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Streaming media needs at MCC in the past have been implemented by disparate entities, namely whoever or whatever means were available at the least possible cost. As of spring semester 2005 it was determined that the CTL could play a nominal role in moving the college forward in delivering streaming media. Some of the questions that abounded during that decision making process:
Given these questions it was determined that the best solution for the time being would become RealNetworks’ Helix Universal Server. The background for this product is as follows:
RealNetworks was founded by ex-Microsoft executive Rob Glaser in 1993. The original goal of the company was to provide a distribution channel for politically progressive content. It quickly evolved into a technology venture to leverage the Internet as an alternative distribution medium for audio broadcasts. (Source: Wikipedia 2005 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RealNetworks )
As competition in the streaming media format arena increased, pressure was put on RealNetworks because Microsoft was pushing their format (Windows Media) and delivery server by bundling the technology into their desktop and server operating systems. In order to stay competitive, RealNetworks released the source code for their client player and server technology to the open source community in 2002 under the Helix DNA open source initiative. At the same time a new commercial product offering emerged called Helix Universal Server. With a community of developers contributing to the formats that RealNetworks engineered, and a staff of engineers devoted to QA on commercial offerings of their product, RealNetworks maintains a foothold in both camps and can offer service on both the open source and the commercial space. To this date here’s how the product lines differ:
The open source community for the Helix server is called Helix Community. (http://www.helixcommunity.org) The product that is maintained in this group is available in several different versions for several open source and commercial platforms. They can be downloaded in pre-compiled binary executable format, and also source-code format. The source code can be compiled on the platform of choice if desired. The only reason one might want to compile the source code is to take advantage of specific platform capabilities or to tweak the code to their liking for optimization purposes. For general purposes the pre-compiled executable binary format will work just fine. The Helix open-source community developers only contribute to format that RealNetworks develops which is the RealMedia file format (RealAudio and RealVideo) and also MP3 audio. The open-source license doesn’t limit performance of the software; rather the performance of the software is directly related to the hardware and network bandwidth made available to the server it is deployed on. It can be installed multiple times on several different platforms. The drawbacks of this as with other open-source initiatives is that you are relying on the competency of in-house IT staff and software developers to make sure it is running properly and for general product support. Beyond that, the Helix Community Website offers online forums in which other developers can participate to troubleshoot existing problems and contribute new features to the code base if they wish.
On the other hand, the commercial product offerings from RealNetworks offer everything the open-source version does, plus QA testing, product support, and additional licensed features from RealNetworks to stream additional file formats. This list includes Windows Media, Apple QuickTime, and MPEG of various flavors, Flash v4 animations, several popular still image file formats, and others. This commercial offering seems to be the best of all foreseeable scenarios for MCC and allows for multiple people of various backgrounds to work in their format of choice. The drawback is of course, money that is needed to purchase the software and paying a yearly maintenance fee if desired in order to file support requests.
The overall good news is that software can be written against the open-source version of the software and in theory can be deployed to the commercial version if extensibility is needed in that area.
For a comprehensive comparison matrix between the two offerings see the following chart.