Cloud Files Adds CDN Video Streaming
Cloud Files CDN customers often tell us they use Cloud Files and the Akamai CDN to serve their rich media websites by storing images and media files in Cloud Files and serving them fast over the Akamai CDN. Now, customers can stream their video files from Cloud Files via Akamai’s CDN.
Video files are typically very large and are a perfect candidate for cloud storage and CDN streaming delivery. Most rich media sites and many advertisements are actually a combination of interactive images that turn into streaming video once the user begins to click around. Rich media is about having quick and seamless interaction…not about downloading videos and waiting for buffering. Streaming technology works by breaking up a video file into time frames so you can chose which point of the video stream you want to start playing from. From a user’s perspective, this means they can jump around the video feed without having to wait for the whole video to download.
This feature, often called “random seek”, seems pretty basic until you go searching through a 10 minute video (which doesn’t have this feature) for an answer you know is waiting for you right around 8 and ½ minutes into the video.
We’ve implemented our streaming offer to cover two basic scenarios. The first is the user that has a video in .flv or mp4 format. We’ve launched support for Flowplayer, a popular video player, so that customers can simply embed the video with an out-of-the-box player.
The second use case is for customers comfortable with flash development. Using the Open Source Media Framework (OSMF), customers get access to their video libraries and develop their own players.
As many developers for rich media sites know all too well, attracting a consumer’s attention is hard enough these days. Losing it over long download times and poor video performance is frustrating. Let Rackspace help you store these video files in the cloud and stream them over one of the industry’s fastest CDNs.
For simple instructions and how to get started, check out our Knowledge Center articles:
Cloud Files CDN Streaming FAQs
Cloud Files CDN Streaming with the OSMF Plugins
Cloud Files CDN Streaming with the Flowplayer Plugins
Also, we have updated our Cloud Files API document here.
If you have any questions about his feature, I am happy to answer your questions.
It is my understanding that HTML5 “random seek” should already work fine, because Rackspace Cloud Files supports the HTTP 1.1 byte-range header. Unfortunately, Flash doesn’t do HTTP 1.1, so it needs other solutions.
Unfortunately for us, we use JW Player rather than FlowPlayer, so we don’t have a way to take advantage of this. Any news of a JW plugin? Apparently Akamai were working on it some time ago, but I’m not aware of any recent developments.
Alastair on September 14, 2011
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Mr C- We’re definitely interested in doing IOS support, but wanted to get something out to build off of as a first phase. Long story short, yes, it’s on the short list 
Megan Wohlford on September 14, 2011
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Good to hear, thank you.
Mr C on September 14, 2011
Alastair- as you sort of mentioned, we are at the mercy of Akamai’s relationships and agreements with the player companies. That being said, as soon as we started this project, we identified JWPlayer and FlowPlayer as the clear market winners for standard players, and knew that we had to support both of them. As soon as Akamai has access to the plugins for JW, we will turn them around to our customers. This is our highest priority for Streaming.
Megan Wohlford on September 14, 2011
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Megan,
Any updates on streaming support for Cloud Files on JW Player?
Andy on November 7, 2011
Megan, any plans for this to fit into a service that can provide “streaming” videos to developers of TV Apps (Samsung, Sony,LG etc) , and in regards to iOS, is that just at the browser level? Or can embed streams into applications?
Shannon G on September 17, 2011
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Shannon- We’re still in the design phases of how our iOS integration will work, so I don’t have any details around that just yet. As for the tackling TV applications that use streaming, we haven’t investigated that yet, but it definitely sounds interesting. My gut tells me that we’ll need more control around access before we can get those nailed down. That being said, it’s definitely a great idea. You could always submit it at feedback.rackspacecloud.com, I’d love to see if the rest our voters agree!
Megan Wohlford on September 21, 2011
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Hi Megan,
Any updates on stream video files to iOS (and Android) and also especially Smart TVs/Internet Connected TVs ?
Shannon G on December 31, 2011
This works in FlowPlayer after some fiddling, but I’m noticing a bunch of failed requests when using the “stream” URL.
This even happens in Akamai’s own test player.
You can see the problem on this page if you observe the incoming network traffic…
http://anatomy.yogasynergy.com/book
A whole pile of failed 404 post requests stream in alongside the movie.
Also, through the filesize of the movie doesn’t seem to get properly reported when using the “stream” URL. It always claims to be 2GB.
As I mentioned Akamai’s own player exhibits the same behaviour.
http://support.akamai.com/hdflash
Here’s the movie I’m using to test:
Sam Bauers on September 23, 2011
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Shannon,
Is there any delivery cost difference between file delivery and streaming delivery?
Matt Babineau on September 29, 2011
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err…Megan (sorry)!
Matt Babineau on September 29, 2011
Sam- Thanks for the comments. We noticed the 404 issue as well, and have developed a fix. We’re wrapping up testing and should have it finished up very shortly.
Megan Wohlford on September 30, 2011
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Great news.
I hope the file size issue also gets fixed.
There is another problem where MP4 and MOV files always get served with an FLV mime type (video/x-flv). This means that any cue point meta data in the MP4 file gets ignored by flow player when using the pseudostreaming plugin (which otherwise works fine).
By the looks of things the Axamai plugin also attempts to read the cue point meta data as well. It makes a partial request before loading the whole file, but I have no idea how to access the cue point data if it has read it through the Akamai plugin.
Sam Bauers on October 6, 2011
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Hi Megan… this is a great thing that I can streaming my videos on cloud files.
Is it possible with the Akamai plugin for Flowplayer does a dynamic bitrate solution so that the bitrate switching during the video playback according to the user bandwidth?
Marco Valsecchi on October 11, 2011
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Marco- Yes, our solution with Akamai supports dynamic bit rate.
Sam- File size issue should be fixed soon as well. I’ll update the post when we’re live with the fix.
Megan Wohlford on October 11, 2011
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Thanks Megan…. where can I find an example? thank you
Marco Valsecchi on October 11, 2011
Thanks for the actions so far. You haven’t mentioned the more important issue for us, which is the incorrect MIME type on mpeg-4 files (with either MP4 or MOV extension). This stops us using the service at the moment as we can’t read cue point metadata due to Flowplayer auto detecting all files as FLV (due to the MIME type being always set to video/x-flv). I hope that’s in line for a fix too.
Sam Bauers on October 23, 2011
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Has the 404 issue AND the MIME type on mpeg-4 files been fixed yet? Can someone provide a quick update on this?
We’re also seeing problems when running Flowplayer in IE9… does anyone else get this?
Benjamin Dell on March 8, 2012
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Any update on JW player or iOS support?
Thanks
Antony Smith on May 1, 2012
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@Benjamin
Unfortunately, Akamai and the guys from JW Player are still in negotiations. In order to distribute the JW Player plugin that works with Akamai’s network, the two companies need to sign legal terms. At this point, we’re just waiting for that to happen.
As for iOS, this is currently in development.
Megan Wohlford on May 1, 2012
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Couldn’t see any mention of HTML5/IOS support, but if the tech is based on HTTP streaming it should be possible, as per: http://developer.apple.com/resources/http-streaming/
Something for the future?