Wowza Community

[Transcoding] VOD or local file

Hi, all

Would Wowza Streaming Engine 4.1.2 (on 64-bit linux) support transcoding VOD or local files? If yes, is there any the relevant document links? I search the transcoding related documents which requires the incoming video source coming from http://, rtsp://… etc. not local file system path.

Thanks a lot.

Hello,

Transcoding locally stored files on Wowza Streaming Engine is possible by scheduling the files to play as live streams and then recording the transcoded streams to your server for ABR use.

Best regards,

Andrew

Hi Sean.

Just to clarify, VOD transcoding is not supported at present. What Andrew is describing is a work around.

The Scheduler Andrew linked to allows you to use a previously recorded file as a source for a Live stream. So essentially you are dealing with a live stream, thus you can run the stream through the Transcoder. Once you get the scheduler working, you will just need to follow the Transcoder guide for live streams.

How to set up and run Wowza Transcoder for live streaming

If the files are not located in the [wowza-install-dir]/content folder, you will need to modify the Application to point to the files. This is documented in the Wowza User Guide starting around page 54.

I hope this is helpful.

Regards,

Salvadore

Hi, Andrew,

Thanks for the quick response. I’m new to Wowza. From the article, “scheduling the files”, I cannot see where to set audio/video codec type of the transcoded video and how to link the transcoder with the smil file? Now, VOD streaming on HLS protocol from a local file works fine in my environment. I want to add additional transcoding step before the HLS streaming.

Would you provide a simple step-by-step guide for the following scenario? Thanks in advance.

  1. local file: /mnt/test.mp4 (mpeg4, mp3)

  2. live transcoding /mnt/test.mp4 to H.264+AAC and streaming the result on HLS.

B. R.

Sean