Best way for lowres point to point connection

[JakobR]

This weekend we are working with tRally Sweden one of this years rounds in World Rally Championship.

One of our projects include sending the image from a jump in the middle of the forest to a big screen 7 km away.

Our budget can´t take a satelite or microlink connection.

This is how we have it planned now.
Three cameras along about 1 km of road (30 seconds of driving).
Mixed in Vidblaster and sen on a slow ADSL-link (0.5 mbit up).
We now plan to send this to a dedicated Windows Media Server.
A computer at the receiving end will take the stream and we will show that full screen on a big screen (4 meters wide).

We plan for 320 pixels wide and about 380 kbit for the video.

QUESTION
Is there a better way to do this than with Windows Media Server and Windows Mediaplayer at the receiving end?

JAKOB

[Johan Lundberg]

320 pixels wide with 380kbit/sec on a 4m wide screen? Ouch!
I don't know what the expectations regarding quality are but such a low resolution with that much compression will not look good.
I would totally skip the streaming server and if possible just run a simple wireless point to point network link carrying a full res video stream (720x576 or 1024x576 @25fps) with at least a Mbit/sec for this.

Edit: If not possible for a direct point to point link, maybe you can find some place with faster internet upload and link to that place? Getting good enough quality for a big screen with such limited bandwidth is a real challenge.

Regards,
Johan

[JakobR]

Johan

Have you seen any of my work? If I had something better than 500 kbit I would use it. Rally events do not run in cities.

So back to my question. With the challenge I have, is WMV my best bet or should I go for a direct link with Skype? Or something else?

JAKOB

[Johan Lundberg]

Jakob,
yes I've watched some of your work, and it looks good on the web. Blowing it up on a 4m wide screen is a whole different thing though. I'm well aware that rally events do not run in cities, I've been working on a few similar events out in the deepest "värmländska skogar" and also the entire STCC season as well, which is a bit different though. Of course you will have to use the best connection you can get. If ADSL with 0,5 Mbit upload is the best you can get then that's what you have to play with. I'm just suggestion another option for increased quality. Only you know if this is possible or not for your specific production.

Edit: If 0,5 Mbit is what you got you might also consider using h264.

Regards,
Johan

[JakobR]

Yes I like H264. Should I use FMLE?

JAKOB

[Johan Lundberg]

I just did a quick test using VLC for encoding a Mpeg-ts with h264 (720x576 video only at 25 fps) at around 400kbit/sec. I also used VLC to pick up and show the stream. It looked better than expected. I wouldn't say good, but hey, it's 400kbit/sec. If I were you I would setup a testrig and try some different codecs in VLC, FMLE or whatever you like to use and see what works best for you. My test was point to point with no server involved.

Regards,
Johan

[JakobR]

Hi

Do I need fixed IP at both ends for this?

I think I can fix that at receiving but not at sending.

JAKOB

[Johan Lundberg]

For this to be easy, a public (real internet IP) is required at least on the sending end but it does not have to be fixed. You can always use services as dyndns or similar to be able to find it in case it should change. It's of course possible to do workarounds in case you can't get a real IP at the sending end but it will be a bit more complex. The idea to keep this simple is to avoid other streamingservers and connect directly to the sending PC.

Regards,
Johan

[JakobR]

We are going for UDP. I have read some on the Internet.

If I understand correctly I add the receiving IP on the sending machine.
Then I don´t need the senders IP-number or?

I think this is enough on the receiving end:
"% vlc -vvv udp:"

JAKOB

[Johan Lundberg]

Correct, that should work fine, I've only played with it in multicast.

Regards,
Johan