# Countdown as Live stream **URL:** \ **Category:** Wowza Streaming Engine\ **Created:** [September 1, 2011, 12:57am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/countdown-as-live-stream/37218 "2011-09-01T00:57:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Christian\_Gerbrandt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Christian\_Gerbrandt](https://community.wowza.com/u/Christian_Gerbrandt)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 12:57am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/countdown-as-live-stream/37218/1 "2011-09-01T00:57:00Z")
Ok, I’m looking at some advice/ideas on how to approach/do the following. We are going to live broadcast an event in a few days. What I would like to do until then it have a Live stream running, showing a countdown until the event starts, with the name of the Event on top. Now I’m looking at ways on how to achieve this. I can do ffmpeg stream from the CLI (Linux server), but how would I create the source video file. Anyone done this before, or have any inputs on how this could be done? Thanks, Christian ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_OGara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@Jack\_OGara](https://community.wowza.com/u/Jack_OGara)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 3:17am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/countdown-as-live-stream/37218/2 "2011-09-01T03:17:09Z")
I did this by renting a VPS server off a mate for a few bucks and installing some lowend video streaming software, xSplit worked. And then made a count down in html and streamed that with it. Hope that helped. ---
**Author:** ![Andrew\_Kennedy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecb155/32.png) [@Andrew\_Kennedy](https://community.wowza.com/u/Andrew_Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2011, 1:18am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/countdown-as-live-stream/37218/3 "2011-09-09T01:18:53Z")
I am going to point out something, which you may not like to hear. Use technology that is appropriate for your case, making things extremely complicated because it is a ‘challenge’ really isnt the best use of your (or lets face it our) time. How about something simple, javascript see [http://www.shamrock.org.uk/](http://www.shamrock.org.uk/) which is a simple counter from the date in the javascript and counts up, you could with a small yet effective tweak make this count down from a date, is there a challenge there ? yours to determine. Shamrock. ---
**Author:** ![Randall\_Auriemma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85e7bf/32.png) [@Randall\_Auriemma](https://community.wowza.com/u/Randall_Auriemma)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2011, 11:45pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/countdown-as-live-stream/37218/4 "2011-08-31T23:45:17Z")
Hi derchris, Is it really necessary to stream the countdown? You could just put a .jpg picture of your player interface and use some Javascript to generate a countdown. ---
**Author:** ![Christian\_Gerbrandt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Christian\_Gerbrandt](https://community.wowza.com/u/Christian_Gerbrandt)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 3:35am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/countdown-as-live-stream/37218/5 "2011-09-01T03:35:19Z")
I played around a little since I posted here, and I’m very close to have this done. What I have at the moment: - bash script outputing days/hours/minutes left until given date - use the output and create a jpeg image of it - use that jpeg, and create a mjpeg of it - use the mjpeg, and convert to mp4 In theory I should be able to stream the mp4 to the server. I also have another solution which involves recording a VNC session, and convert that to mp4. Still trying to get it done from CLI, but might also look into xsplit. Any more suggestions? ---
**Author:** ![Christian\_Gerbrandt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Christian\_Gerbrandt](https://community.wowza.com/u/Christian_Gerbrandt)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 11:41am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/countdown-as-live-stream/37218/6 "2011-09-01T11:41:17Z")
I see it as a challenge. Can have a countdown on a webpage within seconds, true. But why not use the tech I have, and make it more interesting? The only problem I’m facing at the moment is the actual streaming part. I have an mp4, which plays fine on my PC with any media player, for the duration of 20 sec. Created it using the following ffmpeg command: ```auto ffmpeg -an -b 600000 -r 1 -i test%d.jpeg -vpre libx264-ultrafast -g 60 -f h264 -y -r 1 test.mp4 ``` I used 20 jpegs and set the frame rate to 1 which produced the 20 sec. mp4 file. Then I tried to stream it to Wowza with: ```auto ffmpeg -vcodec h264 -an -b 600000 -r 1 -i test.mp4 -vpre libx264-ultrafast -g 60 -f flv -r 1 rtmp://localhost/live/countdown ``` Which the server accepts. However, the ffmpeg is done right after I pressed the enter button. Looks like it is Ignoring the fact that it should be 1 FPS. Here is the output of ffmpeg: ```auto FFmpeg version SVN-r26402, Copyright (c) 2000-2011 the FFmpeg developers built on Jun 27 2011 03:21:53 with gcc 4.4.5 configuration: --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-librtmp --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libx264 --enable-nonfree --enable-gpl --enable-libfaac --enable-bzlib --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libfaac --enable-libxvid --enable-version3 libavutil 50.36. 