Commit 889509d2 authored by Stefano Sabatini's avatar Stefano Sabatini

doc/ffserver: add "Detailed description" chapter

Also move FFM section up in the file, and rename it.
parent 0bacc320
......@@ -42,6 +42,114 @@ For each feed you can have different output streams in various
formats, each one specified by a @code{<Stream>} section in the
configuration file.
@chapter Detailed description
@command{ffserver} works by forwarding streams encoded by
@command{ffmpeg}, or pre-recorded streams which are read from disk.
Precisely, @command{ffserver} acts as an HTTP server, accepting POST
requests from @command{ffmpeg} to acquire the stream to publish, and
serving HTTP clients GET requests with the stream media content.
A feed is an @ref{FFM} stream created by @command{ffmpeg}, and sent to
a port where @command{ffserver} is listening.
Each feed is identified by a unique name, corresponding to the name
of the resource published on @command{ffserver}, and is configured by
a dedicated @code{Feed} section in the configuration file.
The feed publish URL is given by:
@example
http://@var{ffserver_ip_address}:@var{http_port}/@var{feed_name}
@end example
where @var{ffserver_ip_address} is the IP address of the machine where
@command{ffserver} is installed, @var{http_port} is the port number of
the HTTP server (configured through the @option{Port} option), and
@var{feed_name} is the name of the corresponding feed defined in the
configuration file.
Each feed is associated to a file which is stored on disk. This stored
file is used to allow to send pre-recorded data to a player as fast as
possible when new content is added in real-time to the stream.
A "live-stream" or "stream" is a resource published by
@command{ffserver}, and made accessible through the HTTP protocol to
clients.
A stream can be connected to a feed, or to a file. In the first case,
the published stream is forwarded from the corresponding feed
generated by a running instance of @command{ffmpeg}, in the second
case the stream is read from a pre-recorded file.
Each stream is identified by a unique name, corresponding to the name
of the resource served by @command{ffserver}, and is configured by
a dedicated @code{Stream} section in the configuration file.
The stream access URL is given by:
@example
http://@var{ffserver_ip_address}:@var{http_port}/@var{stream_name}[@var{options}]
@end example
@var{stream_name} is the name of the corresponding stream defined in
the configuration file. @var{options} is a list of options specified
after the URL which affects how the stream is served by
@command{ffserver}.
In case the stream is associated to a feed, the encoding parameters
must be configured in the stream configuration. They are sent to
@command{ffmpeg} when setting up the encoding. This allows
@command{ffserver} to define the encoding parameters used by
the @command{ffmpeg} encoders.
The @command{ffmpeg} @option{override_ffserver} commandline option
allows to override the encoding parameters set by the server.
Multiple streams can be connected to the same feed.
For example, you can have a situation described by the following
graph:
@example
_________ __________
| | | |
ffmpeg 1 -----| feed 1 |-----| stream 1 |
\ |_________|\ |__________|
\ \
\ \ __________
\ \ | |
\ \| stream 2 |
\ |__________|
\
\ _________ __________
\ | | | |
\| feed 2 |-----| stream 3 |
|_________| |__________|
_________ __________
| | | |
ffmpeg 2 -----| feed 3 |-----| stream 4 |
|_________| |__________|
_________ __________
| | | |
| file 1 |-----| stream 5 |
|_________| |__________|
@end example
@anchor{FFM}
@section FFM, FFM2 formats
FFM and FFM2 are formats used by ffserver. They allow storing a wide variety of
video and audio streams and encoding options, and can store a moving time segment
of an infinite movie or a whole movie.
FFM is version specific, and there is limited compatibility of FFM files
generated by one version of ffmpeg/ffserver and another version of
ffmpeg/ffserver. It may work but it is not guaranteed to work.
FFM2 is extensible while maintaining compatibility and should work between
differing versions of tools. FFM2 is the default.
@section Status stream
@command{ffserver} supports an HTTP interface which exposes the
......@@ -165,19 +273,6 @@ You use this by adding the ?date= to the end of the URL for the stream.
For example: @samp{http://localhost:8080/test.asf?date=2002-07-26T23:05:00}.
@c man end
@section What is FFM, FFM2
FFM and FFM2 are formats used by ffserver. They allow storing a wide variety of
video and audio streams and encoding options, and can store a moving time segment
of an infinite movie or a whole movie.
FFM is version specific, and there is limited compatibility of FFM files
generated by one version of ffmpeg/ffserver and another version of
ffmpeg/ffserver. It may work but it is not guaranteed to work.
FFM2 is extensible while maintaining compatibility and should work between
differing versions of tools. FFM2 is the default.
@chapter Options
@c man begin OPTIONS
......
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