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Transcoder Stream Name Groups with JWPlayer SMIL File - Not indicating width / height

The Wowza Transcoder Add-on is a great service and we have had little to no issues with its performance. However, I have uncovered one issue which I can not seem to understand.

The Transcoder generates a Stream Name Group SMIL file for JWPlayer. Nearly all of our streams are encoded with ViewCast Niagara 2200’s, which all produce great streams which play easily accross all devices. However, we encode one stream with Flash Media Encoder. This stream does not seem to transcode right because we are always getting errors on iOS and most recently, I noticed that the JWPlayer SMIL file that this stream generates does not generate right.

This is the output of the Flash Media Encoder stream’s JW Player SMIL file for the SNG.

<smil>
<head>
<meta base="rtmp://media.lightwayms.com:1935/live10906001/_definst_"/>
</head>
<body>
<switch>
<video src="mp4:gov_source" system-bitrate="407552" width="640" height="480"/>
<video src="mp4:gov_360p" system-bitrate="899152"/>
<video src="mp4:gov_160p" system-bitrate="249152"/>
</switch>
</body>
</smil>

(This SMIL generated from: http://media.lightwayms.com:1935/live10906001/ngrp:gov_all/jwplayer.smil)

As you can see, the width and height are not specified for the two transcoded outputs. This seems to mess up JWPlayer and the resulting error message is “Cannot Decode Video”.

A typical JWPlayer SMIL file looks like this:

<smil>
<head>
<meta base="rtmp://media.lightwayms.com:1935/live10906001/_definst_"/>
</head>
<body>
<switch>
<video src="mp4:education_source" system-bitrate="851968" width="640" height="480"/>
<video src="mp4:education_360p" system-bitrate="915536" width="480" height="360"/>
<video src="mp4:education_160p" system-bitrate="265536" width="214" height="160"/>
</switch>
</body>
</smil>

(This SMIL generated from: http://media.lightwayms.com:1935/live10906001/ngrp:education_all/jwplayer.smil)

What can be causing this issue? We are using the monthly version of Streaming Engine, latest updates. Every setting in the transcoder (we use the Transrate template) has been left at factory default. Has anyone else encountered this?

Russell,

To troubleshoot this properly, we need to have a look at your configuration and log files. Please send an email to support@wowza.com and include a copy of the following files as a .zip (or other archive):

[install-dir]/conf

[install-dir]/logs

[install-dir]/transcoder

[install-dir]/manager/logs

Also, please add a reference/link to this post.

Salvadore

Also, please provide detailed information about the encoder settings.

Salvadore