basically using a site's server as the go between. Using this method is fairly simple. Go to their site, register, install a small app (some of them such as Teamviewer, will install a temp app and will uninstall at the end of the session) and then put in some info that is supplied by one of the pc's to connect. These sites make it pretty easy. They will configure themselves to work with your firewalls automatically.

On the above solution, it is less then ideal, due to remote software is designed to work for less intensive tasks. Any of you that have connected to a pc remotely, know the graphics and such are typically scaled back to save on the bandwidth needed to transfer all that info back and forth. Trying to send a moving picture across the pipe is pretty heavy duty. So, I would use this as a last resort and would certainly test out several different choices here to see which works best.

2. Various other methods . Use some kind of app on your device such as Frash, Skyfire, Cloudbrowser. Some may require a jailbroken device. (jailbreak is where you give Apple the finger and say I want control of this expensive piece of hardware I bought. To do this you run a "jailbreak" tool to allow you to have root/admin access and can now put anything on your phone, as you have complete control of it)

3. Other??

Some general links on some of the suggestions above.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5247578_play-flash-video-iphone.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_7209059_stream-flash-iphone.html

http://thetechjournal.com/electroni...tent-on-your-iphone-with-puffin-browser.xhtml

Jailbreaking (gaining access to your Iphone/Ipad so you can do anything you want with it)

Here's some links to some jailbreaking sites (jailbreaking has been declared legal, it will void your warranty though)

The 1st 3 links are the main ones you want to focus on. These are all sites that the Chronic Dev Team are involved with. The Chronic Dev Team, is the premier jailbreaking group that is going to bring you the jailbreaks.

Do not download or believe anything you see or read, unless it comes from the Chronic Dev Team and the 3 sites below. There are many fake jailbreaks out there, many of them scams to screw you out of some money. The Chronic Dev Team NEVER charges for it's jailbreaks.

The Iphone Wiki page - Go here to being with... It'll get you informed :)

http://theiphonewiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

The premier dev team.. these guy are the nuts. A member comex, who has developed several jailbreaks, was hired on recently by Apple. Apparently they wanted him on their side :)

http://blog.iphone-dev.org/

GreenPois0n - A active jailbreak by the Chronic Dev Team

http://greenpois0n.com/
________________________________________________________
Redmond Pie - Great news site with tons of info on jailbreaking. Click on Apple in the Menu

http://www.redmondpie.com/

Modmyi.Com - Excellent resource for all kinds of things you can do with your jailbroken phone

www.modmyi.com

deviant art - unbelievable site that has everything under the sun when it comes to anything image related. Here is a link to the Cell Phone area under Apple for Skins and Themes. Who want's a boring phone... Creating or downloading a bunch of themes, is the easiest way to bring your boring phone to life.

http://browse.deviantart.com/customization/skins/cellthemes/iphone/?order=9

iModzone - Informative forums

http://imodzone.net/forums/

Daily Iphone Blog - Great info here too

http://dailyiphoneblog.com/
 
Last edited:
Cali,
Not what you asked about but for what it's worth...works great on my Playbook (thanks FLASH/BB).

Nick
 
Nick B said:
Cali,
Not what you asked about but for what it's worth...works great on my Playbook (thanks FLASH/BB).

Nick
Click to expand...

ahhh.. should have asked about the Blackberry products too, I guess, but Blackberry has no problem playing Flash then?

Also, anyone with a Android phone has a good chance of being able to play Flash Stream with no issue. I say good chance, because they do make some pretty cheap phones that might not have enough processing power to smoothly play videos.

I have a Android Evo 4G and use the Dolphin Browser and have no issue logging into the TAR PPV site and opening up and playing the video.
smartphone.jpg
 
Zero Issues. Even when multitasking. I was answering the occasional emails and bouncing back and forth and you could still hear the stream in the background.

Nick
 
I have used the app SKYFIRE for TAR streams that were on USTREAM successfully. It converts flash to a mode that can be viewed on iPhone-iPad.
 
yally said:
I have used the app SKYFIRE for TAR streams that were on USTREAM successfully. It converts flash to a mode that can be viewed on iPhone-iPad.
Click to expand...
Agreed. This flash question has come up and been answered before on this forum. Skyfire works.
 
"CaliRed". said:
Hi guys,

Since there is so many Apple devices out there, and so much Flash out there, and the fact Apple will never support Flash (it's not being developed by Adobe anymore anyways, for mobile devices), I was hoping to get the skinny on being able to view Flash streaming sites such as TAR.
Click to expand...

Down the road, the best bet for TAR is to move to its own Flash Streaming server. It would reduce your streaming overhead by 90%, and allow you to stream both RTMP streams (Flash player) and HTTP HTML5 streams (for portable devices).

EDIT: It would also allow your viewers to pause, rewind, ff the stream.

