# VOD Adaptive ABR Streaming (with JWPlayer) needs to edit the SMIL File?

**URL:** <https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151>\
**Category:** Wowza Streaming Engine\
**Tags:** media-players-and-devices\
**Created:** [February 19, 2014, 3:31pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151 "2014-02-19T15:31:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Arkar\_WINN\_MINN\_HTWE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@Arkar\_WINN\_MINN\_HTWE](https://community.wowza.com/u/Arkar_WINN_MINN_HTWE)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 3:31pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/1 "2014-02-19T15:31:02Z")

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I’m with New Version of WowzaStreamingEngine (v4) and followed every steps in VOD/ABR Setup Guide.

**VOD ABR SETUP + EXAMPLE PLAYER (WOWZA MANUAL)**

Followed the Wowza Manual from [here](https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-do-adaptive-bitrate-streaming). So if i’m still not mistaken at any steps, we’ll finally get following things:

- Multiple Bitrate .mp4 Files inside “/content” Folder.

- **A “bigbuckbunny.smil” file created inside “/content” Folder. (Suggested by Wowza to create it)**

- Then (with the Wowza Example Flash Player) we get the ABR Working, with the Stream like: [http://xx.xx.xx.xx:1935/vod/smil:bigbuckbunny.smil/manifest.f4m](http://xx.xx.xx.xx:1935/vod/smil:bigbuckbunny.smil/manifest.f4m)

- Are all my steps above even CORRECTLY DONE as supposed to?

- If yes, is this SMIL file problem is the common for all? (When we want something like this with JWPlayer)

- Then should i always put a COPY of Wowza-suggested SMIL file, and then edit it to put the Value inside?

- (OR) What is the another more proper approach to achieve this (VOD ABR) please?

- Best regards,

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Roger\_Littin1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c89c15/32.png) [@Roger\_Littin1](https://community.wowza.com/u/Roger_Littin1)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 9:12pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/2 "2014-02-19T21:12:14Z")

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Hi Arkar,

To be able to select the different bitrates manually in JW player, you need to provide width & height information in the smil file. Jw player uses this to build the menu and determine the bitrate to start with based on the player size. The smil file examples on the page you linked to do not show this which is an oversight on our part however the directions for creating a smil file in the Manager do show the steps for adding width & height information.

To do RTMP ABR playback in JW Player, you do need a meta tag.

Wowza has a specific url that you can use in the player that will dynamically create the correct smil file for jw player with the correct meta tag included. It does so by reading your original smil file and returning a JW Player specific file. There are a few other minor differences between the smil file used for HTTP streaming and that used by JW player which is automatically handled.

In your player code, use the following for the file setting.

```auto
http://<wowza-ip>:1935/vod/smil:bigbuckbunny.smil/[B]jwplayer.smil[/B]

```

Roger.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mark\_Shueard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/49beb7/32.png) [@Mark\_Shueard](https://community.wowza.com/u/Mark_Shueard)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:05pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/3 "2014-02-19T17:05:37Z")

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In my tests with Wowza 3.6 I could use the SMIL with meta base tag or with full paths in file name, it did not matter. So , maybe V 4 is different?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Roger\_Littin1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c89c15/32.png) [@Roger\_Littin1](https://community.wowza.com/u/Roger_Littin1)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 9:16pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/4 "2014-02-19T21:16:39Z")

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Hi Arkar,

I see from the smil file that you have posted that you do have the width setting which the player needs. The other reason the menu item may not be showing is if the player is falling back to HTML5 playback. JW Player does not add the menu to the native HTML5 player to be able to manually select bitrates.

Roger.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Roger\_Littin1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c89c15/32.png) [@Roger\_Littin1](https://community.wowza.com/u/Roger_Littin1)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 9:22pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/5 "2014-02-19T21:22:01Z")

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> I was after the SMIL you were trying without the meta base… if you just removed the meta base then you would not have full paths to the files… you would need to be rtmp://etc etc for every file in the SMIL

This is not correct and will not work…

Please do try to post accurate information if you are going to try to assist other users.

