streaming avi file issue

Question

Hello everyone,

I am writing a video streaming server application. I have an avi file and I put it on IIS 7 for streaming. And find I cannot jump to an arbitrary location of the media if the media is not buffered already. I think some meta-data is missing during recording? After some search work, I think it may be caused by the index block of avi file is stored at the end, so Windows Media Player could not jump to any arbitrary location before buffered locally.

Here is an example, if my recorded avi video is 10 mins, and now I am playing to the 4th mins, and the local buffered streaming media is buffered to the 5th mins, I cannot jump to any time after the 5th mins, like the 7th mins in Windows Media Player.

BTW: other formats like asf/wmv did not have the same issue on the same server, so I think it should be an issue related to avi file, not server or environmental issues.

My questions are,

1. What is the actual cause of this issue -- can not jump to arbitrary location before buffered for avi file?
2. Any solutions or walkarounds? Like some smarter players instead or add some code fix at server side?

thanks in advance, George

Answer 1

As you already discovered yourself, index is written at the end of avi containers. That's why avi format is not good for streaming.

You should convert your video to some other format which has the indexing information at the beginning. For example, flv, wmv, ogg/theora, etc.