MagicSoft Playout ver 7.6

MagicSoft Recorder ver 7.6 was released having a new streaming engine.

The supported resolutions are :

SD / HD 720p / HD1080i / HD 1080p / 4K ( from 23.98 to 60 fps )

The supported streaming protocols :

- RTMP ( YouTube /Wowza /Dacast etc )

- RTMPS ( ex : FaceBook )

- UDP ( unicast and multicast using H264 with AAC, AC3 or MP2)

There is also support for CPU or nVidia acceleration.

REF: https://www.magicsoft.tv/news.html

Introducing Roku OS 8

REF: https://sdkdocs.roku.com/display/sdkdoc/Roku+OS+Release+Notes

Stream paulse for stream monitoring

After months of research I have found only one way it can be done.

1. You will need a program called Steam Pulse: http://streampulse.net. Try the 30 day trial. Install it according to there directions. (Do not install it on the wowza server. It should be on some other box that can access the wowza stream.) I will call this your Monitoring machine. You will have to open up your firewall so that your prtg server can access the Monitoring machine.

2. Test the monitoring machine using any web browser. Enter your stream pulse command. It will look something like this:

http://MonitoringMachineIP:5052/check?url=rtmp://YourWowzaServer.com:1935/live/streamename.stream&time=30

After about 30 seconds it should return a value similar to this:

[200] OK - Flash media is still playing OK. BufferLength: [0.001]; BufferTime: [0]; BytesLoaded: [0]; BytesTotal: [0]; CanSeek: [true]; CurrentTime: [25.85]; Duration: [NaN]; DynamicStreamSwitching: [false]; HasAudio: [true]; HasDRM: [false]; IsDynamicStream: [false]; Loop: [false]; MediaHeight: [368]; MediaWidth: [640]; NumDynamicStreams: [0]; State: [playing];

3. Next we setup the PRTG Sensor. The type of sensor you need is the HTTP Content Sensor. For best results set the timeout to 120. Insert the stream pulse test command in the script url. I recommend that you set the interval for at least 15 minutes. Under number of channels I put 5. It returns 16 or 17 values but PRTG will ignore the text values anyway, so I just picked up the first 5.

There you have it. You can similarly use StreamChecker (another product by the same company) to monitor Windows Media Streams.

Note: The guys over at StreamPulse worked with me to get this working. They even modified the output of the StreamChecker and StreamPulse in order for it to work. So, Kudos to them!

REF: https://kb.paessler.com/en/topic/8733-how-do-i-monitor-a-video-stream-rtmp-via-wowza

How to use IMediaStreamActionNotify2 to monitor live streams

The following module monitors live streams that are published to an application and broadcasts information to the connected Flash clients every 10 seconds. The Flash clients can be configured to respond to these broadcasts either to monitor the stream health or to play the stream.

A compiled version of this module is included in the Wowza Module Collection.

REF: https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-use-imediastreamactionnotify2-to-monitor-live-streams-modulestreamwatchdog

adobe FME encoder

FME can encode pretty stable rtmp stream for server side to relay, which should be top one choice of free encoder.

OTT infra

setting up an OTT infra could be pretty software-defined. therefore we may call it SDO : )

1. Ingest (Decoding) & Transcoding. the compute part, using ffmpeg to input or convert to suitable unified formats such as mp4 or rtmp or hls streams, then send to relay.
2. Relay. the storage part, using centralized relaying service as 'video pooling' for further distribution.
3. Encoding, the compute part again, using ffmpeg to send Live rtmp to vendors such as YouTube, Facebook. Or simply hosting nginx for VOD.
4. Controller, the SSO and DB part, could simply be an OS console.

Facebook Live, Part 2

Facebook Live 終於上線啦! 有些眉角需要注意。

• 一篇貼文的RTMP url只能用一次! 嘗試連第二次會error，貼文得換一篇。算是一種安全機制吧，避免[蓋台」。
• video profile沒有嚴格限制，比起YouTube Live 寬鬆，High profile也跑得不錯。但有上述連一次限制，rtmp穩定度就很重要，得確保訊號源很穩，不然卡頓時，你是不能換訊號的。
• YouTube的容許度就大一些，只有初始連結比較要求。

H.264 baseline

H.264 baseline有一陣子沒用了，因為平均設備的運算都挺強，處理HIgh profile基本沒大問題。然而，在穩定度很critical例如訊號轉接，發現baseline這種低功耗做法，確實讓穩定度提升。

REF: https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Encode/H.264.

If you want your videos to have highest compatibility with target devices (older iOS versions or all Android devices):

-profile:v baseline -level 3.0

This disables some advanced features but provides for better compatibility. Typically you may not need this setting (and therefore avoid using -profile:vand -level), but if you do use this setting it may increase the bit rate quite a bit compared to what is needed to achieve the same quality in higher profiles.

iOS

iOS Compatability (​source)
Profile	Level	Devices	Options
Baseline	3.0	All devices	-profile:v baseline -level 3.0
Baseline	3.1	iPhone 3G and later, iPod touch 2nd generation and later	-profile:v baseline -level 3.1
Main	3.1	iPad (all versions), Apple TV 2 and later, iPhone 4 and later	-profile:v main -level 3.1
Main	4.0	Apple TV 3 and later, iPad 2 and later, iPhone 4s and later	-profile:v main -level 4.0
High	4.0	Apple TV 3 and later, iPad 2 and later, iPhone 4s and later	-profile:v high -level 4.0
High	4.1	iPad 2 and later, iPhone 4s and later, iPhone 5c and later	-profile:v high -level 4.1
High	4.2	iPad Air and later, iPhone 5s and later	-profile:v high -level 4.2

RTMP authentication for Wowza Media

http://www.wowza.com/forums/content.php?115

1. add the following definitions as the last entries in the
list:


ModuleRTMPAuthenticate
ModuleRTMPAuthenticate
com.wowza.wms.plugin.security.ModuleRTMPAuthenticate


2. restart the service

3. Add a username and password entry into the  file:

“[install-dir]/conf/publish.password”

for each user to which you want to grant publishing access.