Wowza Media Server® 3.5 Available

Wowza Media Server 3.5 has new features and upgrades in four categories.

     Scale Distribution, Expand Reach

     Transcoder AddOn Enhancements

     Content Protection Options

     RTMP Security

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Scale Distribution
HTTP Origin—Wowza Media Server 3.5 can be used as an origin that fulfills requests from HTTP caching infrastructures for live and on-demand Apple HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), Adobe HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS), and Microsoft Smooth Streaming. Downstream HTTP caches are ideal for scaling out streaming across larger regions and audiences.

HTTP Origin functionality is available only to Trial, Subscription (Daily and Monthly), and Perpetual licensees running Wowza Media Server 3.5. It's not available in the Developer edition of Wowza Media Server.

Live Stream Record—Live Stream Record, formerly a free AddOn, has been incorporated into Wowza Media Server 3.5. New functionality allows server administrators to automatically split in-process live stream recording archives into multiple files, with the split points based on video duration, clock time, or file size. A new developer user interface is also included, which shows all current live streams and gives the option to record or stop recording a stream.

Expand Reach
Closed Captioning—Wowza Media Server 3.5 includes support for closed captioning for live and on-demand video streams. It can ingest caption data from a variety of in-stream and file-based sources and convert it to the appropriate caption format for live and on-demand video streaming using the Apple HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), Adobe HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS), and RTMP protocols. This feature helps U.S. broadcasters to comply with the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 by providing captioning for television programs that are distributed over the Internet.

Silverlight^® Multicast Player—Wowza Media Server contains a Microsoft Silverlight-based player that allows users to stream a MPEG-TS multicast from Wowza Media Server to any Silverlight-enabled desktop. The multicast feature allows users to deliver live video broadcasts across the network to thousands of Silverlight-based players simultaneously while only using the bandwidth of a single stream.

Push Publishing Enhancements—A new version of the Push Publishing AddOn for Wowza Media Server 3.5 includes support for publishing to downstream Wowza servers running Wowza Media Services 3.5 using the new Wowza Messaging Protocol (WOWZ™). It also includes support for publishing to downstream Wowza Media Servers (all versions), Adobe^® Media servers, and CDNs using Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP), Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) and MPEG Transport Stream Protocol (MPEG-TS).

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Wowza Transcoder AddOn provides the ability to ingest a live stream, decode the video and audio, and then re-encode the stream to desired playback devices. Several enhancements have been made to the AddOn in Wowza Media Server 3.5:

Transcoder Overlays—The new module for Wowza Transcoder AddOn allows you to overlay static and dynamic images on top of video by using a Java-based API. It can be configured manually or pre-programmed based on external events, making it a powerful new tool for adding premium TV-like experiences.
Examples of how this feature can be used include:

• Advertising
• Titling
• Watermarking
• Logos or symbols
• Sports/Stock tickers
   

H.263 video compression—Wowza Transcoder AddOn now supports H.263 encoding for live and on-demand video streams, enabling users to stream to older mobile devices.

More efficient transcoding—Wowza Transcoder AddOn now supports B-frame picture types. B-frames can use both previous and forward frames for data reference, allowing transcoded videos to have the best data compression, which maintains high quality transcoding while reducing storage and bandwidth requirements.

AC3 Pass-through for HLS—This feature allows AC3 audio received via MPEG-TS to pass through unaltered to HLS streams, which allows surround-sound audio to be played back on home theater devices that use HLS for video distribution.

Faster transcoding on Linux (technology preview)—Wowza Transcoder AddOn contains preview technology that makes the best use of 3rd generation Intel^® Core™ processors on the Linux-based CentOS, Fedora, and Ubuntu operating system distributions by adding support for Intel Quick Sync Video. Using Intel Quick Sync Video can double transcoding speeds over 2nd generation Intel Core processors by moving video conversion tasks to dedicated media processing space. Windows operating systems continue to be supported for Intel Quick Sync Video. The final version of the technology that supports Quick Sync Video will be available in a later release of Wowza Transcoder AddOn.

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Wowza^® DRM Enhancements— Wowza DRM AddOn provides integration with third party Digital Rights Management (DRM) Key Management Systems (KMS) to add on-the-fly encryption for live and on-demand video workflows. Wowza DRM AddOn now supports BuyDRM^™ KMS services for Apple HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). This allows studio-grade Microsoft^® PlayReady^® DRM to be applied to Apple HLS streams that are delivered to Apple^® iOS devices that have a BuyDRM player.

Digital Rights Management—New APIs in Wowza Media Server 3.5 enable several new encryption schemes for on-the-fly encryption of live and on-demand Apple HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). In addition, a new API is provided that enables on-the-fly decryption of PlayReady assets and re-encryption to multiple adaptive bitrate formats.

New Third-Party DRM Platform Compatibility— Wowza now supports AuthenTec^® as a third party DRM platform for PlayReady for HLS and Smooth Streaming.

MediaSecurity— MediaSecurity, formerly a free AddOn, has been incorporated into Wowza Media Server 3.5. MediaSecurity features such as SecureToken, RTMP authentication, RTSP authentication and StreamNameAlias help to ensure a more secure stream when delivering content using Apple HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), Adobe HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS) and Microsoft Smooth Streaming.

Wowza StreamLock AddOn—Wowza StreamLock AddOn provides near-instant provisioning of free 256-bit SSL certificates and greatly simplifies deploying the proven security of SSL to wrap your RTMP session using RTMPS. StreamLock-provisioned certificates provide the best security when used with RTMP, but they can also be used for secure HTTP streaming (HTTPS).

RTMPE AddOn—Wowza RTMPE AddOn provides the same network encryption security as in past releases, but is now provided as an AddOn to Wowza Media Server 3.5. RTMPE-based communications offers some of the benefits of RTMPS, but not all. Current users who wish to continue using RTMPE will need to request and install this AddOn after installing Wowza Media Server version 3.5.

Note: Wowza recommends using RTMPS to secure RTMP streams. RTMPE-based communication offers some of the benefits of RTMPS, but not all. The new Wowza StreamLock AddOn makes streaming RTMPS streams easier by providing a free 256-bit SSL certificate that can be used for most of your Wowza Media Server stream encryption needs.