Star Apple Proposes HTTP Streaming Feature As Protocol Standard
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 10th Jul 2009 16:25 UTC, submitted by Hakime
Internet & Networking "Apple has touted new HTTP Live Streaming features of the iPhone OS 3.0 and the upcoming Snow Leopard version of Mac OS X - and it has submitted the spec to the IETF. Will it be enough to supplant Flash as the de facto standard for delivering live or on-demand streaming online?"
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RTSP issue?
by DeadFishMan on Sat 11th Jul 2009 16:28 UTC
DeadFishMan
Member since:
2006-01-09

The biggest issue with RTSP is that the protocol or its necessary ports may be blocked by routers or firewall settings, preventing a device from accessing the stream.


I am not sure what the hell Apple was thinking when they stated that this is somehow an issue with RTSP. OF COURSE RTSP can be blocked on firewalls and/or routers: it is kind of the point of it! If bandwidth is not a concern, I am pretty sure that most network administrators would be glad to let people use it freely on their networks (assuming that it will not raise other concerns, such as lost productivity on the work place among others).

What Apple is proposing will lead to additional costs for most networks as packet filters with rules based on ports/protocols will no longer be effective against excessive bandwidth usage and people will have to deploy firewalls/trafic shapers/whatever that check every incoming packet on port 80 to find out if it is regular HTTP packet or if it is this new thing that they came up with and deal with it acoording to their policies.

Having said that, anything that does not require any proprietary streaming solution and the likes is always a plus in my book so more power to them, I guess!

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