Wowza Community

How VOD work for All Kind of Devices + ABR ?

Hi dears, even i’ve been using Wowza for a few months already, i still do not have a proper understanding of how Wowza (or any Media Servers) works for VOD to serve for all-kinds-of devices + ABR feature. In the other words, a Complete VOD System.

Please kindly let me understand with my (beginner?) questions below.

LETS SAY I WILL START UPLOAD A FILE (A SINGLE .MP4) FILE, ONTO SERVER.

  • Then, what do i need to do (or need to have a plugin?) to “automatically” obtain various bitrate/quality files for ABR purpose? (Upload just 1 Single file and let Wowza handle the rest?)

  • Then, lets say i’ll have various ABR Files, and lets say i have setup the ABR Streaming (with JWPlayer, etc), then what do i need to enable ABR for any-kind-of-devices? (I mean, ABR for Flash is quite simple, but how about all-kinds-of-devices?)

    Please kindly let me understand :rolleyes:

    I’m ok to buy if the purchases involve.

    Thanks n regards

Wowza transcoder does not do VOD ABR , only LIVE, you need to encode multiple files for ABR and place them into content folder.

Hi,

While Wowza isn’t able to do this at the moment, there are services, such as Encoding.com (Wowza partner) that will take a file in, then

encode/transcode to another rendition and deliver that to any location. See this guide.

Daren

Hi there, please see the VOD tutorial here:

How to set up video on demand streaming

You can encode VOD files with this method:

How to encode video on demand content

Encoding keyframe aligned renditions with ffmpeg has been known to be problematic and unreliable.

However, I did come across a forum contribution that showed a successful approach for generating keyframe aligned multi-bitrate rendition for VOD with ffmpeg by doing multiple passes. This was done on Linux and I have not tested. It may not work on other platforms.

ffmpeg -y -i bigbuckbunny_1500.mp4 -c:a libfaac -ac 2 -ab 64k -c:v libx264 -preset:v veryfast -threads 0 -r 24 -g 48 -keyint_min 48 -sc_threshold 0 -x264opts no-mbtree:bframes=1 -pass 1 -b:v 286k -s 384x216 bigbuck-350k.mp4
ffmpeg -y -i bigbuckbunny_1500.mp4 -c:a libfaac -ac 2 -ab 64k -c:v libx264 -preset:v fast -threads 0 -r 24 -g 48 -keyint_min 48 -sc_threshold 0 -x264opts no-mbtree:bframes=1 -pass 2 -b:v 286k -s 384x216 bigbuck-350k.mp4
ffmpeg -y -i bigbuckbunny_1500.mp4 -c:a libfaac -ac 2 -ab 64k -c:v libx264 -preset:v fast -threads 0 -r 24 -g 48 -keyint_min 48 -sc_threshold 0 -x264opts no-mbtree:bframes=1 -pass 2 -b:v 836k -s 640x360 bigbuck-900k.mp4

Each rendition of the ABR set needs to be key frame aligned, you can test if this is true with this guide:

How to debug encoder multi-bitrate key frame alignment

You can use JW Player to deliver the content:

How to use LongTail JW Player 6 with Wowza Media Server

How to use LongTail JW Player with adaptive bitrate streaming from Wowza Media Server

Salvadore

you could have a look at ffmpeg for converting vod files to different bitrates.

Hi shueardm, so you mean i need to UPLOAD the various files by MYSELF, please?

Unless this has changed in the new streaming engine version 4, then yes, you upload all renditions yourself.

Transcoder only works with Live broadcasts

Hi shueardm, then what are the SUPPORTED FILE TYPES by Wowza Please? I know i can upload .MP4 files.

How about, .WMV / .AVI / .MOV … etc please? (All formats work as well as MP4?)

I mean, to upload and serve as ABR again.

Only mp4 you need with H.264 encode, AAC… there are many steps for you to take that really begin before Wowza. What encoding program you use?

Hi,

I have more or less same doubts as you.

I found how to send different bit rates that have been pre-coded:

https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-do-adaptive-bitrate-streaming

But my problem is that I want to use this same application (send various .mp4 files with different bitrate) but using MPEG-DASH. In the article above didn’t explain anything about that.

Someone can help me please?

Regard,

Ramon

Wowza transcoder does not do VOD ABR , only LIVE, you need to encode multiple files for ABR and place them into content folder.

Hi shueardm, so you mean i need to UPLOAD the various files by MYSELF, please?

Hi shueardm, then what are the SUPPORTED FILE TYPES by Wowza Please? I know i can upload .MP4 files.

How about, .WMV / .AVI / .MOV … etc please? (All formats work as well as MP4?)

I mean, to upload and serve as ABR again.

Hi Salvadore,

Actually the end-to-end solution i’m actually want to have is, please let me give a scenario.

1- Let users upload their “Single” Videos (into Wowza attached Drive) via Webpage (Web File Upload Form)

2- Once a user has uploaded his/her only Single Video (this make sense in reality), then we (Wowza) will straight-away obtain the automatically ENCODED RENDITIONS.

3- Then Wowza handle the rest … bla bla.

It will be very closely like Uploading onto YouTube. (And VIA WEB) Then we have multiple Bit-rate files.

This is what we need to LET USERS have this breeze experience.

So my important question here would be:

Is there any such Tool (to let us to upload a single video via Web, but it create the Multiple Bit-rated Rendition Files, for ABR) in the Market, even with Commercial License or whatever? (Please)

I hope my requirement is valid enough :frowning:

you could have a look at ffmpeg for converting vod files to different bitrates.

Hi nimaca, (according to my question just above), is FFMPEG a “complete tool” to allow users to upload via Web, and then automatically generate the Various Bitrate files (to Wowza) please?