0 / 50.36. 0 libavcore 0.16. 1 / 0.16. 1 libavcodec 52.108. 0 / 52.108. 0 libavformat 52.93. 0 / 52.93. 0 libavdevice 52. 2. 3 / 52. 2. 3 libavfilter 1.74. 0 / 1.74. 0 libswscale 0.12. 0 / 0.12. 0 [h264 @ 0x16ba5d0] max_analyze_duration reached [h264 @ 0x16ba5d0] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate Seems stream 0 codec frame rate differs from container frame rate: 2.00 (2/1) -> 1.00 (2/2) Input #0, h264, from 'test.mp4': Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A Stream #0.0: Video: h264, yuv420p, 480x160 [PAR 1:1 DAR 3:1], 1 fps, 1 tbr, 1200k tbn, 2 tbc [buffer @ 0x174aa50] w:480 h:160 pixfmt:yuv420p Output #0, flv, to 'rtmp://localhost/live/countdown': Metadata: encoder : Lavf52.93.0 Stream #0.0: Video: flv, yuv420p, 480x160 [PAR 1:1 DAR 3:1], q=10-51, 600 kb/s, 1k tbn, 1 tbc Stream mapping: Stream #0.0 -> #0.0 Press [q] to stop encoding frame= 20 fps= 0 q=2.0 Lsize= 44kB time=20.00 bitrate= 18.2kbits/s video:44kB audio:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 1.220191% ``` Here is another try with output encoder set to h264: ```auto FFmpeg version SVN-r26402, Copyright (c) 2000-2011 the FFmpeg developers built on Jun 27 2011 03:21:53 with gcc 4.4.5 configuration: --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-librtmp --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libx264 --enable-nonfree --enable-gpl --enable-libfaac --enable-bzlib --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libfaac --enable-libxvid --enable-version3 libavutil 50.36. 0 / 50.36. 0 libavcore 0.16. 1 / 0.16. 1 libavcodec 52.108. 0 / 52.108. 0 libavformat 52.93. 0 / 52.93. 0 libavdevice 52. 2. 3 / 52. 2. 3 libavfilter 1.74. 0 / 1.74. 0 libswscale 0.12. 0 / 0.12. 0 [h264 @ 0x2cf85d0] max_analyze_duration reached [h264 @ 0x2cf85d0] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate Seems stream 0 codec frame rate differs from container frame rate: 2.00 (2/1) -> 1.00 (2/2) Input #0, h264, from 'test.mp4': Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A Stream #0.0: Video: h264, yuv420p, 480x160 [PAR 1:1 DAR 3:1], 1 fps, 1 tbr, 1200k tbn, 2 tbc [buffer @ 0x2d850b0] w:480 h:160 pixfmt:yuv420p [libx264 @ 0x2cfa8c0] using SAR=1/1 [libx264 @ 0x2cfa8c0] using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 FastShuffle SSE4.2 [libx264 @ 0x2cfa8c0] profile Constrained Baseline, level 2.0 Output #0, h264, to 'rtmp://localhost/live/countdown': Metadata: encoder : Lavf52.93.0 Stream #0.0: Video: libx264, yuv420p, 480x160 [PAR 1:1 DAR 3:1], q=10-51, 600 kb/s, 90k tbn, 1 tbc Stream mapping: Stream #0.0 -> #0.0 Press [q] to stop encoding frame= 20 fps= 0 q=-1.0 Lsize= 26kB time=20.00 bitrate= 10.8kbits/s video:26kB audio:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.000000% frame I:1 Avg QP:10.00 size: 11896 [libx264 @ 0x2cfa8c0] frame P:19 Avg QP:10.00 size: 800 [libx264 @ 0x2cfa8c0] mb I I16..4: 74.3% 0.0% 25.7% [libx264 @ 0x2cfa8c0] mb P I16..4: 0.4% 0.0% 0.0% P16..4: 7.4% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% skip:92.2% [libx264 @ 0x2cfa8c0] final ratefactor: -13.90 [libx264 @ 0x2cfa8c0] coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 28.5% 0.0% 0.0% inter: 4.2% 0.0% 0.0% [libx264 @ 0x2cfa8c0] i16 v,h,dc,p: 70% 18% 12% 0% [libx264 @ 0x2cfa8c0] i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 24% 38% 12% 2% 9% 3% 5% 2% 6% [libx264 @ 0x2cfa8c0] i8c dc,h,v,p: 100% 0% 0% 0% [libx264 @ 0x2cfa8c0] kb/s:10.84 ``` Which also gives me the following errors in the server log: ```auto INFO session connect-pending 127.0.0.1 - INFO session connect 127.0.0.1 - INFO stream create - - INFO stream publish countdown - ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - AMFDataObj.deserialize[25:10]: java.nio.BufferUnderflowException java.nio.BufferUnderflowException at java.nio.HeapByteBuffer.get(HeapByteBuffer.java:127) at java.nio.ByteBuffer.get(ByteBuffer.java:675) at com.wowza.wms.amf.AMFDataObj.deserialize(Unknown Source) at com.wowza.wms.amf.AMFDataObj.(Unknown Source) at com.wowza.wms.amf.AMFData.deserializeInnerObject(Unknown Source) at com.wowza.wms.amf.AMFDataList.deserialize(Unknown Source) at com.wowza.wms.amf.AMFDataList.(Unknown Source) at com.wowza.wms.request.RequestFunction.getMessage(Unknown Source) at com.wowza.wms.request.RequestProcessFunctions.processFunctions(Unknown Source) at com.wowza.wms.client.ClientWorker.processNextReq(Unknown Source) at com.wowza.wms.request.RTMPRequestAdapter.service(Unknown Source) at com.wowza.wms.server.ServerHandler.serviceRequest(Unknown Source) at com.wowza.wms.server.ServerHandler.handleMessageReceived(Unknown Source) at com.wowza.wms.server.ServerHandler.messageReceived(Unknown Source) at com.wowza.wms.server.ServerHandlerThreadedSession.run(Unknown Source) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:886) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:908) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662) ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: ERROR server comment - Zero sized function (client:1748301645:unknown): type:20 size:0: INFO stream unpublish countdown - INFO stream destroy countdown - INFO session disconnect 1748301645 - ``` Anyone know how I can get ffmpeg to stream for the entire duration of the file, which should be 20 sec. ?