GEneral questions

Wowza Streaming Engine
1

Hello everybody,

I am kind of new in the streaming world, I’ve been using wirecast to stream to youtube but now I’d like to have a private channel and Wowza seems to be the right choice though I have some questions.

  1. What’s the difference between the Engine and cloud?.

  2. About the instances, if I pay one (I think it’s 64 dollars) Does it means that I can connect one computer to it, does it also means that I can connect it only once in a month? Or can I stream 100 times in a month for the same price?. Maybe stream to Wowza and youtube or fb at the same time?

  3. Does Wowza has limiter air time (viewed minutes).

  4. Does Wowza adds advertisement? (Kind like ustream does after your minutes expire).

Thank you very mnuch for your time.

Camilo.

2

Hello there and welcome to the Wowza support forum.

1: Wowza Streaming Engine has to be installed on a physical server somewhere, either a remote or local server. Wowza Cloud is a service you subscribe to. You can find out more about Wowza Cloud here.

Also take a look a the pricing guide here

2: There are no limits(that I am aware of) for connections with a monthly subscription. The limiting factor is usually bandwidth. There are also no limits to the number of applications (Live or VOD apps, etc) per instance. You may want to double check specifics with sales@wowza.com

3: There are no limits for how long a stream is active, nor are there limits to how many streams/viewers other than bandwidth.

4: No, Wowza does not place ads. If you are running a free trial then the Transcoder does add an audio/video watermark to the transcoded stream

I hope this answers your questions.

Best,

Salvadore

3

Yes, as long as the machine has the resources to handle the workload you can run Wowza and Wirecast on the same machine.

Wowza recommends a late model dual quad CPU, 4 - 8 gigs of RAM, and at least 1gbs nic.

You can setup Adaptive bitrate streaming and let the client(player) determine the best resolution to play based on network connection:

How to do adaptive bitrate streaming

You can set up Google analytics for your Wowza server:

How to send connection and stream statistics to Google Analytics (ModuleAnalytics)

Best,

Salvadore

4

No, you do not need to pay for a player. You do need the enterprise edition of JW Player to play HLS streams(Apple iOS) I believe.

But you can play the stream directly from an iOS device as long as you have the application configured for iOS:

How to set up live streaming using an RTMP-based encoder

Regards,

Salvadore

5

You’re welcome. Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Regards,

Salvadore

6

Hello Salvadore,

Thank you very very much for your answer it clarifies a lot!

About the server, can I just have it installed in the same computer as wirecast? Or do I have to have it in a separated computer?

Another simple question, does wowza has analitycs like the one from youtube?

Thank you very much once again.

7

That’s great to know!!

I’ve been watching a wowza webinar, and they say that the can transrate to different bitrate (to apple and the rest), but they also say that I need jwplayer enterprise to be able to do it. Doesn’t wowza have it’s own player? Do I have to pay for an external one?

8

Thank you very much for your help.