Streaming media from linux server - low footprint is crucial

0

I recently pre-ordered the Raspberry Pi. http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs For those of you who don't know it, it's a machine with 256 mb ram and a 700 MHz processor for $35.

I plan to run linux on an SD card on this machine and have it act as both a htpc, VPN and media server. In regard to the media server part, I need to find some linux software that has a small footprint, but allows me to stream media to other devices connected to the internet (preferably without having to install any additional software on the client machines) Also, I would love if the video could be compressed, so the data usage wouldn't be so big for the client machine (e.g. when I'm using my data plan on my smartphone ;) )

Thanks in advance for any answers :)

Mike.

Mike Haye

Posted 2012-04-03T21:09:59.130

Reputation: 111

I don't think non-bad-looking low bitrate realtime transcoding is achievable on the pi unless it has a hardware encoder, since it lacks NEON and still has to timeshare with everything else you have running there. – Jessidhia – 2012-04-03T21:49:23.067

Answers

2

The RP will be a terrible media server.

I need to find some linux software that has a small footprint, but allows me to stream media from other devices connected to the internet (preferably without having to install any additional software on the client machines)

It should be fine as a client and should be OK as a file server but it is not really suited to the task of real-time streaming. This is especially true if you plan to have a variety of clients accessing your media. Even if they connect one at a time, the load placed on the RP to transcode and compress media on the fly will be too high.

Instantkamera

Posted 2012-04-03T21:09:59.130

Reputation: 166

@jeremy I can see how the RP probably wouldn't be fit to compress media on the fly, but again, you just can't really be sure whether it's capable enough before you try it. In regards to my question; do you know any software for linux with a small footprint that allows me to easily stream media to clients? The encoding isn't important. :) – Mike Haye – 2012-04-04T10:55:12.570

@MikeHaye my comment was directed at InstantKamera because of my edit - not at your question. – Jeremy W – 2012-04-04T13:04:21.790

Asked: 2012-04-03T21:09:59.130

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Active: 2012-04-03T22:46:38.333