I'm researching for a week to find a simple and platform independent method to stream a mp4 file to any browser. In case of browser incompatibility progressive stream(direct download) method will be used. My scenario is like this:
After studying Apple HLS, Adobe Flash Stream, Microsoft Smooth, RTSP and MPEG-DASH it seems that MPEG-DASH is the proper solution. But the problem is MPEG-DASH forcing me to split mp4 file to separate segmented files which leads to duplicate consuming space to store the mp4 file because I have to support progressive stream in case of browser incompatibility. Then storing single mp4 file with segmented mp4 files is unavoidable.
The question is: is there any way to serve a single mp4 file as http stream & progressive stream in any browser ?
MPEG-DASH protocols says it supports multiplexed files but the problem is dash.js does not support it. Is there any other javascript player which supports multiplexed and single mp4 files with byte-range requests ?
Any other solution which commits my scenario conditions is welcomed. Thanks.
REFERENCES: BitCodin.com 1 BitCodin.com 2
I think all major browser support mp4. http://caniuse.com/#feat=mpeg4. You can stream it using just a good old http server. MPEG-DASH is required only if you require fancy stuff like adaptive bitrate streaming, multi language, drm and so.
If you insist on using MPEG-DASH you can simply segment your mp4 files using a mp4box on the server side (you have to do it only once). The result is not mulitple mp4 files but rather a single mp4 files that is organized in a more suitable for streaming way.