Information about Multicast, Bandwith, Players and File Formats

Multicast

In order to use the Internet TV, your network must be multicast enabled and your Internet provider must support multicast. Today only a few Internet providers support multicast. However, most academic networks do. You can perform a test of your Multicast connectivity at Multicast Technologies. If this test fails you cannot view Internet TV.

 

Bandwidth

The programmes are broadcast in two bandwidths:

• Normal bandwidth is a stream of about 464 kbit/s with a video screen size of 352x288 pixels.
• High bandwidth is a stream of about 1246 kbit/s with a video screen size of 640x480 pixels.

The high bandwith version will naturally give you much better quality, but if you encounter problems viewing such a high bandwidth, choose the normal bandwidth. It should be noted that both bandwidths are high compared to the standard video on the Internet.

 

Players

The videos are in MPEG1 format and can be viewed using a great varity of video players such as Cisco IP/TV viewer and Apple Quicktime Player.

Cisco IP/TV Viewer

By using the Cisco IP/TV viewer you will get high quality rendering. You can easily shift to full screen mode and the high bandwidth version will look great in full screen. If you want to install the Cisco IP/TV viewer you can download IP/TV viewer for Windows operating system.

Apple Quicktime Player

The common Apple Quicktime player is capable of viewing the programmes, but MPEG1 movies are rendered at lower quality compared to the Cisco IP/TV viewer. If you don't have the Quicktime Player, you can download it for free from the Apple web site.

Other Players

The mim player for Linux from Videolab at the University of Oregon can be used to view the programmes. To start, download an sdp file from the program guide, save it to your disk and start by using the command "mim -f nobel.sdp."

To View the Internet TV by SDP File

By choosing the sdp file, you will view it using the viewer you have chosen as default for sdp files. This can for example be the Quicktime Player.

If you see the source code of the sdp file as text, or if nothing happens, you have not installed any viewer that can read sdp files, or none of them is associated to sdp files by mime types.

If you want to run the player manually, download the sdp file to your disk and open it in your player.

There are two sdp files to choose from:

• The "Full sdp file" contains information about the current program such as the title. Since it also contains the schedule of the current program, the viewer may stop after the current program has finished. If not, the information will be obsolete when the next program starts. It can be read by most programs such as the Cisco IP/TV viewer and the Apple Quicktime viewer.
• The "Simple sdp file" only contains information about how to view the channel and nothing about the current program. It can be read by most programs such as the Apple Quicktime viewer.