FAQs
RU-iptv is an innovative new service designed to provide video programming over the Rutgers University data network. Launched through a partnership between the Office of Information Technology (OIT) and the Department of University Relations, RU-iptv offers local, national and international programming, as well as live coverage of Rutgers campus events.
Additional technical resources are available by joing the
Sakai IP-tv and RU-tv User Community
FAQs After The InStream™ Viewer Launches
Microsoft Windows Specific FAQs
Macintosh Specific FAQs
Linux Specific FAQs
A computer must meet certain minimum system requirements. If your system does not meet these requirements, the service may perform less than desired or not at all. The minimum system requirements to view each service are listed below:
Intel Pentium III 850MHz CPU or better
Sun JRE 1.4.1 or later
Firefox or Internet Explorer 6.0+
Power PC G3 700MHz or G4 400 MHz or better
OpenGL-capable video card (ATI Rage 128 or Radeon, any nVidia card)
Java Virtual Machine
Firefox, Safari, IE 5.2
Mac OS X 10.4+ (Intel)
Java run-time environment
Firefox or Safari
Intel Pentium III 850MHz CPU or better
24-bit graphics enabled
Properly configured and enabled audio card/module
Mozilla v0.9.9/v1.2a or later with Java Plug-in (i.e., v1.4.1 or later)
Intel Pentium III 850MHz CPU or greater
Sun JRE 1.4.1 or later
Firefox or Internet Explorer 6.0+
Power PC G4 867 MHz or greater
OpenGL-capable video card (ATI Rage 128 or Radeon, any nVidia card)
Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher, or Netscape Communicator 7.0
Mac OS X 10.4+ (Intel)
Java run-time environment
Firefox or Safari
Intel Pentium III 850MHz CPU or greater
24-bit graphics enabled
Properly configured and enabled audio card/module
Mozilla v0.9.9/v1.2a or later with Java Plug-in (i.e., v1.4.1 or later)
The client computer must have network access and a recent Java run-time environment, in most cases available at http://java.sun.com.
If you have what is determined to be an unsupported device, the portal attempts to display a helpful message to guide you in resolving the problem. This message means that your platform is unsupported by the viewer. Please review the minimum platform requirements in another part of this FAQ.
Video Furnace added multiple monitor support in system release v4.1. Earlier InStream™ versions do not explicitly inhibit nor support multiple monitor capability. If your computer has multiple monitors attached, with earlier releases you may experience unexpected behavior when you attempt to place the InStream™ viewer on a display other than the primary display. You may not even be able to move the viewer to a non-primary display. Driver-level support varies widely among graphics card manufacturers.
Your Java run-time environment may be obsolete or corrupt. Users of Macintosh OS X platforms are advised to consider visiting apple.com and upgrading to Apple’s latest MRJ.
Users of Windows and Linux platforms should consider retrieving the latest Sun Java runtime environment, which at one time was at:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/download.html
to make sure it's the latest see:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/downloads.html
You may also need to upgrade your browser to the latest version.
These are security warnings that ask whether you authorize to load the signed software necessary to automatically provision your computer to view the selected content. These messages are common the first time you select a stream in a browser session. Select the “Grant” or “Yes” button to bypass each request, each time. If you do not want to see these messages again, check the “Remember this decision” or “Always trust content ” or similar option before you select the “Grant” or “Yes” button or select the “Always” button depending on the type of pop-up displayed. When you inform the security manager that you always want to grant authorizations to the software, the messages will no longer appear when you request to view enabled content in the future.
This means that one or more of the certificate authorizations was not granted. Reload the page to force the browser to ask you for authorization again. You may also need to upgrade your Java Virtual Machine (JVM), Java Runtime Environment (JRE), or Java Runtime Machine (JRM – Apple) to a newer version. Instructions on upgrading your JVM/JRE/JRM can be found elsewhere in this FAQ. You may need to close all instances of the browser and start again.
