Publishing a media file

Publishing to a RealServer

The following instructions are for publishing your RealMedia clip to a RealNetworks RealServer. Using a
RealServer allows you to publish Web pages that have RealMedia without losing functionality (such as
SureStream).

What is Streaming Media?

Streaming media created by RealProducer can be either RealAudio or RealVideo. Before the advent of streaming media, you had to wait for a media file to download from the Internet or a network server in order to experience it. When you create streaming media, users can view it almost instantly.

Streaming media allows you to send small packets of information over a network connection. The user receives the information packets and plays your media piece by piece. The process is almost invisible to the user, except for a small amount of buffering at the beginning.

If you already have your own account on RealServer or you are expected to get it soon, the following instructions will help you to publish your streaming media files on the server.

If you do not have an opportunity to get your own account, we would be glad to publish your video files with the best teaching practice on our account. Just send the files to amrecess@valdosta.edu, we'll publish it and send you back the URL of the files. The sending files should be already in the streaming video format. To find out how to produce the streaming media files look trough the Producing Video Files and Recording From Media Files parts of this tutorials.

You can also accompany your video with comment and we will publish it on the Best Practice Video web page.

Before you begin the procedure, make sure you have all of the information about your RealServer. If you want to publish your media file into the VSU video server, the following examples will provide you with some necessary information.

The following instructions show how to publish streaming video to a VSU RealServer. Press here to go on the streaming video page example.

A. To upload your media files on the RealServer, you should use FTP software to access the server.

B. If you do not have FTP software, you can find a free FTP program following the link below and install it:

Download WS_FTP LE, which is the limited edition version of WS_FTP Pro, and install the software on your computer.

Start the WS_FTP application and press the New button on the Session Properties window. An empty Session Properties window appears.

Profile name: MyVideo (This is the name that appears in the list of configured sites; it can be anything you like, but not longer than 20 characters. This name can (and should) be different than the Host Name/Address!)

After you press OK, you will see your RealServer folder in the right window. Double click on the folder where you want to copy your media file. In my example it is the folder with the name Content.

In the left window (local system) select the file you want to publish and press the arrow (-->) located between the windows to transfer the file. The file should appear in the right window (remote site). Your file has been copied.

It is slightly more complicated to create a link to a media file which is kept on a RealServer than a Standard Web Server.

1. In NotePad (or another text editor) create a new file which will contain the URL of your file kept on a RealServer.

For example, to link to the file published during step 2 type: rtsp://cinema.valdosta.edu:554/lschmert/MyFileName.rm

where rtsp://cinema.valdosta.edu:554/lschmert/ is a URL of the Real Server and the directory where you publisher the media file;

For example, a link on the file with the name preservice005.rm kept on the VSU video server in the directory lschmert is rtsp://cinema.valdosta.edu:554/lschmert/preservice005.rm

I recommend to give this file a name similar to the name of the movie to which it links.

4. Using any web page editor, create a link to this ram file (Do not make a link to the media file as it will not work in some browsers. The link should be to the file with the extension .ram).