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SECTION 18.8 DIAGNOSTICS AND TROUBLESHOOTING
As technologies go, video streaming is still in its adolescent phase, at best. There are a lot of different standards and diverse environments to consider. TriCaster gives you the necessary tools, but there are still some teething problems you may encounter. This section will point you in the right direction to overcome them.
When it comes to using your TriCaster in a professional live production environment (i.e., your bread and butter depends on getting it right, and now - not tomorrow), failure to test beforehand is not merely unwise - it can be professional suicide.
You should already be aware of the need for redundancy in a professional environment (you didn’t bring just one camera, did you?) As reliable as any device may be, Murphy’s Law has not been repealed … so you plan for this, bringing the appropriate equipment, such as uninterruptable power supplies, backup recording devices (there’s no shame in having a VCR backing up your digital record – ‘low tech’ still has a place in the grand scheme.)
But you also need to perform onsite testing, to ensure your live stream is working well before ‘zero hour.’ No-one will thank you for excuses, no matter how brilliantly they point the finger at forces beyond your control.
1. Set up and enable a test program stream from your TriCaster.
2. You can use the tools and integrated web browser in the Streaming Configuration panel, but you may want to confirm using an external system, too.
3. Open Windows Media Player®, and select File> Open URL from its file menu (in some versions, you need to right-click WMP’s title bar to present the menu).
4. Enter the IP address and port number for your stream here.
5. You should be able to connect and view your program stream.
Success at this point does not necessarily mean you’re done. You may be able to see the stream locally, but can someone outside the local environment connect to it over the Internet? The best way to find out is to have someone at a remote location verify that your stream is streaming properly. If it is, great! Otherwise, keep reading…
FLASH MEDIA LIVE ENCODER NOTES
Unfortunately, there are cases in which Flash Media Live Encoder® fails to report significant error conditions. For example, no error message is displayed if the network cable is disconnected while streaming, or if the connection to the remote server is lost.
Note: If the connection to a server is lost after initial success, the encoder attempts to resume streaming automatically if the connection becomes available again during the session.
TESTING WITH PING
Before your stream can be seen - whether on a local intranet or the Internet - client computers (or your service provider) need to be able to establish a network connection with your TriCaster.
Ping is a humble but effective tool to ensure the basic connection exists, thus it can help you with streaming, iVGA™ and LiveText™ connection issues, too (and it works just fine in a multi-platform environment!)
Ping sends a small set of data packets to the target host (IP number), then ‘listens’ for an echo response in return. Ping estimates the round-trip time in milliseconds, records any data losses, and displays a summary when finished.
Bottom line, if you can’t ‘ping’ your target, your connection has problems (the problem might be as simple as a bad cable connection). To issue a ping, you need know the IP number of the target computer.