Stream targets overview

A Wowza Streaming Engine™ (WSE) stream target allows an app to send a live stream to distributed destinations such as content delivery networks (CDNs) and multi-protocol services. The destination distributes your live stream, allowing you to scale your WSE implementation, manage computing resources, and adjust delivery options. With WSE stream targets, you can easily send a live stream to:

• Wowza Video
• A third-party CDN, such as Akamai
• A video-sharing website, such as YouTube Live
• A cloud storage provider, such as Amazon S3
• A live app on another WSE instance

Stream targets can be configured using WSE Manager or the WSE REST API, or by editing the PushPublishMap.txt file directly.

Note: CDNs don't support adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming based on SMIL files. To send an ABR stream to a CDN, you must use the transcoder to produce renditions with the same stream name prefix.

Send a stream to a destination

The easiest way to configure a stream target is with WSE Manager, as you don't have to install any modules or manually edit the map file. In WSE Manager, stream targets are displayed alphabetically by destination type, protocol, adaptive group name, and stream target name. Each stream target has a status that is automatically updated. Setting up a stream target varies based on your workflow. For detailed instructions on a specific implementation, see the relevant article below.

• Stream to another WSE instance
• Stream from WSE for transcoding in Wowza Video
• Stream from WSE for transcoding in Wowza Video using Wowza APIs
• Stream to Akamai HD
• Stream to Facebook Live
• Stream to SHOUTcast and Icecast
• Stream to YouTube
• Distribute a live stream using MPEG-TS
• Distribute a live stream using RTMP
• Distribute a live stream using RTP
• Distribute a live stream using SRT
• Distribute a live stream using CMAF
• Distribute a live stream using WebRTC
• Send HLS content to Amazon S3

Note: Targets defined as RTMP appear as generic RTMP targets, even if they point to a BitGravity or YouTube destination.

Edit the push publishing map file

The PushPublishMap.txt map file stores the configuration that maps live source streams to destinations. You can configure the map file using WSE Manager's stream targets feature or by editing the map file directly.

Change the map file's location

When you enable the stream targets feature for an app, a stream target map file called PushPublishMap.txt is automatically created in the [install-dir]/conf/[app-name] directory. You can change the location of an app's stream target map file by changing the value of the custom pushPublishMapPath property in WSE Manager or by updating it in the app's Application.xml configuration file.

Change the map file's location with WSE Manager

1. Open WSE Manager.
2. Click the Applications tab.
3. In the contents panel, click the name of your live app.
4. Click the Properties tab.
5. In the Quick Links list, click Custom.
6. Click Edit.
7. Change the value of pushPublishMapPath to the updated location.
8. Click Save.
9. Restart the app to apply the changes.

About map entries

Each stream target entry represents a single destination for a source stream or group of streams. To stream to multiple destinations, each destination must have its own stream target entry. If a stream target is added or modified while WSE is running, the change doesn't affect active streams, only streams received after the map file is updated.

A stream target map entry has the following format:

## stream target format
[src-stream-name]={"profile":"[profile]", [additional-configuration-items]}

For example, to send a stream called myStream via RTMP to another WSE server, add the entry below:

## send RTMP stream to WSE server
myStream={"profile":"rtmp", "streamName":"myStreamRTMP", "host":"wowza.myserver.com", "application":"live", "userName":"myuser", "password":"mypassword"}

To send a stream to multiple destinations, create a stream target for each destination. For example, to send a stream named myStream to a remote WSE server and deliver it as multicast using MPEG-TS, add the following entries to the map file:

## send myStream to two destinations
myStream={"profile":"rtmp", "streamName":"myStream", "host":"wowza.myserver.com", "userName":"myUser", "password":"myPassword"}
myStream={"profile":"mpegts", "streamName":"myStreamMPEGTS", "host":"239.1.1.1", "port":"10000"}

For more examples, see Sample map file entries for stream target destinations.

Stream target profiles

Each stream target must include a profile. The profile determines how the stream is sent to its destination and which additional configurable parameters are available. The available profiles are listed below.

• rtmp: Send an RTMP stream to WSE or Adobe Media Server.
• rtmp-akamai: Send an RTMP stream to Akamai HD.
• rtmp-limelight: Send an RTMP stream to Edgio.
• cupertino-cloudstorage: Send an HLS stream to AWS S3.
• cupertino-akamai: Send an HLS stream to Akamai HD.
• mpegdash-akamai: Send an MPEG-DASH stream to Akamai HD.
• rtp: Publish a native RTP stream.
• mpegts: Publish an MPEG-TS stream.
• wowza-cdn: Send a live stream to Wowza Video. Use this to push a single stream without transcoding or an ABR stream transcoded by WSE.
• wowza-video-transcoder: Send a live stream to be transcoded in Wowza Video. Use this to push a single stream for ABR transcoding in Wowza Video.
• shoutcast1: Publish a SHOUTcast 1 stream.
• shoutcast2: Publish a SHOUTcast 2 stream.
• srt: Send a live stream to an SRT destination.
• icecast2: Publish an Icecast 2 stream.
• group-manager: Publish adaptive bitrate renditions of HLS or MPEG-DASH streams as a group to Akamai HD, or publish CMAF HLS streams to Wowza Video, Oracle, and AWS.
• webrtc-whip: Send a WebRTC WHIP stream.

rtmp, rtmp-akamai, and rtmp-limelight profile parameters

cupertino-cloudstorage profile parameters

Note: For more information about using this profile, see Send Apple HLS content to Amazon S3 using Wowza Streaming Engine.

cupertino-akamai and mpegdash-akamai profile parameters

Note: Most of the parameters in the following table can be used with all related profiles that have the cupertino or mpegdash prefixes.

