Using ranges to accelerate streaming content downloads

[xhunter]

Hi,

I am trying to add support for ranges to my download scripts, so users downloading from my site with eg download managers they have the option for multiple connections/resume.

I have gone so far that this works perfect in normal situations, but not when streaming a file eg "wmv" ,
it seems mediaplayer or other players request ranges differently than download managers , so the effect is that you can not move forward along the movie being played before it is completely downloaded not even to the already downloaded segments.

this is as far as I have gone for normal downloads :

[PHP]$name = $filever['filename'];
$size = $filever['filesize'];
$type = $filever['filetype'];
$disposition = 'inline';

header("Cache-Control:");
header("Cache-Control: public");
Header("Content-Type: $type");
if (strstr($_SERVE R['HTTP_USER_AGEN T'], "MSIE")) {
$iefilename = preg_replace('/\./', '%2e', $name, substr_count($n ame, '.') - 1);
header("Content-Disposition: $disposition; filename=\"$ief ilename\"");
} else {
header("Content-Disposition: $disposition; filename=\"$nam e\"");
}
header("Accept-Ranges: bytes");

if(isset($_SERV ER['HTTP_RANGE'])) {
list($a, $range)=explode ("=",$_SERVE R['HTTP_RANGE']);
str_replace($ra nge, "-", $range);
$size2=$size-1;
$new_length=$si ze-$range;
header("HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content");
header("Content-Length: $new_length");
header("Content-Range: bytes $range$size2/$size");
} else {
$size2=$size-1;
header("Content-Range: bytes 0-$size2/$size");
header("Content-Length: ".$size);
}

$fp=fopen($file _path,"rb");
while(!feof($fp )){
set_time_limit( 0);
print(fread($fp ,1024*8));
flush();
ob_flush();
}
fclose($fp);
exit;[/PHP]

[pbmods]

Changed thread title to better describe the problem, and hopefully get your thread some extra traffic :)

[xhunter]

thanx, any help is really appreciated.

[xhunter]

anybody has any ideas how to do MultiMedia streaming support in PHP,
this is something great and important in PHP which I haven't found anything on it.

any ideas?

[pbmods]

Heya, Hunter.

I wonder if this represents a deficiency in the media player itself.

[xhunter]

I don't know,

I remember when I was working on it,
I noticed as download managers request a range (where to start next) in this format:
"bytes=1111 111-"
Mediaplayer and other players send request like :
"bytes=1111 111-2222222"

I have been wondering how to evaluate that request and send an appropriate response, but so far, no success.

[pbmods]

Heya, Hunter.

Figure something like this:

preg_match_all('/bytes=(\\d+)(-(\\d+))?/', $_SERVER['HTTP_RANGE'], $matches);
$range_start = $matches[1];
$range_end = $matches[3];  // Might be null if no terminating range was specified.
 

[xhunter]

thanx,
I am gonna try this one too,
but I think the problem is, as they send a different request, they also expect a different response,

I am working on it, but I don't know.

[pbmods]

Oh boy.

Well, good luck, and keep us posted!