About Placeshifting

Requirements


Viewing PC:
Windows XP or vista
Micorosoft Silverlight 2. You can install Silverlight from this location: http://www.microsoft.com/Silverlight/resources/install.aspx
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or Mozilla Firefox 3

Using Placeshifting

When you enter the web admin library, you will be asked to choose from the following playback options:



Selecting Placeshift will allow video to be played back from within the web browser. To begin watching a video, find the video you want to watch, mouse over Options, and click Play.

the SnapStream Enterprise TV Server's placeshifting feature is based on Windows Media Video, but other formats can be transcoded on the fly to work with placeshifting. If you select Play for a file in any format other than WMV, you will see the following message:




Click Continue to begin playback. You will see the video in a window like this:


Seeking within placeshifted video will require Enterprise TV to rebuffer the video and may result in a delay of several seconds.

Click Stop to stop playback. NOTE: Stopping playback by any other method, such as closing the browser window or navigating to another page of the web admin, can result in temporary excess processor usage on the Enterprise TV Server, as it will continue to attempt to placeshift your video.


FAQ and Basic Troubleshooting


How many users can placeshift video at once?

To prevent resource conflicts, Enterprise TV limits placeshifting to four concurrent users. Any additional user attempting to start a placeshifting session will see the message "Too Many Open Sessions." NOTE: By default, the web admin is configured to allow only a single placeshifting session at a time. See "Enterprise TV will only allow one placeshifting session" below for instructions on changing this setting.


Can I use placeshifting on an Apple Macintosh or a Linux-based PC?

No. Because Enterprise TV's placeshifting feature requires Microsoft Silverlight, it is not compatible with non-Windows PCs.


Can I use placeshifting over the internet?

Yes, but it may require some changes in your network configuration and is recommended for advanced users only. In order to use placeshifting over the Internet, you will have to open or forward the proper ports in your firewall or router. By default, these are 9990-9999. They can be changed through the web admin, in Advanced Settings=> Streaming Server Settings.


When I am placeshifting video, my slows down/ the processor on my is pegged. What's going on?

During playback, you will see heavy processor utilization on the Enterprise TV Server by a process called BTVPlaybackEngine.exe. This process is transcoding and serving video, and heavy processor usage is normal.


The process BTVPlaybackEngine.exe keeps running after I've stopped my placeshifting session.

Stopping the session improperly can cause this issue. Remember to stop placeshifting by clicking the Stop button before leaving the page.


Playback through placeshifting is choppy, or pauses every few seconds.

The most common cause of choppy playback is insufficient processing power for transcoding in real time to Windows Media.
Suggested troubleshooting steps:

·	Stop any other tasks being performed by the Enterprise TV Server

·	Stop any other placeshifting sessions

·	Use ShowSqueeze to change the format of the video to Windows Media, so that it does not need to be transcoded in real time

Enterprise TV will only allow one placeshifting session.

Enterprise TVwill allow up to 4 simultaneous Placeshifting sessions. In order to do this, you will have to modify the settings.xml file.

1. Shut down the Enterprise TV Services completely.

2. Navigate to this directory:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\SnapStream\Beyond TV\


3. Open the file Settings.xml in Notepad or an XML or text editor.

4. Find the MaxPlaceshiftingSessions property and modify its value from 1 to 4.

5. Save the file and restart Enterprise TV.