Wowza Community

Moving from Unreal Media Server to Wowza - some questions first

I’m looking in to moving my streaming service from Unreal Media Server to Wowza, I’ve found UMS to be pretty flaky at times and expect Wowza to be a much more stable solution. I would like to check first that Wowza will suit my needs, I run a webcam live streaming service for UK schools which comes with a few technical hurdles.

  1. Schools currently connect their USB webcams (most are analog cams with a video-to-usb dongle) to my UMS server over TCP port 5130, using either Unreal Live Server or Adobe FMLE. Think I know the answer here, but I take it Wowza is fine to use with Adobe FMLE? I could provide each school with a profile xml file to load, to make it easy for them.

  2. I stream the RTMP streams from school webcams through port 80 on my UMS server, on to my website. The vast majority of schools here have every non-standard port blocked by default, so they can’t watch any streams through other ports. Can Wowza stream RTMP over port 80 ok (I will not need to run a web server off my media server)?

  3. As noted in point 1, schools connect their webcams through port 5130, which means they have to request this port is opened by their network service provider (this can be a proper headache at times). If I’m streaming over port 80, is there another commonly open port I could have schools connect to if they want to stream, which would mean they wouldn’t have to get it opened?

  4. UMS is very hit and miss with HLS. I really need these streams to be viewable across all come devices and browsers. Is Wowza easy to set up to enable this?

Many thanks in advance.

Hi,

1 Yes, you should be able to do this with any RTMP encoder that supports the USB device.

  1. Port 80, or any port, is fine as long as it’s not in use by another process or blocked by a firewall.

  2. Port 80 is the most commonly open. Port 1935 is the common port for flash streaming. But again,

any port will suffice, as long as it is available/not in use on the server.

  1. HLS is enabled by default in live applications, you just need to use the HLS compatible URL to start.
http://[wowza-ip-address]:1935/live/camera.stream/playlist.m3u8

Daren

Hi,

If I am already using port 80 for stream playback then that is ruled out. The problem here is not finding a port that is free to use on the server (which is easy), but finding a port which most schools will not have blocked by default, so they can connect to the server to publish their webcam stream without having to request a port be opened. Could I use 8080, for example?

You can use port 80 for streaming in and playing out if it’s allowed through the firewall both ways. You can can configure to use port 8080 as well if you wish.

I would need to run HLS over port 80 if I can, so schools can watch HLS streams if they need to. Can I do this, even if I’m already using 80 for RTMP playback?

Yes you can use it for more than one protocol.

Daren

Hi,

  1. The RTMP communication is done over the initial port, in your case port 80, then the process is to negotiate another port to send the stream over. This is quite normal and is very much the same as other protocols.

  2. I would definitely recommend reading / becoming familar with the EC2 user guide.

Wowza Streaming Engine instances run under Amazon Linux. This appears as any other linux distribution and has it’s own file system. You can have full access using an SSH client,

such as putty, and also use that to transfer files to and from the instance and use file editors and such. Be aware that you need your Amazon keys to access the instance in this manner.

Daren

Hi,

  1. Port 80 is the most commonly open. Port 1935 is the common port for flash streaming. But again,

any port will suffice, as long as it is available/not in use on the server.

If I am already using port 80 for stream playback then that is ruled out. The problem here is not finding a port that is free to use on the server (which is easy), but finding a port which most schools will not have blocked by default, so they can connect to the server to publish their webcam stream without having to request a port be opened. Could I use 8080, for example?

  1. HLS is enabled by default in live applications, you just need to use the HLS compatible URL to start.
http://[wowza-ip-address]:1935/live/camera.stream/playlist.m3u8

Daren

I would need to run HLS over port 80 if I can, so schools can watch HLS streams if they need to. Can I do this, even if I’m already using 80 for RTMP playback?

I’ve spent this morning setting this up on Amazon EC2, and so far it’s been unnervingly easy! In Virtual Host Setup, I’ve set “streaming” to only use port 80, and set up a test publisher account. With that set, I can now connect my webcam to stream live to the server through port 80, using Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder, using:

rtmp://[server-ip]:80/live

I can then watch the live stream from my webcam in Test Players in the Live section of Wowza. The stream player suggests it’s playing fine through port 80.

A couple of questions:

  1. If I go to Incoming Streams when I’m connected and streaming, it says: rtmp://[myip]:65495 - what is that random port number on the end? Why isn’t it port 80? Is this normal? Could this cause me problems with schools, considering the points I’ve made above with firewalls?

  2. Is there anything I should bear in mind when using Amazon EC2? If I need to “get my hands dirty” with config files, can I still do so? So far, I’ve only used the Wowza admin.

UMS has a very useful feature where no data is transmitted from a streaming client machine to the server unless there is a viewer(s) watching the stream. Obviously there is a massive benefit here on saving bandwidth, particularly in a 24/7 live webcam streaming environment. Is this possible with Wowza? Or is there a constant connection between client > server, regardless of whether anyone is watching the stream or not?

UMS has a very useful feature where no data is transmitted from a streaming client machine to the server unless there is a viewer(s) watching the stream. Obviously there is a massive benefit here on saving bandwidth, particularly in a 24/7 live webcam streaming environment. Is this possible with Wowza? Or is there a constant connection between client > server, regardless of whether anyone is watching the stream or not?

Bump, any response to this? Even if it’s to say it’s not possible, it’d be nice to know either way!