Ubuntu Unleashed

Here is a little information about SopCast, below is the guide to get it set up.

SopCast is a simple, free way to broadcast video and audio or watch the video and listen to radio on the Internet. Adopting P2P(Peer-to-Peer) technology, It is very efficient and easy to use. Let anyone become a broadcaster without the costs of a powerful server and vast bandwidth. You can build your own TV stations comparable with large commercial sites with minimal resources. Using SopCast, you can serve 10,000 online users with a personal computer and a home broadband connection.

SoP is the abbreviation for Streaming over P2P. Sopcast is a Streaming Direct Broadcasting System based on P2P. The core is the communication protocol produced by Sopcast Team, which is named sop://, or Sop technology.

Features:

• State-of-the-art P2P technology. Share the data among all viewers, make the channel more available and stable.
• Minimal delay in the P2P streaming market.
• Fast buffering. 10-30seconds.
• Firewall and NAT traversal technology to pass 90% P2P barriers.
• Build your own channels and broadcast it over the Internet.
• Streaming real time streams. Support for many streaming transport protocol. mms, http, etc.
• Streaming media files. Many file types: asf, wmv, rm, rmvb, mp3, etc.
• Support for loop file playing.
• Extremely low memory footprint and CPU load
• Standard channel URL: click on any sop:// URL to play.
• Real time monitor of broadcasting source quality and network quality to help viewers to select a appropriate channel.
• Record the clips when you are watching it.
• Can play the stream with your favorite player, such as Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, VLC, etc.
• Memory buffering, no harm to the hard disk.
• Support for authentication for both the broadcasters and the viewers. The broadcaster has full control on his channels.
• End-to-End security, encrypted messages, hi level P2P security, no hijack.
• Support multiple channels broadcast on the same server. Normally, you can run 5-10 channels on one PC.
• The Sop Player can be embedded into a webpage or any software applications. It works just like Windows Media Player.
• The Sop Server and Sop Player can be run both on Windows and Linux. The whole system can be ported to embedded Linux.
• Freeware, not ad/spy ware

This guide will help you install sopcast on Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy. It will also help you get a special modified version of the GUI running and setup firefox to send sop:// links to the program.

Installing packages

Make sure you have all universe and multiverse repositories switched on. Then, in terminal:

sudo apt-get install qt3-apps-dev vlc build-essential

Downloading the latest SopCast binary

Link: Sopcast ix86 binary

Unzip it and cd into that directory using terminal. Then run:

sudo cp sp-sc-auth /usr/bin/sp-sc

Downloading and building the latest GUI

Download this specially modified source package. I have added URL handling.

Link: RKMOD version of QSopCast

Aga*in, unzip it and cd into that (src) directory using terminal. Then run

sudo qmake
sudo make
sudo make install


This should compile the source and install the binary into the correct location.

Creating a menu shortcut

Go to System / Preferences / Main Menu... then 'Internet' and 'Add New Item'. Give it the name "QSopCast" and command "qsopcast". You should now be able to launch from the main menu.

Setting up the GUI

Once the gui is open, goto config then config again. Make sure that the player settings are all set to "vlc" and that the channel URL is set to "http://www.sopcast.com/gchlxml"

You should now be able to watch sop casts by selecting a channel, launching it and then hitting player when the stream is at 100%

Firefox sop:// URLS

Go into firefox and enter URL: "about:config". Right click, select new and string. The string name is "network.protocol-handler.app.sop" and the value is "qsopcast". It should now send sops to the modified version of QSopCast ready to be launched.