900731 Data Handling for Eye-in-the-Sea on MARS : EITS streaming setup

Overview

Video from the EITS is streamed to an outside streaming service www.audiovideoweb.com. The outside service requires the video be encoded by Windows Media Server 9. The following describes how video from the EITS Axis camera is rebroadcast from a MJPEG/RTSP stream to a format audiovideoweb.com will accept using Windows Media Encoder.

Windows Media Encoder setup

Download Windows Media Encoder 9and install.

Download the Axis capture driver and install. Note that creating a user name and password is required to access this driver. Once the driver is installed, launch Windows Media Encoder and setup the stream using the following:

Select Broadcast a live event, click OK.
Unselect audio box (there is no audio available for this setup). Select video, select the AXIS MJPEG Capture Driver, then Click the configure button next to video.
Leave all the boxes untouched, except the Server box. Here, add the IP address of the EITS Axis camera 134.89.42.186. Click OK.
Now, continue on with the wizard, click Next. Next since video is pushed to the outside server click Next.
Enter the publishing Server Name as win.2.c3.audiovideoweb.com, and Publishing Point as 2c3winlive6934. Don't change the other fields.
Next, we need to set the compression of the video to match that setup with the service. At the time of this writing, it is 128Kbps. Unselect all bit rates. Select bit rate 128 Kbps, 15 fps, 320x240.
Click Next twice to skip to the publishing information. Here, enter any information you would like to be encoded into the stream. This will not display on the video, but rather, is encoded into the video stream.

Click Finish and don't click broadcast. You want to check the video feed first to make sure it look ok.
You should then be prompted for the Broadcast username and password for the broadcaster. Enter them, and select Remember password.
Select File->Save As and save the session in your My Documents folder as eits_video_stream. This will save the file as eits_video_stream.wme and this file will then be used in the startup script (see next section).
Now check the feed be selecting Start encoding

Windows Media Encoder startup script setup

If you have a critical encoder streaming live audio for an Internet radio station or maybe video for a presentation then you want that encoder to be running all the time and you shouldn't have to login and restart the encoder manually if the host computer loses power or reboots. The Windows Media Encoder has a wonderfully simple graphical user interface but unfortunately you cannot directly configure it as a service to run in the background when the host starts up. Fortunately Microsoft provides a command line script that you can use to start an encoding session on boot-up. The following describes how a windows media encoder startup script is configured for the EITS stream. This assumes you have completed the steps outlined in the Windows Media Encoder setup above first.

Launch a cygwin shell by clicking on the Desktop icon

Setup the service by entering the following command in the cygwin shell:

cygrunsrv --install eitsstreaming --path /cygdrive/c/WINDOWS/system32/cscript.exe --args "\"C:\Program Files\Windows Media Components\Encoder\WMCmd.vbs\" -wme \"c:\Documents and Settings\erika\My Documents\eits_video_stream.wme\"" -u erika

The service should now show up in the services panel as eitstreaming, and from there you can start/stop it.