Akamai HTTP protocol playback URL formats (WSE 4.7.6 and later)

Primary stream with akamai.eventName specified:

Primary stream with akamai.eventName not specified:

Backup stream with akamai.eventName specified:

Redundant stream with akamai.eventName not specified:

Primary stream in an adaptive group with adaptiveGroup specified:

Backup stream in an adaptive group with adaptiveGroup specified:

Notes:

• When both akamai.destinationServer:"redundant" and adaptiveGroup:"[groupName]" are specified, a redundant manifest/playlist won't be generated for the stream; the adaptive group manifest/playlist should instead be used for playback since both the primary and backup streams will be listed there.
• Akamai documentation indicates that its ingest servers support only 6-second chunk durations for MPEG-DASH. The WSE default chunk duration is 10 seconds for MPEG-DASH. Therefore, we recommend changing the mpegdashSegmentDurationTarget (formerly mpegdashChunkDurationTarget) in WSE Manager to 6000 (6 seconds) for applications configured to send MPEG-DASH streams to Akamai. Also, to ensure that accurate chunk durations are produced, we recommend that the source stream be encoded with 1-, 2-, or 3-second keyframe intervals.

rtp profile parameters

mpegts profile parameters

wowza-cdn profile parameters

The following parameters are added by Wowza Video when the stream target is fully provisioned.

• wowzaVideo.playbackUrl
• wowzaVideo.streamTargetId

wowza-video-transcoder profile parameters

The following parameters are added by Wowza Video when the stream target is initialized and fully provisioned:

• wowzaVideo.liveStreamId: ID generated by the Wowza Video REST API. In WSE Manager, displays the live stream identifier from the URL visible on the live stream details page in Wowza Video. For example, https://app.wowza.com/livestreams/[live-stream-id].
• wowzaVideo.playbackUrl: Corresponds to hls_playback_url in the Wowza Video REST API. In WSE Manager, displays the HLS playback URL from the live stream details page in Wowza Video.
• wowzaVideo.liveStreamPlayerUrl: Corresponds to hosted_page.url in the Wowza Video REST API. In WSE Manager, displays the Hosted page link from the Publish live stream modal in Wowza Video. For more, see Share live stream.
• wowzaVideo.liveStreamEmbedCode: Corresponds to embed_code in the Wowza Video REST API. In WSE Manager, displays the JavaScript embed code from the Publish live stream modal in Wowza Video. For more, see Share live stream.

For more information, see the Wowza Video REST API reference documentation.

shoutcast1 profile parameters

Note: Streaming to SHOUTcast 1 requires WSE 4.5.0 or later.

shoutcast2 profile parameters

Note: Streaming to SHOUTcast 2 requires WSE 4.5.0 or later.

srt profile parameters

Notes:

• Streaming to an SRT destination requires WSE 4.7.3 or later.
• See the SRT Deployment Guide from the SRT Alliance for additional information about SRT properties. Download the SRT Deployment Guide.

icecast2 profile parameters

Note: Streaming to Icecast 2 requires WSE 4.5.0 or later.

group-manager profile parameters

Note: The group-manager profile also supports the optional parameters for the cupertino-akamai and mpegdash-akamai profiles because these profiles are used for the childProfile parameter. The adaptiveGroup parameter is not necessary when using the group-manager profile. See cupertino-akamai and mpegdash-akamai profile parameters for the additional parameter options.

Akamai playback URL formats with the group-manager profile

webrtc-whip profile parameters

Note: Only whipEndpoint is required. Any other parameter can be omitted to use its default value. If a parameter is set to an invalid value, WSE reports the problem and uses the default value instead of failing the stream target.

Debug connections

To debug stream-level issues such as connection problems with a destination, you can configure debugging on a per-destination, per-map-file-entry basis with the debugLog and debugPackets map file parameters. When enabled, debugLog logs high-level connection information as well as connection health. For RTMP-specific debugging at the packet level, debugPackets logs verbose per-packet information.

The following example map file entries show how these parameters are used:

myStream={"profile":"rtmp", "streamName":"myStream", "host":"wowza.myserver.com", "userName":"myUser", "password":"myPassword", "debugLog":"true", "debugPackets":"true"}
myStream={"profile":"cupertino-akamai", "streamName":"myStream", "cupertino.renditions":"audiovideo", "akamai.streamId":"215930", "akamai.hostId":"wowzadevapple-i", "debugLog":"true"}

For advanced debugging needs, see Debug Stream Targets (push publishing).

Push publishing Java API

WSE push publishing includes a low-level API for building custom publishing applications. The documentation can be found in the [install-dir]/documentation/serverapi directory or on our public Java API docs. (See the com.wowza.wms.pushpublish.* packages.)

This example module uses the push publishing APIs to push an RTMP stream to a remote server. It listens for new streams to be published and pushes them back to the app with the name push-[streamName]. When the stream is stopped (unpublished), it disconnects the push publishing stream.

See the README.html file included in the compressed folder for installation instructions.

More resources

• Debug Stream Targets (push publishing)
• Sample map file entries for Stream Target destinations (push publishing)