Wowza Community

Smooth Streaming problems - Wowza 3

Hi,

I’ve just installed Wowza server 3 and have been abled to play the rtmp and smooth streaming examples, only the rtmp file plays in our flash player. Smooth files seems to start to play in our silverlight player but an error message is shown " Caught exception trying to parse main manifest"

The errors in the access log if the smooth files are in a subdirectory of content are that the file cannot be find ie it’s looking for the file one level up.

However if I move the files one level up to the content directory the I get the following error: File is missing ‘moov’ atom.

I’m pretty sure everything is configured properly. I’ve configured port 80 in the vhost.xml but still have a problem playing.

Incidentally the url to the manifest file deplays a blank page instead of the ism contents.

Hope you can help

Thanks,

Ann

Ann,

When content is in subfolder, use “defint” to separate server/app part from the stream part (which includes the path). Like this:

http://[wowza-address]:1935/vod/_definst_/mp4:subfolder/sample.mp4/Manifest

Richard

Ann,

Use mp4: prefix on the .ismv files, and smil: prefix on the .ism files

mp4:video.ismv

smil:videoList.ism

or

mp4:subfolder/video.ismv

smil:subfolder/videoList.ism

Richard

You can use the ISM file. Use smil: prefix

http://[wowza-address]:1935/vod/smil:streams.ism/playlist.m3u8

Richard

Germán,

It is better to avoid the Silverlight encoding presets in Expression that produce these files. They do work, but the ISMV are fragmented mp4 files which Wowza can handle but at cost of added overhead.

If b-frames are turned on, trying turning that off.

We use Expression 4 with settings like the ones in these suggested presets:

https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-encode-video-on-demand-content

You have to create a smil file, Expression 4 does not generate that like it does the ism files.

Richard

Hi,

If i ‘feed’ WMS with ismv files, do i have to change the smil file?, am i supposed to give Wowza the ism file instead?.

Thanks in advance,

Germán

Richard:

I’ve done what you said, and it works… however, i’m having some issues with smooth streaming (only with ISMV files), specifically with video frame rate (really low, e.g., 12-14 fps on a 25 fps video).

Looking through the forum i found this link http://www.wowza.com/forums/showthread.php?13755-Low-Framerate-on-SS where the problem is described. I’ve got a couple of questions regarding this issue:

1 - I still don’t understand why the player experiences playback problems if it’s WMS who can’t ‘deal’ with fragmented B-frames. Could you explain it a little bit more?

2 - Have you released any patch to solve this?

Thanks in advance!,

Germán

Richard,

Thanks, I’ve done as you suggested and this works fine for the sample file above. However it does not work for ism/ismv files. The error message is “File is missing ‘moov’ atom”. How should the code look for smooth ism?

Ann

Germán,

It is better to avoid the Silverlight encoding presets in Expression that produce these files. They do work, but the ISMV are fragmented mp4 files which Wowza can handle but at cost of added overhead.

If b-frames are turned on, trying turning that off.

We use Expression 4 with settings like the ones in these suggested presets:

https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-encode-video-on-demand-content

You have to create a smil file, Expression 4 does not generate that like it does the ism files.

Richard

Can you please check if this feature will be included in future releases?

B-frames should be supported mainly because of quality (H.264 Main)

Regards,

DM

Hi,

Wowza Media Server does support b-frames. We suggest a single consecutive b-frame setup instead of the fragmented setup described in the previous post. We do encourage simple encoding parameters to support more playback clients. Here is a general guide on this:

https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-encode-video-on-demand-content

Michelle

Let me see if i understand.

If i had the same encodigng parameters but in a .mp4 file format, it shoud work fine?

The problem is the fragmented mp4?

Regards

Hi,

Wowza Media Server does support b-frames. We suggest a single consecutive b-frame setup instead of the fragmented setup described in the previous post. We do encourage simple encoding parameters to support more playback clients. Here is a general guide on this:

https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-encode-video-on-demand-content

Michelle