Is HTTP Streaming with the iPhone buggy?

Question

I am attempting to stream video using Apple's http streaming technology. I am beginning to suspect that either the player on the iPhone or the Apple tools used to segment the videos is buggy.

http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/StreamingMediaGuide/Introduction/Introduction.html

I am getting really terrible behavior. The app never seems to do a good job of choosing what quality stream to use. It always starts at the lowest quality and often will job to the highest very suddenly and not be able to keep up. I have tried various ways of altering the bandwidth settings to test it.

#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1, BANDWIDTH=5000
3/prog_index.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1, BANDWIDTH=10000
4/prog_index.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1, BANDWIDTH=459319
5/prog_index.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1, BANDWIDTH=90268800

I have used very large and small setting to make certain streams the obvious choice, but it doesn't matter. Obviously I also have used default the values set by Apple's variantplaylistcreator tool. It always starts at the lowest quality and will jump to seaming random other qualities.

Anyone know whats going on with this?

Answer 1

Have you tried the sample reference streams provided at the bottom of the page here? Apple tests against these, so if it works there, you know it's on your end.