# is this multicast or unicast? **URL:** \ **Category:** Wowza Streaming Engine\ **Created:** [November 25, 2013, 6:48pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/is-this-multicast-or-unicast/41637 "2013-11-25T18:48:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![haserdene\_batmunkh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a8b319/32.png) [@haserdene\_batmunkh](https://community.wowza.com/u/haserdene_batmunkh)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2013, 6:48pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/is-this-multicast-or-unicast/41637/1 "2013-11-25T18:48:02Z")
i hired someone to convert multicast streams from lan into unicast so that i can see the streams from a remote location using the internet. the stream is really choppy and i was given this address: [http://XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:1935/udp/224.1.5.4:4000](http://XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:1935/udp/224.1.5.4:4000) is it possible for unicast streams still have the “/udp/224.1.5.4:4000” part? or i’m still getting udp multicast over the internet, hence i have bad quality streams? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Lanham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c68b51/32.png) [@Richard\_Lanham](https://community.wowza.com/u/Richard_Lanham)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 3:36am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/is-this-multicast-or-unicast/41637/2 "2013-11-26T03:36:01Z")
Choppy playback is usually the result of a stream bitrate higher than client bandwidth, the throughput from Wowza to that client. Try a lower bitrate. The “224.1.5.4:4000”, which is the stream name part of that url, is unusual but can work if it is an alias. An mpegts or multicast source is usually contained in a .stream file, a text file in the /content folder containing that udp url. For example a file /content/mpegts.stream that contained the udp url of the stream. Then you use mpegts.stream as the stream name instead of a URL. This is [the basic mpeg-ts guide](https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-publish-and-play-a-live-stream-mpeg-ts-based-encoder%28MPEG-TS-based-encoder%29) The http url you show is not a complete playback URL that is supported by Wowza. For iOS playback it would have to be ```auto http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:1935/udp/224.1.5.4:4000/playlist.m3u8 ``` or Flash HTTP ```auto http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:1935/udp/224.1.5.4:4000/manifest.f4m ``` Wowza’s output in this case is unicast, whether the source is multicast or not. Richard ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Xander\_Romero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dfb087/32.png) [@Joe\_Xander\_Romero](https://community.wowza.com/u/Joe_Xander_Romero)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2013, 6:23am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/is-this-multicast-or-unicast/41637/3 "2013-11-26T06:23:47Z")
That looks like a typical udpxy address - and is unicast