The stream may not be available on the network or your computer system may not be receiving multicast data through or from your network connection or may be blocked by a personal firewall. Multicast is a standard network-based data distribution technology used to broadcast services on the network. If you encounter one of these messages but never receive onGuide™ data or video, you may have a firewall or other configuration issue that prevents multicast data from reaching the application on your system.
User Not Authorized: If you get a "User not authorized" error after seeing the message "Retrieving guide data," try disabling unnecessary network adapters and connections (i.e., network bridges, wireless network adapters), and try again.
License server not responding: if InStream™ cannot communicate with the license server, this message may appear. To resolve this, open the outgoing unicast udp port (specified below) in your personal firewall configuration.
Multiple Network Interfaces: You may encounter problems if your computer is configured to use several different connections to the network such as a wired 802.3 and a wireless 802.11x adapters. Disable settings for wireless adapters and try again.
Firewalls: If your computer has a personal firewall such as Zone Alarm or Black Ice installed and configured to "Block Internet Servers”, you will not receive multicast services even if your network connection is multicast enabled, because an improperly configured firewall will block multicast. To enable multicast on a system with a firewall you can either temporarily disable or remove the firewall software by going to Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs (Windows), or reconfigure the firewall program to "Allow Internet Servers" in an option menu. Your firewall must be configured to allow the IP addresses carrying the multicast traffic on your network (e.g., 233.0.103.x, check with your site technical support). Also, be sure to allow the following ports: incoming multicast udp ports: 4900 and 4901 and outgoing unicast udp port 4902. Keep in mind that some network services client applications may install firewall software on your client device without your knowledge (e.g., Cisco - IPSec VPN). If you suspect this to be the case, consider opening that application, finding the firewall option and disabling it, closing the application then try accessing the video services again. If it now works, consider appropriate configuration of the firewall as mentioned earlier.
Note: Windows XP provides a built-in personal firewall that is disabled by default. If you have not enabled this feature and have no additional firewall software, multicast should not be blocked.
NAT Routers: If your computer is behind a NAT (Network Address Translation) router, you will probably not be able to receive multicast traffic. Check with your support organization if you believe this to be the case.
Linux Users: Verify that your kernel is enabled for IP multicast.
This may be caused by an early version of the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine (JVM).
Upgrade to the latest version of the Java run-time environment at http://www.java.com.
Also - At times, on the World Wide Web, “helper applications” are loaded to your computer or are attached to your browser without your knowledge. These applications are intended to mine data and provide helpful capabilities. Some of these applications may interrupt or slow down your browser performance. Be certain that any such application is not interfering with your browser’s capability or performance.
The OnGuide/TV button is located at the top left corner of the InStream™ dashboard. Clicking on this button toggles between “TV” mode and the “OnGuide” program guide mode. In onGuide™ mode, the viewer window displays the list of available channels and up to two weeks of detailed program information for each channel. When InStream™ is in TV mode, video appears in full-window mode and the button reads onGuide™.
The Stop and Play buttons are located next to the onGuide™ button. Clicking the Play or Stop button starts and stops the video. Right-clicking (Windows/Linux) or control-clicking (Macintosh) the mouse over the Viewer presents a menu with various options to resize, enable closed captioning, etc.
The station logo shows the icon associated with the currently tuned channel.
Volume controls are situated immediately to the right of the channel tuning controls and listed from left to right as “Mute/Unmute” and “Volume Slider”. The volume slider, located to the right of the mute button, increases or attenuates the volume by sliding the slider control to the right or left. Click the mute button to mute the audio or unmute muted audio.
To view video in full-window mode, click the “TV” button in the upper left corner of the “OnGuide” window or under the video preview thumbnail. To increase the size of the viewer window, right-click (
Windows/Linux) or control-click (Macintosh) on the viewer to show a menu with pre-defined viewer sizes. Select the preferred size (small, medium, large, or full screen) from the menu. Alternately, use the mouse to click on and stretch the window borders or corners. To toggle between “OnGuide” mode and “TV” mode, press Ctrl-G (Windows/Linux) or Cmd-G (Macintosh).
