pseudo streaming mp4 (byte range requests)

Wowza Streaming Engine
1

Hi!

I would like to know if it’s possible to do http byte range requests to acces a mp4 video with wowza. I would like to do pseudo streaming (byte range request) for my vod. No rtmp/hls/rtsp fallbacks. Only one feed, a mp4 file, which will be played with a HTML5 player. http range requests will allow for fast start and seeking whitout downloading the whole file.

I can’t figure out the url. I tried something like

http:///vod/mp4:.mp4 or http:///vod/.mp4

The response i get is always :

Wowza Media Server 3 Perpetual Edition 3.1.1 build1479

Thanks for your help

2

Hello there and welcome to the Wowza support forum.

I am not 100% sure what you are asking here but I will do my best.

First, it sounds like you are entering the URL into the browser, you will need to use a player. See the [install-dir]/examples for players provided by Wowza. Or an HTML file with a

Second, Wowza does not support progressive download(pseudo streaming). You will need a web server for that.

It may be that this guide will provide the functionality you are looking for:

How to specify a play start time and duration for HTTP streaming

Kind regards,

Salvadore

3

Hi,

We are using Wowza for rtmp-streaming and a nginx with the mp4-module for http pseudo streaming. As pseudo streaming is a good solution for most of our problems more and more of our content is served by nginx it is only a question of time when we switch off rmtp - and therefore won´t need Wowza any more.

I would like to stay with wowza (and I don´t want to recompile my nginx everytime for every update), so is there any hope for a simple integration of pseudo streaming by Wowza in the near future?

Pseudo streaming works for nearly every device with nearly every browser without the need for additional players just by using the video tag. Ok, content protection ist not possible, but for most usecases it is not nescessary either. I think we are not the only ones considering this as a future solution for our videos, so I hope that you implement pseudo streaming - it can´t be so difficult?

thank,

Treb

4

Hi Salavadore,

thanks for your answer!

Content Security: Streaming is inherently more secure than PD since streaming allows only a small amount of the video in memory at any given time. SecureToken, RTMPE and other content security methodologies available in Wowza further enhance content security.

Security is not a big issue for us. And to be honest: It is not possible to secure the videos. Everybody can grab the videos easily with a screen grabber.

Bandwidth Savings: Streaming is throttled so that less bandwidth is used for videos that are abandoned (viewer does not watch the whole video). The amount of savings can vary widely depending upon abandonment habits, seek habits, replay, content duration, etc…

You can also control bandwitdh with pseudo streaming, for example with the amount of buffering set in the nginx config or with the bandwidth switcher of jw player

Viewer Experience: Seek experience, jumping ahead/back on longer video (anything more than 5-7 minutes), is greatly enhanced.

There is no difference between pseudo streaming and real streaming in my opinion for this. Have you ever had issuses with this while watching a YouTube-video? They use pseudo streaming as well.

Paid Content: business models such as pay per minute are much easier implemented with streaming.

This ist not relevant for us.

Live Video/Chat/Recording: all require streaming.

This ist not important for us.

…

I understand that “real” streaming has its advantages - therefore I would like to stay for some tasks still with streaming. But pseudo streaming has its advantages as well, especially with mobile devices.

Therefore I would like to repeat my wish: Please enhance Wowza with a pseudo streamer so I can use whatever I want without the need for maintaining two server infrastructures.

Thanks,

Treb

5

JF-

Great discussion here. Thank you for participating in our support community.

It sounds like you need a solution for easily staging VOD assets for delivery to web connected clients. Implementing Wowza, even without adaptive bit rate delivery, will lay a robust foundation for your current and expanded requirements to scale. In other words, leveraging Wowza now will enable the workflow to scale efficiently.

Delivering to HTML5 is not a problem. We provide the HTTP streams necessary to support the workflow. You will discover that not all browsers support HTML5 playback in a standard fashion. This is why we recomend player technologies, like JW Player, which do an excellent job providing a framework that supports both Flash and HTML5 platforms, including most mobile device configurations.

