player remains black with bufferlength=0

[joelbenm]

Hi

we are broadcasting h264 from Wirecast, 30FPS, to Flash player whose bufferlength was set to 0 to achieve lowest latency.

the player on IE works nicely on the first broadcast. however, the player on Chrome and Firefox remains black.

even on IE, the player would remain black on any subsequent broadcasting. only page refresh get the picture back

this happens on a range of bandwidth and players (JWPlayer, FlowPlayer). when we set the bufferlength to anything other than 0 (say 0.1) it would work perfectly but with an 4-5 seconds delay

any ideas? we would appreciate any direction

thanks!
Joel

[rrlanham]

What version of Wowza are you using? This sounds like an issue with older versions of Wowza and newer versions of Flash player with h.264 content.

Richard

[rogerlittin]

Not sure about Flow Player but JW Player does not like a buffer of 0. I think it uses a buffer full message from the server to set the video displaying. The problem is that with the buffer set to 0, a buffer full signal message is never sent.

Does it work with the example players that come with Wowza? You will have to use the videochat example as it's buffers are 0 or edit the source code for any of the other players.

[joelbenm]

Actually, after 2 days of research and trials, we found out what it was: version 5.2 of JWPlayer. once we rolled back to 5.1.x, the problem disappeared. FYI... and thanks for all the help!