Your computer has to leave and rejoin the multicast group for that service, then reacquire the stream. This may result in a brief delay.
It should take only a few seconds after selecting an enabled channel. A brief delay of a few seconds is normal. If the video hasn't appeared in 30 seconds, there is a problem either with your platform, it’s ability to receive the network transmission, or other problems that may require the assistance of your site technical support. Close all unnecessary programs and try to restart InStream™.
This means that either the requested stream has been interrupted, the stream is not available in the part of the network in which you are located, or for some other reason, the stream cannot traverse your network connection. It’s also possible that your personal firewall is blocking multicast traffic as described in another part of this FAQ. If you believe there should be a stream available; then consider contacting your service provider to resolve the anomaly.
If you see nothing in the InStream™ viewer window, when in TV mode, and the information message in the InStream™ status window shows: “Now Playing: …”, then the analog input signal to the video encoder may have been interrupted. Please notify your service provider of the service interruption.
The time zone and system clock time of your computer (PC/Mac/Linux) might be incorrect. Be certain that you set the time zone, date, and time appropriate for your location and select the daylight savings time option if appropriate.
This message implies that the expected stream is no longer available or the transmission has completed. If you know this to be unexpected, please contact your IP Video service provider.
The streams are placed on the network at a “full motion video” rate (30 frames per second). Your version of Microsoft DirectX may not support monitors that are set above a scan rate of 75Hz or your CPU is taxed by other applications and not enough CPU bandwidth is available for InStream™ to display full frame-rate video. The following suggestions may help: check your CPU load with the CPU monitoring tool provided by your Operating System. If you have surplus CPU cycles available, try to change the scan rate on your monitor to 75Hz. If not, consider closing some of your other opened applications. Also consider upgrading graphics card drivers and/or your system software (e.g., Microsoft Update, Direct/X (if used), Apple Macintosh OSX update, or try a faster computer).
Your current graphics card drivers may not handle overlays properly. Upgrade to latest video drivers for your graphics hardware.
Your drivers may not handle graphics overlays properly. Consider changing the properties of your mouse pointer in the control panel to normal pointer and turn off the “enable pointer shadow” option.
Be sure to install all Critical Updates at
http://www.windowsupdate.com.
The Critical Update package may include an up-to-date Java Virtual Machine (JVM) from Microsoft, which may fix this problem. More information in recommended Java plugins can be found elsewhere in this FAQ.
Yes. Currently InStream™ supports OS X on both legacy PowerPC platforms and the new Intel platform. Requirements are listed elsewhere in this FAQ.
Yes, InStream™ supports RH Linux 7.3 and later in X/Windows with OpenGL. See platform requirements in another part of this FAQ.
With Linux, the first request to watch IP video may ask that you accept and install the appropriate Java plugin. This may show a series popup messages to guide you through installation of the appropriate Java run-time environment.
If your’re having problems that might be related to Java, consider upgrading your Java Runtime Environment to “j2re-1.4.1” from Sun (
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/download.html as of 11.1.02). To do so:
1) Download and install Sun’s “j2re-1.4.1” for Linux
2) For each browser you want to use, enable java in the preferences or settings.
then add a link to the java package's plugin directory libjavaplugin_oji.so
The rpm installs this to:
/usr/java/j2re1.4.1/plugin/i386/ns600/libjavaplugin_oji.so
3) To link the JRE and your browser, you have to be in your browser’s “plugin” directory and type:
ln -s /usr/java/j2re1.4.1/plugin/i386/ns600/libjavaplugin_oji.so libjavaplugin_oji.so
Note: (For information purposes only):
Mozilla installs by default to: /usr/lib/mozilla-x.x.x/plugins/
Netscape 7.0: in /usr/local/netscape/plugins by default
Phoenix 0.4: go to the Phoenix plugins subdirectory.
Note (Also shown to Work):
Mandrake Linux (v9.0, w/ Mozilla 1.2b under KDE 3.0)
