# Wowza Streaming Engine 4.12.0: Hardware transcoding, modern WebRTC and new stream targets **URL:** \ **Category:** Wowza Streaming Engine\ **Tags:** webrtc, wowza-streaming-engine\ **Created:** [September 30, 2026, 3:44pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/wowza-streaming-engine-4-12-0-hardware-transcoding-modern-webrtc-and-new-stream-targets/102851 "2026-09-30T15:44:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bernd\_Backhaus1](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.wowza.com/bernd_backhaus1/32/1328_2.png) [@Bernd\_Backhaus1](https://community.wowza.com/u/Bernd_Backhaus1)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2026, 3:44pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/wowza-streaming-engine-4-12-0-hardware-transcoding-modern-webrtc-and-new-stream-targets/102851/1 "2026-09-30T15:44:18Z")
Hello everybody, Wowza Streaming Engine (WSE) 4.12.0 is now available. The release adds hardware-accelerated transcoding options, new stream targets, and a reworked WebRTC stack, s well as bug and security fixes. Please refer to the [complete 4.12.0 release notes](https://www.wowza.com/docs/wowza-streaming-engine-4-12-0-release-notes) for a full list of changes, update and improvements, which are summarized below: **Version:** Wowza Streaming Engine™ 4.12.0 build 20260929182413 released Sept 30, 2026. **Java support:** Wowza Streaming Engine 4.12.0 is compiled using Java 17 (OpenJDK Java SE JRE 17.0.12). It can be used with Java versions 17 or 21. For more details, see [Java version information](https://www.wowza.com/docs/wowza-streaming-engine-4-9-7-release-notes#java-version-information). ### Summary of new features and fixes **Hardware-accelerated transcoding** WSE now supports Intel [QuickSync Video](https://www.wowza.com/docs/iqsv) (H.264 and H.265 on Alder Lake and newer integrated GPUs) and [NETINT](https://www.wowza.com/docs/netint) Quadra VPUs on Linux x86-64. A new Hardware Presets dropdown in the transcoder template page in WSE Manager assigns IQSV, NETINT, or NVIDIA hardware acceleration to a whole template in one step. **New stream targets** - **[Akamai MSL5](https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-stream-to-akamai):** Set up targets with the new wizard in WSE Manager. Akamai MSL4 reaches end of life on December 31, 2026, so plan your migration. - **WHIP:** Push streams to external WHIP endpoints via WSE Manager or the REST API, including simulcast egress, RTX, ICE restart, and data channels. - **Cloud storage:** Configure targets directly in WSE Manager, including ABR with multiple streams. **A modernized WebRTC stack** - [Simulcast](https://www.wowza.com/docs/adapt-to-network-conditions#simulcast)with per-viewer rendition selection, driven by [TWCC](https://www.wowza.com/docs/webrtc-configuration-reference#congestion-control) bandwidth estimation (REMB as fallback) - NACK/RTX for packet-loss recovery, plus improved PLI handling - ICE restart for client-mode connections and a manual ICE mode - SCTP data channels for text and binary messages next to the media - Lower latency: roughly 66 ms less H.264 ingest latency at 30 fps, and faster time to first frame when many viewers connect at once - Reworked WebRTC settings per application in WSE Manager (General, ICE/Network, Simulcast, Advanced/RTP Feedback) and new connection statistics on the monitoring pages **Other improvements** - HLS playlists now include the `FRAME-RATE` attribute by default. - Improved 10-bit SDR/HDR input handling for H.264 High10 and HEVC Main10. - New caption properties for [DVB Teletext](https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-ingest-mpeg-ts-dvb-teletext-subtitle-data-for-closed-captioning-in-live-streams#filter-dvb-teletext-subtitle-data) and [WebVTT](https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-stream-webvtt-subtitles-to-ios-for-closed-captioning#webvtt-properties-reference-9). - A per-stream RTSP option fixes pull sources from NAT’d cameras. #### Bug fixes - Fixed green screen playback on standard definition (SD) sources when encoding, decoding, and scaling on GPU. - Fixed output aspect ratio mismatch on interlaced streams with a non-square sample aspect ratio (SAR). - Fixed bitrate drops, video stoppages, and frame skipping when using NVENC transcoding with a live 4K source. - Fixed roughly 300 ms of added latency when transcoding on NVIDIA GPUs. - Fixed various scaling and cropping issues. - Fixed a bug causing WSE to crash when transcoding an MPEG-2 source. - Fixed the native H.264 decoder segfaulting the JVM after rejecting a stream’s codec configuration. A rejected codec configuration now fails the stream instead of the server. - Fixed an undecoded character in subtitles from Teletext live stream sources. - Fixed a bug causing WebVTT captions to be duplicated during live playback. - Fixed a null pointer exception in the HLS live stream packetizer that interrupted captions. Caption chunks are now handled safely across a stream reset. - Fixed CEA-608/CEA-708 caption tracks missing from HLS push publish master manifests. Caption channels are now declared as `EXT-X-MEDIA:TYPE=CLOSED-CAPTIONS` entries and referenced from each variant stream. They can be configured with `cupertino.closed-captions.