This service was made available for outfits exactly like TAR:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashmediaserver/amazonwebservices/

Basically the server runs on Amazon's EC2 cloud (so you don't have to purchase any hardware), the Flash Streaming Server license fee is $5/month, and the bandwidth cost is $0.10/GB. That's about 90% cheaper than $1/GB through audiovideoweb, and gives you the ability to use the latest version of Flash Streaming Server and fine tune all of the stream options. One of those options is to allow HTTP HTML5 streaming, which is fully supported on iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows mobile & PSP. There are ton of other benefits too, such as using Amazon's backbone to stream your content. You literally cannot get a fatter pipe than that.

There are two big downsides though, 1) you would have to run your own cart/checkout system and integrate it with the stream server, 2) you have to configure the stream server yourself. That's why I said "down the road," because that's obviously a pretty big time investment upfront. But... you may recoup a lot of that initial investment in cost savings when compared to audiovideoweb.

As a band-aid solution you could look into using Flowplayer. Apparently it supports RTMP streams on iOS devices without using Flash. You would still require some sort of integration with audiovideoweb to extract the correct RTMP URI for each client and re-bundle that into a separate webpage for mobile devices.
 
Last edited:
yally said:
I have used the app SKYFIRE for TAR streams that were on USTREAM successfully. It converts flash to a mode that can be viewed on iPhone-iPad.
Click to expand...

Thanks Yally!! I was looking at Skyfire the other day and was hesitant to pull the trigger.

That will great for the IPad (I hope)
 
"CaliRed". said:
ahhh.. should have asked about the Blackberry products too, I guess, but Blackberry has no problem playing Flash then?

Also, anyone with a Android phone has a good chance of being able to play Flash Stream with no issue. I say good chance, because they do make some pretty cheap phones that might not have enough processing power to smoothly play videos.

I have a Android Evo 4G and use the Dolphin Browser and have no issue logging into the TAR PPV site and opening up and playing the video.
View attachment 205816
Click to expand...

Also great news as I have an HTC Thuderbolt 4g coming. Hopefully I can watch TAR and others on it as well.
 
OnTheMF said:
Down the road, the best bet for TAR is to move to its own Flash Streaming server. It would reduce your streaming overhead by 90%, and allow you to stream both RTMP streams (Flash player) and HTTP HTML5 streams (for portable devices).

EDIT: It would also allow your viewers to pause, rewind, ff the stream.

This service was made available for outfits exactly like TAR:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashmediaserver/amazonwebservices/

Basically the server runs on Amazon's EC2 cloud (so you don't have to purchase any hardware), the Flash Streaming Server license fee is $5/month, and the bandwidth cost is $0.10/GB. That's about 90% cheaper than $1/GB through audiovideoweb, and gives you the ability to use the latest version of Flash Streaming Server and fine tune all of the stream options. One of those options is to allow HTTP HTML5 streaming, which is fully supported on iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows mobile & PSP. There are ton of other benefits too, such as using Amazon's backbone to stream your content. You literally cannot get a fatter pipe than that.

There are two big downsides though, 1) you would have to run your own cart/checkout system and integrate it with the stream server, 2) you have to configure the stream server yourself. That's why I said "down the road," because that's obviously a pretty big time investment upfront. But... you may recoup a lot of that initial investment in cost savings when compared to audiovideoweb.

As a band-aid solution you could look into using Flowplayer. Apparently it supports RTMP streams on iOS devices without using Flash. You would still require some sort of integration with audiovideoweb to extract the correct RTMP URI for each client and re-bundle that into a separate webpage for mobile devices.
Click to expand...

thanks for chiming in. I know Justin has done some research into that aspect of it. I'll read up on this one. I remember researching this stuff about 6 months ago and I remember bookmarking that page, but then got sidetracked.

You mention .10GB, but it appears you have to pay per connection, and both inbound and outbound bandwidth too. Is that how you read it?
 
OnTheMF said:
Down the road, the best bet for TAR is to move to its own Flash Streaming server. It would reduce your streaming overhead by 90%, and allow you to stream both RTMP streams (Flash player) and HTTP HTML5 streams (for portable devices).

EDIT: It would also allow your viewers to pause, rewind, ff the stream.

This service was made available for outfits exactly like TAR:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashmediaserver/amazonwebservices/

Basically the server runs on Amazon's EC2 cloud (so you don't have to purchase any hardware), the Flash Streaming Server license fee is $5/month, and the bandwidth cost is $0.10/GB. That's about 90% cheaper than $1/GB through audiovideoweb, and gives you the ability to use the latest version of Flash Streaming Server and fine tune all of the stream options. One of those options is to allow HTTP HTML5 streaming, which is fully supported on iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows mobile & PSP. There are ton of other benefits too, such as using Amazon's backbone to stream your content. You literally cannot get a fatter pipe than that.

There are two big downsides though, 1) you would have to run your own cart/checkout system and integrate it with the stream server, 2) you have to configure the stream server yourself. That's why I said "down the road," because that's obviously a pretty big time investment upfront. But... you may recoup a lot of that initial investment in cost savings when compared to audiovideoweb.

