4 content loading – Sun Microsystems MEDIACENTER 2.1 User Manual

Page 29

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Chapter 2

Preparing and Loading Content

2-5

2.4

Content Loading

The preferred method of storing content on a Sun MediaCenter server is to use the
Web-based CmTool. CmTool uses the Sun MediaCenter FTP daemon and the
Content Manager (CM), part of the Sun MediaCenter software, to store content. The
CM automatically extracts from MPEG content the information the server needs to
successfully store and play that content. See Chapter 4 for information on using the
CmTool interface.

The Sun MediaCenter software also offers the following alternatives for transferring
video files:

smc_tar

Can copy to or extract from a tape device. Takes a content package as input for
content loading. Copies between a

tar

device or a Unix File System (UFS) and

the MFS.

smc_copy

Takes a title name as input. Use from server to server. Can create a TOC file and
index files if none present. Copies between MFSs.

ftp

in conjunction with the Sun MediaCenter FTP daemon

Requires only the

smc:

keyword. Works on any platform on which an

ftp

client

can run. Creates a TOC file and index files if none present. Copies between a local
file system and the MFS.

smc_tar

and

smc_copy

are described in Chapter 5. See Chapter 6 for instructions

on the use of

ftp

with the Sun MediaCenter FTP daemon.

A file-transfer alternative beyond those listed here is to write a program to the
Content Manager (CM) API or CM Client API. These APIs are described in the Sun
MediaCenter Server Programmer’s Guide
.

The Sun MediaCenter FTP daemon works with the most commonly-used MPEG
formats—MPEG-1 System Stream (

MPEG1SYS

) and MPEG-2 Transport Stream

(

MPEGTS

).

The following are circumstances in which you cannot use

ftp

to store content:

Your MPEG file is larger than 2.1 GB. Use

smc_tar

instead. With such large files,

you must create the correct

segment

clauses in the TOC file. See the description

of the TOC file in Appendix B. The 2.1 GB file size is a limitation of Solaris 2.4, not
the Sun MediaCenter server.

Your content is in a format other than

MPEG1SYS

or

MPEGTS

. If your stream is not

encoded in one of these formats, you must use

smc_tar

to load content.

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