The correct way is to use the built in jwplayer.smil url,

```auto
http://<wowza-ip:1935/vod/smil:bigbuckbunny.smil/[B]jwplayer.smil[/B]

```

Roger.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Roger\_Littin1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c89c15/32.png) [@Roger\_Littin1](https://community.wowza.com/u/Roger_Littin1)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 9:44pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/6 "2014-02-19T21:44:32Z")

</div>

Hi Arkar,

Good to hear that you got it sorted out.

Yes, it means that you won’t have to create custom smil files for jw player again. You will still need to create the original smil file that is used fro HTTP streaming and to generate the jwplayer.smil.

Our documentation received a major overhaul last week with the release of Wowza StreamingEngine and some things may have been misplaced. For this, please accept our apologies and be sure that our documentation team is working hard to make sure everything ends up in the right place where it can be found easily.

This article, [How to use LongTail JW Player with adaptive bitrate streaming from Wowza Media Server](https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-use-jw-player-with-adaptive-bitrate-streaming-from-wowza-streaming-engine) provides the information about using the **jwplayer.smil** url (and **jwplayer.rss** url for JW PLayer 5).

Please let us know if you are stuck anywhere else.

Roger.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Roger\_Littin1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c89c15/32.png) [@Roger\_Littin1](https://community.wowza.com/u/Roger_Littin1)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 9:55pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/7 "2014-02-19T21:55:24Z")

</div>

Please show me the jw player configuration you are using for this. You are most likely **not doing** RTMP ABR playback.

Roger.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Roger\_Littin1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c89c15/32.png) [@Roger\_Littin1](https://community.wowza.com/u/Roger_Littin1)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 10:09pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/8 "2014-02-19T22:09:18Z")

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Hi,

If you care to look at the following url, which you are using in your player, you will se that the meta tag had been added automatically.

```auto
http://54.206.40.122/live/smil:livestream.smil/jwplayer.smil

```

This is the output from the above url

```auto
<smil>
	<head>
		[B]<meta base="rtmp://54.206.40.122/live/_definst_" />[/B]
	</head>
	<body>
		<switch>
			<video src="mp4:livestream_source" system-bitrate="1000000"/>
			<video src="mp4:livestream_240p" system-bitrate="350000"/>
			<video src="mp4:livestream_160p" system-bitrate="200000"/>
		</switch>
	</body>
</smil>

```

This is the jwplayer.smil url that I was refering to in my other posts.

You are corect that you do not need the meta tag in the smil files that you create to use within Wowza but you are incorrect in your assumption that JW Player does not need the meta tag in order to playback RTMP ABR.

In order for the player to display a switching menu with video sizes rather than bitrates, you need to add width info to your origin smil file.

Roger.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Roger\_Littin1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c89c15/32.png) [@Roger\_Littin1](https://community.wowza.com/u/Roger_Littin1)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 10:16pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/9 "2014-02-19T22:16:31Z")

</div>

> Was talking about the SMIL contents, not the path to the SMIL

So was I.

Adding the rtmp address to each video rendition in the smil file will not work for ABR.

Roger.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Roger\_Littin1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c89c15/32.png) [@Roger\_Littin1](https://community.wowza.com/u/Roger_Littin1)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 10:22pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/10 "2014-02-19T22:22:08Z")

</div>

> we were talking about if the user made his own SMIL file. The SMIL I uploaded did not include metabase.

Yes, and that smil file will not work directly in the player because the smil file that the player reads (either generated by Wowza or created by the end user) needs the meta tag.

The OP was asking about the smil file that they use in the player, not the one that Wowza uses internally. These are 2 different items.

Roger.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mark\_Shueard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/49beb7/32.png) [@Mark\_Shueard](https://community.wowza.com/u/Mark_Shueard)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:20pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/11 "2014-02-19T17:20:57Z")

</div>

I understand what you are saying. I just don’t believe JW Player requires the meta base tag as I have used a SMIL without it.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mark\_Shueard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/49beb7/32.png) [@Mark\_Shueard](https://community.wowza.com/u/Mark_Shueard)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:38pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/12 "2014-02-19T17:38:38Z")

</div>

What I see in that manual is a sample that might make it easier- I do not see anywhere it says you “must” use meta base tag. Like I said, I have used success without meta base tag and Wowza 3.6.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mark\_Shueard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/49beb7/32.png) [@Mark\_Shueard](https://community.wowza.com/u/Mark_Shueard)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:45pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/13 "2014-02-19T17:45:20Z")

