MP4 (H264) migrating from lighttpd to nginx

[Ondrej Jombik]

It is great that MP4 module came out. So we decided to migrate our video
streaming servers to nginx. In fact those are our last non-nginx
webservers (not counting IIS).

However we have some troubles. In our Flash player, MP4 video starts
play only after it is completelly loaded. I thought there is problem
with player, so I tried open-source flowplayer and it was the same.

So I thought that there is problem with nginx HTTP response. I compared
it completelly to lighttpd response, and made them exactly same. I even
changed the nginx server name to "lighttpd" (source recompilation was
needed), added headers like "X-Mod-H264-Streaming", but still no luck.

When serving video through lighttpd, it starts play immediately.
When serving through nginx, it starts play only after it is fully
loaded.

However requests for partial files like video.mp4?start=32.33 works well
with nginx. I think there is problem with initial request (the one
without "start" parameter).

I'm stuck. Any ideas what else should be checked?
Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

Ondrej

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Ondrej JOMBIK
Platon Technologies s.r.o., Hlavna 3, Sala SK-92701
+421 903 PLATON - info at platon.org - http://platon.org