Adaptive/Multi Bitrate Streaming from multiple static files

Wowza Streaming Engine
1

Hi,

I’m trying to achieve a setup like this,

I have 2000+ video files (H.264 & AAC). I keep them as 1080p 19:6.

I’d like wowza transcoder or any other mechanism to generate 240p, 360p and 720p streams on the fly when they are requested.

(output streams are H.264 AAC too so I don’t need to transcode them I guess, only transrate will be ok )

I don’t want to physically keep lower resolution copies (Or should I? I have a quad core cpu, 18gb memory server. I think It’ll do well )

I want to generate SMIL files dynamically too in order to create adaptive bitrate streaming. But users should be able to keep it in 360p etc. (like in youtube)

I followed these tutorials;

https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-set-up-and-run-wowza-transcoder-for-live-streaming

https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-set-up-video-on-demand-streaming#ABR

I was able to stream original file, but no luck in streaming 360p version of it or ABR.

I keep getting errors like this in in wowza error logs:

HTTPProviderMediaList.onHTTPRequest: MediaList not found

When I go to this address on browser I get an empty smil like this:

http://server-ip:8086/medialist?streamname=gokart.mp4&application=application-name&format=smil

When I use the example /wowza-examples/SimpleVideoStreaming/ClientOSMF/bin-release/SimpleOSMFPlayer.swf

I get “Stream not found null” with

http://server-ip:8086/medialist?streamname=gokart.mp4_360p&application=application-name

Here is my application.xml conf:

http://pastie.org/5436529

I have transrate.xml as it is.

I have done authentication->none settings in VHost.xml

I’m on developer license key, do I need to get a license to use this feature of transcoder? I was planing to buy it after my development server runs fine.

If this is not possible I will have to generate lower profile videos and keep them physically. Than write a system to create smil files for them. I’m planning to use transcoding.com kind of service. But I’d really like to handle transrate operation on my server. If on-the-fly multi bitreate streaming isn’t available than can I use wowza transcoder to create phyical files?

Thank you.

2

Hi,

The Wowza transcoder is currently only designed use with live streams and not for video on demand.

You could set up something using the Stream class and feed that into the transcoder but the resulting streams would be live streams and would not be able to seek however, you could record them for later playback as adaptive bitrate vod.

You would set up a Stream class smil with a single VOD file in the playlist and with repeat set to false so it would not loop around.

https://www.wowza.com/forums/content.php?427-How-to-do-scheduled-streaming-with-Stream-class-streams-(application-module)

You would set the LiveStreamRecord to record just the transcoded streams and not the original stream which you already have. The transcoder passes through the original stream with a _source appended to the name. You may need to record this as well to keep everything synced.

https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-record-live-streams-httplivestreamrecord

The developer license should allow you to transcode 1 stream. It will be watermarked but it will allow you to test the setup. When you start Wowza, it should tell you in the logs how many transcoder sessions your license will allow you to run.

3

Thank you for your quick response.

Now my new plan is to generate lower profile videos using series of FFMPEG calls. As I need the seeking functionality of VOD. Can you suggest any linux utility to generate this & smil files? Do you thing FFMPEG is the right way?