</div>

Lets see your SMIL code without metabase?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mark\_Shueard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/49beb7/32.png) [@Mark\_Shueard](https://community.wowza.com/u/Mark_Shueard)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 6:36pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/14 "2014-02-19T18:36:13Z")

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I was after the SMIL you were trying without the meta base… if you just removed the meta base then you would not have full paths to the files… you would need to be rtmp://etc etc for every file in the SMIL

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mark\_Shueard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/49beb7/32.png) [@Mark\_Shueard](https://community.wowza.com/u/Mark_Shueard)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 7:20pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/15 "2014-02-19T19:20:37Z")

</div>

> To do RTMP ABR playback in JW Player, you do need a meta tag.
> 
> Roger.

Sorry Roger. You do not need the meta base

I just fired up a EC2 and Wowza to test, it works without metabase

Here is my smil, this is LIVE

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mark\_Shueard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/49beb7/32.png) [@Mark\_Shueard](https://community.wowza.com/u/Mark_Shueard)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 7:26pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/16 "2014-02-19T19:26:56Z")

</div>

I am live right now, playing back a tape, please see [http://live.on2dvd.com.au/liveabr.html](http://live.on2dvd.com.au/liveabr.html)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mark\_Shueard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/49beb7/32.png) [@Mark\_Shueard](https://community.wowza.com/u/Mark_Shueard)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 7:40pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/17 "2014-02-19T19:40:02Z")

</div>

> This is not correct and will not work…
> 
> Please do try to post accurate information if you are going to try to assist other users.
> 
> The correct way is to use the built in jwplayer.smil url,
> 
> ```auto
> http://<wowza-ip:1935/vod/smil:bigbuckbunny.smil/[B]jwplayer.smil[/B]
> 
> ```
> 
> Roger.

Was talking about the SMIL contents, not the path to the SMIL

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mark\_Shueard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/49beb7/32.png) [@Mark\_Shueard](https://community.wowza.com/u/Mark_Shueard)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 7:42pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/18 "2014-02-19T19:42:55Z")

</div>

> Hi,
> 
> If you care to look at the following url, which you are using in your player, you will se that the meta tag had been added automatically.
> 
> ```auto
> http://54.206.40.122/live/smil:livestream.smil/jwplayer.smil
> 
> ```
> 
> This is the output from the above url
> 
> ```auto
> <smil>
> <head>
> [B]<meta base="rtmp://54.206.40.122/live/_definst_" />[/B]
> </head>
> <body>
> <switch>
> <video src="mp4:livestream_source" system-bitrate="1000000"/>
> <video src="mp4:livestream_240p" system-bitrate="350000"/>
> <video src="mp4:livestream_160p" system-bitrate="200000"/>
> </switch>
> </body>
> </smil>
> 
> ```
> 
> This is the jwplayer.smil url that I was refering to in my other posts.
> 
> You are corect that you do not need the meta tag in the smil files that you create to use within Wowza but you are incorrect in your assumption that JW Player does not need the meta tag in order to playback RTMP ABR.
> 
> In order for the player to display a switching menu with video sizes rather than bitrates, you need to add width info to your origin smil file.
> 
> Roger.

Got you, understood. it doesn’t matter if Wowza does it automatically, we were talking about if the user made his own SMIL file. The SMIl I uploaded did not include metabase.

I know you can add the width, in this case I didn’t bother, it still switched on bitrate

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mark\_Shueard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/49beb7/32.png) [@Mark\_Shueard](https://community.wowza.com/u/Mark_Shueard)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 7:49pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/19 "2014-02-19T19:49:38Z")

</div>

Ok, sorry if I am wrong. I have done it that way with VOD with cloudfront, perhaps it doesn’t work with wowza?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mark\_Shueard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/49beb7/32.png) [@Mark\_Shueard](https://community.wowza.com/u/Mark_Shueard)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 7:55pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151/20 "2014-02-19T19:55:16Z")

</div>

ooooK, you can read it that way.

As long as he is sorted

[Next page](https://community.wowza.com/t/vod-adaptive-abr-streaming-with-jwplayer-needs-to-edit-the-smil-file/42151.md?page=2)