possible to stream content from Mezzmo over the internet?

Hi, just a quick question:
Is it possible to stream the content of Mezzmo over the internet? And if so, can I tell mezzmo to transcode the streamed contents?

Thanks!

Hi,

No, at least not out-of-the-box. In theory you could configure your network to share your internal IP with the Internet and access it from elsewhere, but this has not been tried.

Ok, it's possible for me to access my homenetwork via dyndns. Also, if I understand it correctly, Mezzmo uses only one port, right? So it would be easy to acess it. But will Mezzmo transcode the conent if I tell it to? And: What client can I use? Windows Media Player should work but how do I tell it where my Mezzmo-Server is? (I have never been a huge fan of Windows Media Player and thus this is new for me)

Thanks,
Commander Keen

Well, Mezzmo uses only one port to deliver data to the device, but it also uses ports 1900 and 2869 for standard UPnP conversations. I suppose you could create a new device, assign an IP address to it that would be linked to dyndns and then try to request data from that IP through Internet (adhering to Mezzmo's URL structure of course). This is all theory on my part though ;) Content will be transcoded according to the device profile you set. What sort of player are you planning to use to access content over Internet?

Sounds kinda complicated ;-). In order to do that it would be easier to create a vpn connection I think.

As client-player I want to use something simple that runs on a PC. If I set this up, it has to be foolproof so that anybody can use it, even my girlfriend ;)

There is such a thing for iphone/ipad: "Air Video"
You just connect to the server, choose a file and the rest runs automaticly. I don't mind putting in more effort on the server-side to get it running. But the clients should be fairly simple to handle.

Try XBMC on the PC. DLNA is mostly about streaming files over your local network, if you want to make it "global", then yes, a bit of work will be required.

Hi.
I'm thinking of the same and one solution might be to use VPN.
Look into this thread from XBMC forum where they suggest Hamachi:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=13167&page=5

As a Windows DLNA client try XBMC as Dennis suggested.
It works fine, at least on Windows XP where I've tried it.

Good Luck and please come back and tell how it succeeds!
/FV

The only problem there is that Hamachi appears to block UPnP traffic, so Mezzmo server may not function properly with it. Yes, please do let us know if you get it working - it'll be very interesting!

Usually I stream mezzmo server music to my iphone via internet . Just connect iphone to your network via VPN. You will see Mezzmo server just choose your music and play.
Using Windows 7 with native vpn just 1 client.
Iphone side plugplayer.

Although this is an older Thread, it's not obsolete from the technical point of view.

UPnP over the internet, I'm sure a good programmer can do anything, you would need to encapsulate it into some kind of tunnel.
Especially from the view of privacy, because if it's possible to see your stream over the internet, be sure you will be prosecuted!
Fines vary from country to country, but be sure there are countries that will ask you to pay over 500.000 USD if your streamed content
is visible in the internet!

So be aware what you want to do here!!!

To avoid this, you would need to encrypt any tunnel solution you can think of. But why invent the wheel twice, triple or even more times? You already have VPN!

oVPN is more most cases the most suited solution. You simply build a class B network over VPN and then you can use 65.000 devices in your network each with their own subnet.
For now, you still have to stick with ipv4 support because most of the internet won't support ipv6 yet, but in future you can also use ipv6 only in your network which makes
subnetting and other ipv4 hassles completely obsolete (thus easier)

Once you got your oVPN settings, make sure to at least use 256bit encryption! like I said, it's highly illegal to stream anything over the internet in most countries and fines
in many countries are extremely hgh if they catch you, and since mezzmo is mostly a background service ready to stream 24/7 the risk of being catched is very high if you allow
your content to be visible online!

But VPN is tricky when it comes to performance. Nowadays many people use routers with build-in VPN support. Which is great, really! But 95% of the routers on the market have CPU
that allow encryption at max rates of 4Mbps per second. That is when utilizing 1 core to 100%. Multiple cores are mostly not supported by the VPN implementations, at least not
with oVPN.
So, consider the overhead, package loss, etc, you probably won't be able to stream content over 2Mbps over a VPN tunnel setup with routers.

More newer routers from Asus and Co, like the RT-AC87U are mentioned in blogs to get up to 40Mbps over oVPN with 256bit encryption. I strongly doubt that you will achieve these
max rates in most situations. Be asure, you achieve this only if you're not doing anything else over the internet, wlan, etc.

In a real life situation, don't expect more then 20Mbps, which already is decent! With the overhead, etc. you most likely get a real stream rate of 16Mbps, which is enough for
a DVD, but don't expect to watch a 2nd DVD and if someone starts copying over the vpn, I'm sure your stream will get interrupted, even with high class routers.

And yes, I own such routers from modern Asus to older linksys and I tested them all! The max stream rates indeed can peak up to 40 or 50Mbps on the modern routers
and 10-12Mbp on older routers, but it's not the peak that's interesting but in fact the minimum bandwidth that a router can maintain, that's what you need for stable streaming.


If however you want to do that, you would need desktop CPU's with strong processing power per single core! I managed to setup 2 server 2012R2 on Xeon CPU's that build a
class B network between those 2 over fibre optic 200Mbps internet. They actually can maintain at least 30Mbps, with peaks up to 120Mbps over that connection.
But like I said, it's the minimum when servers are updating, people use the network to copy a file, mezzmo itself needs cpu power, etc.
The minimum of 30Mbps is enough for 3 DVD and it won't interupt your stream if someone starts to copy a large file over the connection.

So if you are really interested in stable streaming of movie content, you need strong cpu power, encrypted tunnels, and enough reserve left in case you get other processes in the background.

What I said here is not an absolute truth! I'm sure other solutions are available and other people have other experiences. I simply wrote down my experience and based on that
why I always advise in favor of good encryption and strong CPU power for such VPN networks and not relying on home-routers.

Btw, there are industrial routers that can maintain VPN encrypted tunnels at rates of 50Mbps minimum with peaks much highers!
Those routers are not in the range of 200-250 USD but start at prices of 1000USD

That's why I chose to buy 2 xeons+motherboards, ram, etc and buildup my own system instead of industrial routers.
But if you don't know how to maintain networks, such routers are easy to setup and maintain and do allow high bandwidth VPN networks with encryption.

I should mention additionally, the 2 xeons i use for this aren't the high end types! I did try to maintain a oVPN connection with a Intel Core i7-5930K which maintained
175 to 180 Mbps constantly over the 200Mbps network. But I need this CPU for Photoshop and Solidworks on my desktop. But you see, high end desktop and server CPU's
can maintain oVPN connection encrypted at very high speeds! So it's a question how much you want to invest really.

For my needs, 30Mbps minimum with peaks in the 100+ range was more then enough for me, so no reason to buy more expensive equipment in my case.
But if you want higher rates, it's possible!

Important however is, when you want to look in the internet for benchmarks, the cpu power per single core for encryptions! Not every cpu
is optimal configured for that task and many benchmarks consider the combined CPU power of all cores, hyperthreading, etc..
That's mostly irrelevant for VPN connections, unless you buy access server, which is very costly for a home user I think. But access server
packages use not only a single core for the whole oVPN server, but a single core per connection! Which is very good if you have multiple connections of course.

Anyway, there are tons of other things to consider when you go for a VPN solution, but I think I gave you a good start here what to consider, if you
want to stream media over the internet, without having the risk of police forces worldwide looking out for you! :)