Making a Debut with IPv6 Part2 Video Streaming with Web Camera

In this article, we'll try using Web camera to show video to the IPv6 Internet. You can do the same thing with IPv4. With Teredo, you don't have to change your router configuration to enable access to your Web camera from outside. Off course, you will have to take care of security issue. So we'll see how we can configure ICF (personal firewall), which is included in Advanced Networking Pack for Windows XP.


Preparing for Video Streaming

You need Web camera first (Figure 1). You may be able to get cheap Web camera for, say, 20 dollars. You should choose Web cameras that support Video for Windows, NetMeeting, or Yahoo Messenger. Almost all WEb cameras on the market today give such support. This time, I used a USB camera, although you can use more expensive IEEE1394 (FireWire) cameras or DV video cameras. Install a driver software for the camera you use.
You need software for video streaming, too. There are commercial software, but you can get Windows Media Encoder(WME) for free from Microsoft, and this software supports IPv6. We'll use this software here.


Figure 1 You need a Web camera

• Windows Media Encorder download

Installing WME is easy. Just execute WMEncoder.exe you have downloaded.

Let's see if your USB camera supports WME. Run WME. Choose "Broadcast a live event" (Figure 2). Connected USB camera should appear in the device option (Figure 3). If you can't find the name of your camera, check to see if device driver is properly installed. If you see two names as in Figure 3, choose wither of them. If you connected microphone, choose the appropriate device from audio option.

Click on Next, and you'll be able to choose broadcast method (Figure 4). In this article, we choose "Pull from the encoder". Click on Next and spefify the port used. Default port is 8080. You don't have to change this (Figure 5). In the same screen, you can see the URL for Internet connection and LAN. The URL for Internet connection uses IPv4 private address. Write down this address.

We'll then move to encode option. Default setting is 300Kbps CBR (constant bit rate). This is OK if your Internet connection is fast enough. But lower this rate if you find your video lags or stops intermittently.

You can do more configurations in later screens, but they are not required. Click on "finish". Then you'll see a dialog box explaining access limit. With WME, you can limit the number of concurrent clients and their addesses. But in this article, we'll use ICF for access control. Press OK and close the dialog box.

If your USB camera is properly connected, you can see the preview. Press "Start Encoding" and WME is ready for streaming. you can see the preview and stop button appears for terminating the session.


Figure 2 Choose "Broadcast a live event".


Figure 3 Choose the connected USB camera


Figure 4 Choose broadcast method


Figure 5 Specify the port to be used


Figure 6 Press "Start Encoding" and you are ready for video streaming


Try Video Streaming

Let's check if you can do video streaming. Run Windows Media Player on the same PC, Choose [File] > [Open URL], and input the URL for Internet connection (ex : http://192.168.1.4:8080). If your installation is successful, you'll see the video shown in Preview with some delay. You can hear the sound if you connected microphone.

Up until now, we haven't done any IPv6 configuration, but this server is ready for it. You can confirm that with the same Windows Media Player. Before that, we need to know IPv6 address of your PC. Open the command prompt and input "ipconfig", then you find several IPv6 addresses. Find "link local address", which begins with "(ex. fe80"fe80::240:45ff:fe04:39b). Try connecting to this address with Windows Media Player.

When you specify IPv6 address, you need to use angle bracket, as in http://[fe80::240:45ff:fe04:39b]:8080. If you succeed, you can see [fe80::240:45ff:fe04:39b]:8080 displayed. Your Windows Media Player shows the same image as IPv4 connection (Figure 8).



Figure 7 Find link-local address beginning with "fe80" for local area connection


Figure 8 Connection with IPv6. See the connection information.


Learn IPv6 ICF Configuration

When you have installed Advanced Networking Pack, your ICF allows outgoing connection (access to other PCs), but all incoming connections (access from other PCs) are prohibited (some ports for P2P communication are opened by exception). Therefore, the test we did with Windows Media Player fails if it is done from PCs other than the one WME is installed.

IPv4 ICF can be configured through GUI. But IPv6 ICF needs to be configured using "netsh" command at command prompt. You only need to add one line if you only want to open 8080 port to others.

C:\> netsh firewall set globalport 8080=enable protocol=tcp

This allows 8080 port access from outside. "globalport" in the above configuration specifies that it is common to all IPv6-enabled interfaces. For details, see Using Advanced Networking Pack for Windows XP Part2 IPv6 Firewall

With this configuration, other PCs can access this PC with IPv6. Other PCs include any PCs connected to IPv6 Internet, with or without Teredo (though it's not easy to use because you have to specify IPv6 address). 300Kbps streaming should be no problem within a LAN, but if you offer IPv6 connection through your ADSL line, using Teredo or 6to4, 150Kbps setting is recommended.

If you decide to close this port, input the following command:

C:\> netsh firewall set globalport 8080=disable

It is important to log connections dropped. For this, you would input:

C:\> netsh firewall show logging IPv6 Internet Connection Firewall log setting Succeeded connection: disabled Dropped packets: enabled File location: C:\WINDOWS\pfirewall-v6.log file-size: 4096 KB

This tells us that that log file is created in C:\WINDOWS\pfirewall-v6.log by default.


Next Topic is IIS

With WME and Windows Media Encoder being IPv6-enabled, video streaming on IPv6 is very easy.

In the next article, I will tell you how to show your Web pages to IPv6 network with IIS 5.0. If you are using Windows Server 2003 and IIS 6.0, all you need to do is to installing IIS and open port 80 at the prompt. If you use IIS 5.0, this version is not IPv6-enbled. Therefore, we'll use port forwarder, proxy, translation device and others that enable IPv4 application access from IPv6 hosts.

In the next time, I will talk about IPv6 Web access using dynamic DNS (DDNS). DDNS allows you to access your video with name. It should make you feel that IPv6 is useful indeed.

TIP for the month IF the PC running WME has multiple network interfaces, you cannot just specify IPv6 address and get connected. In this case, you need interface number as in http://[fe80::240:45ff:fe04:39b%4]:8080. IPv6 ICF rejects all incoming traffic, by default. You need to add configuration using netsh command. Misconfiguration using netsh command may be cumbersome, and you may not be able to even ping. In such cases, you may want to disable ICF itself". ICF configuration usually uses netsh command, but disabling ICF can be done through GUI. You run Windows Component Wizard at [Add or Delete Windows Component] in Add or Delete Programs. Then click on detail for Network Services, and deselect [IPv6 Internet Connection Firewall]. For enabling ICF, you can just select this checkbox. Disabling ICF enables you to conduct any communication. Please be careful when connecting to the Internet.