Android Video Streaming - Device supported?

Question

Ok. So there are a bagillion different Android devices. I have a video streaming service, works wonderfully for iOS. My app has a live video feature and a saved video clip playback feature (which streams to the device too). I've run some tests on different Android devices and get a whole bunch of different playback results. I am using a 640x480 h.264 base profile video. Streaming that video works only on some devices. For other devices, that same video stream can be made to stream at low resolution and that works on some devices, but still not others. The high profile streaming goes through http://www.wowzamedia.com/ (rtsp) and doesn't work on any Android device (but works on iPhone). The lowest and worst option is Motion JPEG, which works on all tested devices so far.

So my question is, how can I figure out (without having to test every device out on the market) if the device will play: 640x480 h.264 base profile - if that wont work then play the low resolution video - if that doesn't work, default to Motion JPEG.

Also, any idea why my rtsp transcoded through wowza works on the iPhone but not on any Android device (not even the Motorola Atrix)?

Answer 1

Streaming on android is an absolute mess. Most devices don't support anything higher than Baseline 3.0. If you encode for iPhone 3, it should generally work via RTSP. Newer versions of android support HLS, but it's hit or miss and largely dependent on specific devices.