Wowza Cloud + Streaming Engine "processing time"

Wowza Video (Formerly Streaming Cloud)
1

Does having your own Streaming Engine instance affect the Wowza Cloud processing time?

Let’s say I have 50 publishers on my site, and they each live-stream for 3 hours a day. That’s about 84 hours a month roughly for just one publisher. According to the wowza cloud pricing, it would almost require the highest tier for just this one person. Now imagine this for all 50 people and that’s like 4200 hours a month, and hard to even estimate the cost.

So my question is, how does having a Wowza Streaming Engine impact these numbers? Does transcoding/publishing via the Streaming Engine mean you use less of the Cloud computed “stream processing time”? Correct me if I’m wrong but it would more or less function as a CDN in that case?

I apologize if this seems silly or obvious, but I am just trying to weigh the purpose of using Wowza Cloud over just using a CDN + Server combination.

2

Hello,

This is a great question. The best way to get answers regarding pricing and finding the best solution for your workflow is by sending this question to sales@wowza.com.

Our Sales Team would be willing and excited to help you determine the answer to this question.

Regards,

Mac

3

Does having your own Streaming Engine instance affect the Wowza Cloud processing time?

Does transcoding/publishing via the Streaming Engine mean you use less of the Cloud computed “stream processing time”? .

Hi,

if you use your own Wowza engine server to do the transcoding you wont have any stream processing time usage in Wowza Cloud.

In this case your server would stream directly to our CDN and you would only get network usage through that but no stream processing time.

It can be very efficient to combine both Wowza Engine and Wowza Cloud resources as you need them.

I recommend to use Wowza Engine as an origin transcoding server for your average processing time and use Wowza Cloud Transcoding for all peak usage you have through the month.

This way you also will be prepared if all of your clients decide to do a livestream at the same time. We will scale your stream processing and network usage instantly and indefinitely, while you can keep your infrastructure at an efficient size and wont waste resources.

Thanks,

Philipp

4

Hi,

Development environment WowzaStreamingEngine 4.1.2 WowzaStreamingCloud Trial

Can you give me directions how can I configure the cloud to only distribute the stream without transcoding it. Stream is being pushed to the Streaming Engine and then I would like to pull it from the cloud and deliver it to the clients without transcoding.

I’ve checked all of the provided documentation and it does state this:

Or, send a source streamfrom your encoder directly to Wowza Streaming Cloud-provisioned targets, bypassing the WowzaStreaming Cloud transcoder but using Wowza Streaming Cloud delivery resources.

But can’t find the guide to do this.

Regards,

5

But can’t find the guide to do this.

Hi, we haven’t documented it yet as we wanted to come up with an easier solution.

If you want to try the existing way:

First configure the application in engine that you use to transcode your stream with this push module:

and

When you are with editing the PushPublishMap.txt you need to copy informations from WSC > Advanced > Stream Targets and select the Stream Target named like your Livestream

Wowza Streaming Cloud:

Target Name  
Your StreamTarget
Provider  
Akamai
Target Location  
US West 
Stream Name  
[STREAMNAME]_[ANGLEID]_[BITRATE]@[STREAMID]
Target Username  
[USERNAME]
Target Password  
[PASSWORD]
Primary URL  
rtmp://p.ep[STREAMID].i.akamaientrypoint.net/EntryPoint
Backup URL  
rtmp://b.ep[STREAMID].i.akamaientrypoint.net/EntryPoint
Adobe HDS Playback URL  
http://[HOST]-lh.akamaihd.net/z/[STREAMNAME]_[ANGLEID]@[STREAMID]/manifest.f4m
Apple HLS Playback URL  
http://[HOST]-lh.akamaihd.net/i/[STREAMNAME]_[ANGLEID]@[STREAMID]/master.m3u8

On Wowza Streaming Engine in the PushPublishMap.txt enter one line per transcoded stream quality you want to send to a Stream target:

MyStream_720p={"akamai.streamId":"[STREAMID]","originalTimecodeThreshold":"0x100000","userName":"[USERNAME]","password":"[PASSWORD]","sendStreamCloseCommands":"true","streamName":"[STREAMNAME]_[ANGLEID]_[BITRATE]","profile":"rtmp-akamai"}
MyStream_480p={"akamai.streamId":"[STREAMID]","originalTimecodeThreshold":"0x100000","userName":"[USERNAME]","password":"[PASSWORD]","sendStreamCloseCommands":"true","streamName":"[STREAMNAME]_[ANGLEID]_[BITRATE]","profile":"rtmp-akamai"}
MyStream_360p={"akamai.streamId":"[STREAMID]","originalTimecodeThreshold":"0x100000","userName":"[USERNAME]","password":"[PASSWORD]","sendStreamCloseCommands":"true","streamName":"[STREAMNAME]_[ANGLEID]_[BITRATE]","profile":"rtmp-akamai"}
MyStream_288p={"akamai.streamId":"[STREAMID]","originalTimecodeThreshold":"0x100000","userName":"[USERNAME]","password":"[PASSWORD]","sendStreamCloseCommands":"true","streamName":"[STREAMNAME]_[ANGLEID]_[BITRATE]","profile":"rtmp-akamai"}

The only values that change per line are MyStream_720p and [BITRATE] both infos from the engine transcoder preset.

If you want to send to the Backup EntryPoint please use:

MyStream_720p={"akamai.streamId":"[STREAMID]","originalTimecodeThreshold":"0x100000","userName":"[USERNAME]","password":"[PASSWORD]","sendStreamCloseCommands":"true","streamName":"[STREAMNAME]_[ANGLEID]_[BITRATE]","profile":"rtmp-akamai","akamai.sendToBackupServer":"true"}

Some side notes:

Make sure encodings served there are always:

  1. Frame resolution and bitrates must be divisible by 8

  2. Keyframe distanced forced to 2 seconds (only do a Passthrough if your source stream is compliant (then follow keyframes otherwise reencode everything and force keyframes accordingly to your framerate)

  3. From one bitrate to another there should not be too much room (x1.8 max)

  4. All streams should be H264 / AAC

  5. Streams contain proper metadata

Now you can start the Livestream from engine by starting it in the Application and you do not need to press the start button in the Wowza Streaming Cloud UI.

Unfortunately Stream Targets are not available for Trial Cloud Users but require at least a Pay as you Go Subscription.

Thanks Philipp