Upcoming Sun Ray Features - Multimedia
I've decided to do a series of small videos showing the new features of our forthcoming Sun Ray Server Software 4.1. The first video will feature our Multimedia enhancements. I had a nice setup for the first shoot, only to find my dog really hates the tripod. Second attempt, with the tripod in the garage and the camcorder in my hands is less than optimal quality but you get the idea. Cut the video a little short as my dog decided to start barking at other dogs in the neighborhood halfway through the windows demo. It's not often I get a quiet house with 5 daughters so I'll have to accept this cut for now. :) Oh yeah, don't watch this YouTube Video from a Sun Ray as Flash support is next up on the drawing board.
On the sunray section, can you have the video and sound play together and record it?
I want to see how much out-of-sync issue has been resolve by this new version.
Thanks.
Posted by CL on September 03, 2008 at 02:27 AM PDT #
Very cool.
Was it my imagination or was the windows video a bit choppier?
How's the Windows being presented, and what kind of resources does it have? Sun Ray Connector to a Virtual Box VM? How much RAM for Windows?
Will this work with my old-school Sun Ray 1 units?
Posted by David Mackintosh on September 03, 2008 at 06:50 AM PDT #
The whole thing was the sun ray section. Do you mean you want the volume increased on the windows demo?
Posted by Thin Guy on September 03, 2008 at 06:50 AM PDT #
Hi Dave,
The Sun Ray 1 series will do the YUV/XVideo method. Only the two will do the direct decode. Both use considerably less processor and network, but the direct decode from windows using the Sun Ray 2 series is the most efficient as it by passes the Sun Ray server completely.
Posted by Thin Guy on September 03, 2008 at 06:53 AM PDT #
What is the exact setup you're using at home? What video format is being played here, what player are you using?
Posted by Knut on September 03, 2008 at 01:29 PM PDT #
Hi Knut, From a hardware standpoint, I'm running Solaris and Windows XP on VMWare virtual machines. On the Solaris part what you need is a video player that supports the Xvideo extension. I use Mplayer from blastwave.org. RealPlayer also has this support but mplayer has support for more codecs. The Solaris/Linux side uses the YUV method, direct decode is only available right now on the windows side. On the Windows side, it's all Windows Media Player. The video format of the spiderman video is MPEG 4 H.264 Baseline. I'll be making a follow up video showing the different types of decode methods on the windows side showing a better example of audio and video synchronization.
Posted by Thin Guy on September 03, 2008 at 01:55 PM PDT #
Amazing stuff. I knew about the Windows support but only found out yesterday talking to chrisg that there was Solaris Xvideo support too. Very cool, and will be even better when there is Flash support. When you say "bypasses the SunRay server" what happens if the DTU to SRSS was SSL protected I assume the video still goes to the client over SSL right it is just that it is decoded at the DTU (and for 2 and 2FS same for IPsec right).
Posted by Darren Moffat on September 04, 2008 at 04:10 AM PDT #
Wow.. very impressive
Posted by David Lewis on September 05, 2008 at 07:44 PM PDT #
I set up the beta on my system (after seeing this video). I am having trouble getting windows server 2003 (terminal server) to recognize the codecs for mp4. But I did play some compliant wma files.. wow what a difference. I played it from my house over a VPN back to work and it played VERY well.. get flash running this well and sunrays are gonna be smoken!! (More than they already do ;) )
Posted by David Lewis on September 05, 2008 at 11:01 PM PDT #
David, there is info in the SRWC 2.1 install/config guide re: installation of codecs for MP4...
Additional Required Components for H.264 (MPEG-4)
The multimedia redirection component does not include any audio/video demux
and decoders for H.264 (MPEG-4) streams; however, the following components can
be used for playback and redirection:
■ MatroskaSplitter:
http://haali.cs.msu.ru/mkv/
■ ffDShow:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow or
http://www.ffdshow.info/
HTH,
Matt
Posted by Mad Hatter on September 06, 2008 at 06:35 AM PDT #
Yes.. I saw those, thats what I meant when I said I couldn't get the codecs to work (installing the above). I assume
its just a windows server 2003 issue.. and would work fine on an XP box. I will try an XP box monday.