As a band-aid solution you could look into using Flowplayer. Apparently it supports RTMP streams on iOS devices without using Flash. You would still require some sort of integration with audiovideoweb to extract the correct RTMP URI for each client and re-bundle that into a separate webpage for mobile devices.
Click to expand...

I understand about half of this but you sound like a guy we definitely need to talk to. Thank you for the information. I'm guessing CaliRed speaks this language so hopefully he can translate.

The cart feature is a big deal for us and it has been a big sticking point in alternative solutions to audiovideoweb.
 
JB Cases said:
Also great news as I have an HTC Thuderbolt 4g coming. Hopefully I can watch TAR and others on it as well.
Click to expand...

I watched some of the mosconi cup from that haha site yesterday on my thunderbolt, john. No real problems.... Hitched occasionally, which I expect was due to the public wifi I was using here. This is a thunderbolt that hasn't been modified or anything, either.

I couldn't use any of the free streaming sites yesterday on the ipad. Not gonna be modifying that, either. Didn't try the playbook, may try that today.
 
JCIN said:
I understand about half of this but you sound like a guy we definitely need to talk to. Thank you for the information. I'm guessing CaliRed speaks this language so hopefully he can translate.

The cart feature is a big deal for us and it has been a big sticking point in alternative solutions to audiovideoweb.
Click to expand...

I sent him a PM. I'll do some research in this area.

I don't believe Justin is married to flash. I just think the current provider has only Flash or Windows Media Player to choose from and I think Justin chose flash after experimenting with both.

Ok, to update on what we have so far from feedback on what method people use to view Flash on Iphone/IPad devices.....

we've only got 2 people that have said they have used Skyfire successfully before. Can anyone offer a brief process of how one would go about utilizing this solution?

It appears they have to buy a special browser thru Itunes?

I'm just looking for some answers that I can give TAR's customers that bring up the question of "Can I view the PPV on my Iphone/Ipad"?

Also, for those of you that have used Skyfire, can you chime in with some feedback on how the feed was quality wise and reliability wise? Is there much of a lag, as their servers have to re-encode the flash video to another format.

Thanks again for any feedback you're willing to contribute.
 
schonshooter said:
I will buy the stream tonight and try it on Skyfire on my ipad 2 and let you know Cali.
Click to expand...

thanks, I look forward to your report. If you can, can you jot down some short steps that a beginner might take in doing this?

Anyone else that has any info, jump in, we got a TAR PPV going on right now to test with.
 
Skyfire works on both iPad and iPhone with the TAR PPV, but it is not as clear as on my laptop. That being said I live in a rural area and a speed test while the PPV stream was running resulted in: Ping - 104 ms, Download - 1.01, Upload - 0.67. I know these are marginal numbers so I think with normal broadband speeds Skyfire would be clear as day. Let me know if you want I can put together a step by step with pictures on how to get Skyfire and get on the TAR PPV and send it to you via email to tomorrow. I love the TAR matches and anything I can do to help people see them easier is no problem!
 
schonshooter said:
Skyfire works on both iPad and iPhone with the TAR PPV, but it is not as clear as on my laptop. That being said I live in a rural area and a speed test while the PPV stream was running resulted in: Ping - 104 ms, Download - 1.01, Upload - 0.67. I know these are marginal numbers so I think with normal broadband speeds Skyfire would be clear as day. Let me know if you want I can put together a step by step with pictures on how to get Skyfire and get on the TAR PPV and send it to you via email to tomorrow. I love the TAR matches and anything I can do to help people see them easier is no problem!
Click to expand...

that would be great if you would do that. I appreciate it. Create it from the approach if it was someone that doesn't know squat about pc's.:)
 
As an alternative to Adobe's media server, you may want to look into Red5 media server. It supports streaming in MP3 format, so that covers IOS devices. And I'm not sure about your hosting environment, but toss this on an additional server, and you would only be paying for bandwidth and the cost of the server, no licensing/session fees.

Additionally, being coded in Java, it would allow scalability to other platforms down the road, and possibly your own TAR apps users could directly download, providing a potential ad-revenue stream.
 
I bought Skyfire, $4.99. It works for YouTube and Ustream but for some reason only in full screen mode and the quality appears to be stepped down from the original broadcast. It did not work for the Mosconi Cup ppv as it could not find the video on the given page.

I have a jailbroken Ipad 64mb with 3g and I go through a VPN to get to YT etc... I don't need the VPN to get TAR through audiovideoweb. Haven't tried it with TAR yet, may buy the last day of Raj/Oscar if it goes to three and try it.
 
JB I would be interested to know if they get to day three if your Skyfire is of lesser quality. My Internet speeds aren't great but it is strange that it streams clearer on my laptop than my iPad or iPhone with Skyfire.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top