Streaming protocols/Sreaming over Ethernet

[P-man]

Hi all

So im doing my final year project at uni and ive researched streaming protocols such as RTP, HTTP etc but i dont know how streaming is handled over a home network.

For instance, if you have a shared folder on a remote machine and you navigate to a directory with audio files in, then you open that file in a media player on the client machine, what protocol is used? if any? (i use the word client to just denote the machine accessing the remote one)

Ive got a feeling its probably just sent over TCP or UDP as fast as the media player wants it and doesnt use real-time protocols.

Any ideas is much appreciated.

 

[P-man]

Hmm ive just downloaded a network monitor and it seems a lot of activity is over SMB relating to the music file im playing so guess ill have to look into it.

 

[voodooflux]

Was just about to mention Server Message Block (SMB), which underpins Windows Networking.

Other than that, it might be worth checking out the Media Transfer Protocol.

 

[Sparky__H]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Message_Block

 

[RobH]

Might also want to check out SAMBA, an open source implementation of SMB: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samba_(software)

 

[Eriedor]

SMB runs at a different stack level to UDP, TCP and RTP which are transport protocols, SMB is an application layer protocol so probably not what you are looking for.

Media is typically transported using UDP or a protocol derived from it as it is much faster than TCP as it doesn't manage flow control, congestion or guaranteed delivery.

 

[P-man]

Thanks everyone.

It does seem like generic UDP is my best option. The real-time protocols seem to have far too much depth considering how much time ive got to get something working.

 

[voodooflux]

It does seem like generic UDP is my best option. The real-time protocols seem to have far too much depth considering how much time ive got to get something working.

What's the project you're working on?