Audio stream, lossless

Wowza Streaming Engine
1

Hello everybody,

Is it possible to stream lossless audio (from flac files) with Wowza Media Server ? (on demand stream, audio only).

(sorry if i’m posting in the wrong section)

Thanks in advance,

Phil

2

Wowza does not support any of the lossless audio codecs. We support mp3 and aac along with a few others for flash streaming.

Charlie

3

Actually, it is mostly because the players we support do not support any of the lossles codecs. The main players we support are: Flash, Silverlight, iOS, Android and Blackberry. The common audio codecs to reach these players are AAC and MP3.

Charlie

4

Hi schnittlich,

Well, I can’t really speak for Charlie, but I think the reason is that lossless uses too much bandwidth. A 44khz 16bit stereo .wav file would be 44,000 * 16 * 2 = 1,408,000bps. Most use cases call for compression.

5

Hi brett,

If you want to discuss features/requests/etc outside of the forums, sending an email to info@wowza.com is your best bet.

6

charlie,

a follow up to your response:

  1. is there a technical reason why you do not support lossless audio (either flac or alac)?

  2. if the answer to the above is no (in other words, it’s a business decision not tech limitation), is it either:

  • something on your development road map, or

  • a feature you might consider implementing in collaboration with a partner?

thanks in advance for your assistance.

brett

7

hi randall,

thanks for you comments.

we have a specific application where it would require the streaming of lossless audio, preferably alac (apple lossless), but flac could work as well.

brett

8

charlie,

thanks again for your reply.

we have been doing some experimentation, and have successfully “streamed” an alac (apple lossless…which is stored within an mp4 container) file via progressive download to ios (which is our target device) without issue. but, the economics of our application would be much better served if we could utilize a true streaming server instead of the brute force progressive download methodology. and all research points to wowza as the leader in the streaming server space!!!

would it be possible to speak directly? if so, please ping me via private message and we can exchange contact info.

regards,

brett