Wowza Community

Increase Quality of Livestream

Hello ,

I am using a webcam to stream and The output can be seen on jw player. But the quality is too low and i would like to increase it.

I am fairly new at this, Can someone please guide me as to how i can do this.

Also i need to start streaming and recording at the same time, i tried using the LiveStreamRecordExampleModule_3.5 but i could not get the stream started.

Thanks & Regards

Amit

The simplest way to record a live stream is to set the StreamType to “live-record” in your Application.xml file.

This gives you very little control over the recording process.

By default the recorded files will be .flv. To record to mp4, you add “mp4:” prefix to stream name in the encoder (or StreamManager in the case of MediaCaster streams), then Wowza records to mp4 container.

Stream name “mp4:myStream” will record to myStream.mp4

Salvadore

I am guessing you are using a Flash app as the encoder/publisher?

If so then .mp4 wont actually work unless you h264 and Speexs:

How to set up a Flash application to publish H.264 video and Speex audio to Wowza Transcoder AddOn

Salvadore

You can publish a stream from a Flash based application and play it back in a Flash based client with out using the Wowza Transcoder.

The default video is Sorenson Spark and NellyMoser audio which are not supported in non-Flash clients.

To make the video quality better you can follow this guide to set the video to H.264.

And if you want to play back the stream in non-Flash based clients you will need to change the audio from Nellymoser to Speex in your Flash application, and use the Wowza Transcoder to transcode the audio from Speex to AAC audio. again, this article explains these steps:

How to set up a Flash application to publish H.264 video and Speex audio to Wowza Transcoder AddOn

Salvadore

Are you testing playback locally? It could be a network issue.

Try testing playback on your local machine using the example player that ships with Wowza to see if that makes any difference in quality.

[install-dir]/examples/LiveVideoStreaming/FlashRTMPPlayer/player.html

What are your camera settings in your Flash application?

You can try these settings:

camera.setMode(320, 240, 15, false);

camera.setQuality(0, 90);

camera.setKeyFrameInterval(30);

You want high-quality and low-bandwidth, which are competing goals, and with the built-in Flash encoder options are limited.

Salvadore

Thanks guys…will check and get back to you

Regards

Amit

The simplest way to record a live stream is to set the StreamType to “live-record” in your Application.xml file.

This gives you very little control over the recording process.

By default the recorded files will be .flv. To record to mp4, you add “mp4:” prefix to stream name in the encoder (or StreamManager in the case of MediaCaster streams), then Wowza records to mp4 container.

Stream name “mp4:myStream” will record to myStream.mp4

Salvadore

I tried doing that…a mp4 file was created with the stream name in content folder. But the size of the file is 4KB. There is no video content in it .

You can publish a stream from a Flash based application and play it back in a Flash based client with out using the Wowza Transcoder.

The default video is Sorenson Spark and NellyMoser audio which are not supported in non-Flash clients.

To make the video quality better you can follow this guide to set the video to H.264.

And if you want to play back the stream in non-Flash based clients you will need to change the audio from Nellymoser to Speex in your Flash application, and use the Wowza Transcoder to transcode the audio from Speex to AAC audio. again, this article explains these steps:

How to set up a Flash application to publish H.264 video and Speex audio to Wowza Transcoder AddOn

Salvadore

Thanks Salvadore.

The video did get a bit better, but i guess my webcam is also affecting the quality.

Basically we want to conduct online lectures…can you suggest me a good cam that can be used for our requirement.

Thanks & Regards

Amit

Thanks and sorry for the late reply… will try the settings and get back. Thanks again