[FFmpeg-user] ffserver

[Dave Blanchard]

Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2022 10:16:03 -0500
From: Clay <clay at 42streams.com>
To: FFmpeg user questions <ffmpeg-user at ffmpeg.org>, Nicolas George <george at nsup.org>
Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-user] ffserver

Nicolas George wrote on 11/9/22 03:18:

> I hope you do not expect getting help with that kind of attitude.

Let's be clear: I DID NOT COME HERE for what you call "HELP." 

I already learned long ago that *your* type usually has no useful assistance to offer. You are short on knowledge, and long on narcissism. What you're best qualified for is pearl-clutching, and indignantly proclaiming how Triggered and Offended you are. Your entire so-called "civilization" is like this. That's the root of the problem here, and of so many other problems we face. 

> To vent your frustration, please go elsewhere, this list is not made for
> that. (I suggest you prefer a therapist over violence towards people
> around you.)

What exactly in my reply would suggest "violence toward people around me"?

"Therapist"? Are you sure you're the one who doesn't need therapy?

The only person possibly at risk of "violence" in my vicinity is this thief who has been robbing me for 6 years now. He has slowly graduated from robbing distant outbuildings to now stealing directly from my carport, attached to my house. I will willing to forgive him for the first small thefts, but it has become apparent over time that this will never end. He will just keep taking and taking and taking. The way things are progressing, it's only a matter of time before I'd end up having to kill this asshole.

Where I live (in God's country, Alabama) I would be well within my rights to blow this SOB's head clean off, right where he stands, then call the police to mop up a bit and drag off the corpse. No charges would be filed, and there would be a newspaper story a few days later, half-bragging about the accomplishment and half warning other would-be thieves. I would be considered a local hero. Nobody would ever touch my property again.

Clearly, by choosing instead to put up security cameras, to catch this SOB instead and put him in prison, I am choosing the non-violent route...so rest easy, snowflake. You can come out of your safe space, and put the teddy bear away. You're safe here.

> I would also suggest you use a mail software that does not break
> threads, but it will not matter much anyway.

This mailer is doing exactly what I programmed it to do, and for good reason. Thread breakage is an unfortunate, but on the whole rather inconsequential side effect. You'll learn to live with it.

> While I *really* understand Dave's frustration (including the added
> pressure of dealing with major irl problems), Nicolas is right:  this is
> not the forum for high-temp venting.  

If only I had a nickel for every person who was Quite Sure my approach to life is Completely Wrong, and they are Way Smarter and Know So Much Better than me. Sigh.

Any rant which I feel obligated to post online does in fact tend to persuade and influence people, far better than a person like yourself could possibly understand. That's because I'm speaking the truth, and directly so--which is a rare and valued commodity these days, among people who actually matter.

You ever heard the name "Dave Cutler"? How about R. Lee Ermey? Those are a couple random examples of guys who made an entire career of telling people exactly what they didn't want to hear, in a tone of voice they didn't particularly like. There are millions of other equally valuable people like us, in different places. We are fulfilling an important need: helping you surgically remove your head from your asshole.

I didn't come here for help, though I'm thankful to those who have offered it. I already understood going into this that I had been fucked once again by a software project, that little would be gained from consulting the mailing list, and that I'd just have to figure out a solution myself, as usual. 

The fact is, ffmpeg introduced a half-ass streaming "solution" in ffserver, which sucked, but could be made to work well in many configurations with some trial and error. People figured it out, and put up working recipes to help others along. 

There very well might have been other, better software written by someone to fill the same niche, but maybe they saw ffserver already existed, so why go through the trouble? 

Over the years a lot of people started using ffserver, and became dependent on it. Many man-hours were spent among the userbase tweaking and customizing config files and scripts. Lots of information was read, absorbed, and remembered. People integrated this software into their lives, spending a lot of time and energy on it, designing their whole system around it in many cases. 

But then instead of fixing up and improving ffserver to actually be worth a damn, the ffmpeg developers just let it stagnate then eventually dropped it, with only this "mkvserver_mk2" bullshit they are suggesting as an completely useless alternative. 

Now there are numerous posts out there on various forums where people have been coming in there for YEARS saying "I'm trying to set up video streaming but ffserver is missing?? wtf?" Even still to this day, trying to use ffserver and wondering where it went. Case in point.

Gee, thanks for leaving all of us hanging, guys. 

YOU dropped the ball. YOU screwed up. Don't try to make this about ME, the end user, like I'm somehow at fault here.

And if you don't like what I'm saying here and want to argue me into the grave telling me I'm wrong, but you're not one of the actual ffmpeg developers, FUCK OFF. I don't care about your less-than-useless opinion.

Any time anyone complains about any stupid decision a software project has made, there's always got to be at leat one ballwasher chiming in with his passive-aggressive "well why don't you just maintain it yourself?"--as if that's a reasonable thing to expect from 95% of the userbase, and implying the user must be some kind of lazy asshole because they can't/won't just put aside the 100,000 things they are already doing elsewhere to do YOUR work for YOU also.

It's not just limited to software; this sort of extremely selfish behavior has widespread throughout the entire Western world. Someone delivers a half assed product or service, cons people into using it, then when the user complain in any way about the low quality of this junk, or it's discontinued and the rug is jerked out from under the users, any complainer is treated as swine and lectured about his "attitude", etc.

I don't want to hear a damn word about "well ffserver was deprecated years ago." I was really surprised to see the first posts about it being deprecated soon were all the way back in 2017. What? I only started using ffserver in 2019; I had no idea it was already deprecated at that time! All of the tutorials on the internet recommended me to use ffserver. A lot of people were using it, because it was the recommended software and there was nothing else quite like it. Even today people are finding those recommendations online, trying to use ffserver, finding it missing, and asking "wtf?" 

Great job, guys. You really dropped the ball.

I ended up installing nginx plus nginx_ts plugin, and am now streaming MPEG2 video via MPEG-TS to an HLS endpoint. This was actually pretty straightforward and easy to set up, and seems to work reliably so far. The pain in the ass was sorting through all of the MAZE of bullshit info out there to figure out exactly what I needed and how to get it. When I searched for "ffserver alternative", all I found was suggestions for this mkvserver_mk2 GARBAGE. It took a ton of searching and crawling through dozens of tabs to figure out all the different streaming methods and their strengths and weaknesses, to see what would work best. Fortunately, I'm a superhuman, so I was able to burn through this quickly and get my server up and streaming within a day. I feel sorry for anyone else trying to quickly navigate through this mess.

There is NO REASON ffmpeg could not have a very simple HTTP streaming server built into it, with no need for any ffserver.conf at all, just basic configuration on the same command line with every other ffmpeg component. ffmpeg already has support for streaming (as a client) to RTP/HTTP endpoints; why can't it have a simple, basic RTMP/HLS/DASH streaming server built in also? 

If the developers don't want to put a ton of work into it, fine; just build it around libmicrohttpd and keep it simple and basic. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, just something that would work for most applications. But if it were me, and I were the one developing a FULL FEATURED MULTIMEDIA SUITE, in 2022 I for damn sure would be implementing a customized, fast, streamlined HTTP server whose only job is to serve audio/video streams as efficiently as possible, via RTMP/HLS/DASH/whatever. 

OK?? That's all I'm saying here. RANT OVER. Everyone check your appendages and body parts, make sure everything is still there. Anyone dead? Anyone in the hospital? No? OK. You survived. Congratulations.

Now if you'll excuse me, there's one sorry son of a bitch I'm about to put in PRISON.

Dave