Another excellent option for VOD is our MediaCache module. “Media Cache is a read-through caching mechanism built-in with Wowza Streaming Engine™ software that increases the scalability of video on demand (VOD) streaming for your media server configuration. This article provides information about configuring the Media Cache feature in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager in production environments. It describes the default configuration on the server and how to change where content is stored and retrieved when using Media Cache.” More here:

How to scale video on demand streaming with Media Cache

Using MediaCache, which is included, free of charge, with Wowza Streaming Engine, you will be able to host your files in a single location, on your web server. No need to stage files in a local folder, on your streaming server. Add to that, the media will be “cached” on the streaming server for high demand delivery of clips, as they are requested. The net benefit is faster delivery of active, streaming VOD assets and easy staging of files. It’s an excellent consideration for a person like you who are delivering VOD.

Of course, using Wowza Streaming Engine provides you with the performance and flexibility to serve your end users with the stream they need for their device.

You may already have an understanding of our product. Regardless, here are some general resources to help you gain a better understanding of what Wowza offers:

Wowza Streaming Engine Overview

On-Demand Overview

If you have more questions about our product offering, please feel free to ask here or drop us an email at sales@wowza.com.

Regards,

-Tim Dougherty

Wowza Solution Engineering

6

The main problem with HTML 5 is browser support.

Wowza provides the currently popular HTTP stream types: HLS, HDS, Smooth streaming and MPEG-DASH.

The biggest issue is that the majority of browsers do not support any of these in their own bulit-in html5 players.

You can check out a good report on the state of HTML5 here, that includes and Adaptive Streaming section at the end.

You’ll see that Safari is still the only one that fully supports Adaptive Streaming, and yes it is HLS. Though, as you’ll see, Chrome is adding some new extensions.

Your best current option is to use an embedded player:

JW Player

Video.js

Alternatively, here is a sample that will work in iOS and Mac OSx:

<head> 
  <title>Cupertino Streaming</title>
</head>
<body>
<video controls src="http://[wowza-address]:1935/vod/sample.mp4/playlist.m3u8">
</video>
</body>
</html>

Kind regards,

Salvadore

7

Hello Treb.

Wowza provides many advantages over progressive download (pseudo streaming). If you need any of the following functionality then Wowza would be a good solution:

Content Security: Streaming is inherently more secure than PD since streaming allows only a small amount of the video in memory at any given time. SecureToken, RTMPE and other content security methodologies available in Wowza further enhance content security.

Bandwidth Savings: Streaming is throttled so that less bandwidth is used for videos that are abandoned (viewer does not watch the whole video). The amount of savings can vary widely depending upon abandonment habits, seek habits, replay, content duration, etc…

Viewer Experience: Seek experience, jumping ahead/back on longer video (anything more than 5-7 minutes), is greatly enhanced.

Paid Content: business models such as pay per minute are much easier implemented with streaming.

Live Video/Chat/Recording: all require streaming.

As well as monitoring and reporting, ease of management, adaptive bit rate streaming, etc. The list could go on and on.

Kind regards,

Salvadore

8

Folks, I wanted to update this thread to inform you all that I have sent your request to the Wowza staff as a feature request.

The Wowza staff will review this request and take it into consideration for possible future implementation.

Thank you for expressing your interests, needs and perspectives on this subject.

kind regards,

Salvadore

9

Thx for you answer.

I tried with a video tag and it’s still not working

I know a web server can do what I want to do. But we have a lot of big videos on this wowza server and I figured, if wowza support pseudo streaming (which I thougth was pretty simple compared to the other streaming functionality) I would not have to move all the files to a web server. It would allow our clients to use a html5 player with pseudo streaming if they don’t like Flash and rtmp.

Thanks!

JF

10

Do you know why wowza does not support pseudo streaming ? Since it supports all the other type of http streaming.

We are not doing adaptive streaming right now, so pseudo streaming would be a simple way to publish our videos. Most browsers and mobile devices would be able to play them without Flash.

Thank you for your help.

JF

11

Thank for you great and detailed answer.

So if I understand correctly, if I want to acces a video file directly via HTTP (with byte range request or not) I need to implement a Media Cache ? If not, can you provide me an URL exemple (we already have a wowza server).

Thank you.

JF

PS : sorry about my english, it’s not my first language.

12

Same thing for us. We would like to use wowza for both regular streaming and pseudo streaming.

Thanks,

JF