Posted by David Lewis on September 06, 2008 at 09:20 AM PDT #
David,
I had the same issues with an existing W2K3 TS, turns out I had a few codec packages installed. I removed the quicktime player and another package (I think it was called K-Lite Codec Pack?). I removed both of those and re-installed FFDShow, WMP still said it had no filter. Removed ffdshow, rebooted, reinstalled ffdshow and it finally worked.
Posted by Thin Guy on September 06, 2008 at 11:11 AM PDT #
I really liked it. Its awesome. where can i download it?
Posted by IP on September 12, 2008 at 03:36 AM PDT #
Hello,
Is this possible to go full screen at some stage? small-scale playing works very well...but not full screen.
Thanks.
Samuel
Posted by Samuel on November 05, 2008 at 03:51 PM PST #
Do you know when support will be available? Will it be 6 months, 12/18 months? This is one of the major issues for us deciding whether or not to go with Sun.
Posted by John on November 24, 2008 at 11:52 AM PST #
Sorry. My question was related to flash. It seems the upload removed that word. Hmm. That's ironic.
Posted by John on November 24, 2008 at 11:53 AM PST #
Same query as John - what is the timeline to support adobe flash on windows? My users are chasing us for it.
Posted by CL on December 03, 2008 at 11:43 PM PST #
Hi folks,
All I can say is it is on our roadmap. Our roadmap is covered under NDA. I can't blog about specific future features, it's not my decision but I have to honor it if I wish to remain employed. If you would like a presentation on futures, contact your Sun sales rep and they can give you a presentation under NDA.
Posted by Thin Guy on December 04, 2008 at 07:25 AM PST #
We currently have an opportunity to put 75 Sun Ray's into a health care environment.
In a complete Sun VDI solution the Sun Ray's performance while viewing a PDF is deadly slow, and Adobe Flash for medical training is terrible. The medical staff would also like to use Dragon Speak software to dictate into the EMR application, and this is not possible. Only the thin client terminals running native RDP and ICA can do this. Even Quest (Provision Networks) has said that it is not possible with Sun Ray due to the ALP protocol and that Sun Ray server uses a proxy to connect to the server.
Is there a solution out there? Firmware upgrade? Anything, thanks to anyone who can assist me.
Posted by Green Data Centre on December 26, 2008 at 09:58 AM PST #
I've been working with my Sun team on putting together a VDI 3.0 proof of concept. I watched the youtube video in this blog and am unclear on the flash comment. If full motion video is working (assumption), then what are the issues with Flash? I ask this because, as an academic institution, almost all the usage of this technology would involve local and internet based video. Also, on the internet it is typical that websites have much of the content being Flash driven. I'm viewing no Flash support as a hard stop on this, hence my question. My thanks.
arlene
Posted by arlene on March 24, 2009 at 01:15 PM PDT #
I agree with you Arlene, the lack of Flash support has made it a show stopper on a lot of opportunites we come across. With all the competitors jumping into the thin client circle, offering full multimedia video, flash player, syncing Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and full USB redirection for any peripheral device makes the Sun Ray a very difficult pitch. Rumour has it that in Q4 2009 Sun will have full multimedia and USB plus bi-directional audio support. This is good news, but unfortunately for now Citrix XenApp on Terminal Server or Citrix Xen Desktop is the only answer for bi-directional audio plus smooth flash playing experience. You also will have to use RedHat Enterprise 5.1 with Citrix XenApp 11 client because Solaris doesn't have a compliant ICA client.
Posted by Green Data Centre on March 24, 2009 at 05:10 PM PDT #
For planning purposes, I see the immediate need for downstream audio - typically part of a video feed of some type. Collaboration software indicates the upstream need, but I also believe there is a phase-in timing, for lack of a better term, where tuning up the existing functionality will take some amount of time to roll out - perhaps as much as a year. It is terribly difficult to make these technologic comparisons in few words because there is so much nuance involved. I'm experimenting with Pano devices right now, and the downstream audio / flash support seems to be adequate although not great. They claim the next version of the box (months) will have an internal GPU that helps handle some of these tasks more efficiently. I did not state it in the previous note, but there is also the need to support USB connected optical devices and SSD devices for uploading large amounts of information. I also see that as necessary in a general population group.
Posted by arlene allen on March 24, 2009 at 05:22 PM PDT #