Detecting if a live webcam is actually streaming

[slongbons]

I built a live webcam broadcaster and receiver using my Flashcom server and
[url]http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/flashcom/articles/broadcast_receiver.html[/url].

The webcam works fine. But I am having trouble detecting if a live video
stream is actually playing from my flashcom server. I am using the netstream
onstatus handler to check for "NetStream.Play.Start."

The problem is, even if the stream is not playing, or I enter garbage into
ns.play() I still get "Netstream.Play.Start" from the handler as long as there
is a valid net connection.

I want to show my users alternate content if the stream is not actually live.
Right now users just see a blank area if the stream is down.

Is there some other way to know if a stream is actually live from the flashcom
server? Perhaps there is some server code that I need?


Thanks!

[JayCharles]

There's a couple of ways to do it. I like to check the FPS of the video. If the FPS is zero for more than two seconds, then no video is playing.

[slongbons]

Argh, I should have thought of that. Works great though. Thank you very much for the response.