*` in `PushPublishMap.txt` or a SMIL ``. - Fixed a bug in the CMAF packager causing fatal playback failures in Chrome and other MSE-based players when packaging HEVC/H.265 sources, such as streams published from an Ateme Titan encoder. - Fixed malformed playback URLs in HLS manifests written to Google Cloud Storage stream targets. A missing `/` separator between path segments prevented players from resolving the URLs. - Fixed a bug causing WSE to create and start a new app when a SMIL file referenced an existing app name with different capitalization. - Fixed a memory leak caused by overlay sessions not being released when destroying the video frame buffer. - MPEG-TS ingest: Fixed `RTPMediaCaster` refusing new MPEG-TS over UDP streams after an uncaught error, eventually causing an out-of-memory (OOM) crash. The worker now survives unexpected errors. - HLS and MPEG-DASH: Fixed HLS playlist, subtitle playlist, and WebVTT caption responses sharing the same strong ETag between gzip-compressed and uncompressed responses. Compressible HLS and MPEG-DASH playlist responses now include a `Vary: Accept-Encoding` header. - WebRTC signaling: Fixed WebSocket signaling sessions staying open after a peer connection teardown, leaving clients with a live signaling channel and dead media. WSE now closes the signaling session on every server-side teardown path. - Fixed a bug causing SecureToken validation to be ignored in WebRTC publish and playback sessions. Sessions with a missing, invalid, or expired token are now rejected. - Fixed a bug causing WebRTC sessions using SecureToken with `securitySecureTokenIncludeClientIPInHash` enabled to bind the IP to 127.0.0.1 instead of the connecting client IP. - Fixed a thread leak on WebRTC session teardown when TURN relay candidates were configured. Reader threads are now always stopped when the session’s socket closes. - Corrected the help text for the default WebRTC UDP port range to 6970-9999. (Note: This port range overlaps the RTP datagram range, so admins using both should select distinct ranges.) - WHIP and WHEP: Fixed failure responses omitting the `Access-Control-Allow-Origin` header, which caused cross-origin browser clients to report a CORS error instead of the actual failure status. - Updated the commented-out port 443 example in `conf/VHost.xml`. Uncommenting it now produces an SSL HostPort where WebRTC signaling works, with no further manual edits. - WebRTC playback is now counted in the outgoing byte totals on an incoming stream’s details page in WSE Manager. - Added the Server Boolean properties `h264IgnoreSpsErrors` and `h264IgnorePpsErrors` to skip strict H.264 SPS/PPS bit-length validation. - Fixed a WebRTC session being closed as idle while it was recovering from a UDP outage. The session now restarts ICE and continues over ICE-TCP. - Fixed the WebRTC loss-based estimator pinning the estimate at a suppressed rate. - Eliminated spurious warnings during successful DTLS secure renegotiation in WebRTC sessions. - Fixed WebSocket frame parsing dropping frames that arrived split across multiple TCP segments. ### Security - Updated Jetty to version 12.1.11 to resolve [CVE-2026-10050](https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-10050). - Updated log4j to version 2.25.5 to resolve [CVE-2026-49844](https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-49844). - Updated Apache Tomcat to version 10.1.59 to resolve [CVE-2026-65182](https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-65182), [CVE-2026-65905](https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-65905), and [CVE-2026-68525](https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-68525). - Updated snmp4j to version 3.13.1 and snmp4j-agent to version 3.10.1 to resolve [CVE-2026-39006](https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-39006). - Added support for encrypted admin passwords in the WSE Docker container. Users can now supply an already-encrypted password, or have the container encrypt a cleartext password before it’s written to `admin.password`. **Upgrade notes** - WSE 4.12.0 is built with Java 17 and runs on Java 17 or 21. - The default for `MinTimeToLive` in [`MediaCache.xml`](https://www.wowza.com/docs/wowza-streaming-engine-mediacachexml-configuration-reference) is now 3 seconds. Set your previous value explicitly if you want to keep it. - The default WebRTC UDP port range (6970-9999) overlaps with the RTP datagram range. Use distinct ranges if you use both. ## Known issues * * * For a detailed list of currently known issues, see [Known issues with Wowza Streaming Engine](https://www.wowza.com/docs/known-issues-with-wowza-streaming-engine "Known issues with Wowza Streaming Engine"). **Bernd Backhaus** Technical Support Engineer **WOWZA** | _The **solution** you start with, the **partner** you scale with._ **[Manage your Support cases online](https://portal.wowza.com/account/support)** **Bookmark our** **[FAQ page](https://support.wowza.com/hc/en-us)** **Bookmark our** **[Status page](https://status.wowza.com/)** ![182x66.9749984741211](https://api-na1.hubspot.com/filemanager/api/v2/files/189182705952/signed-url-redirect?portalId=229276)