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AddOn preview of Flash HTTP streaming (Flash HTTP)

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You need to use the stream manager to start the stream (as if you were streaming to the iPhone or Silverlight).

Charlie

Our current implementation of Flash HTTP live streaming much like the iPhone. It is pre-chunked in 10 second chunks. So the latency is very high. I am pretty sure that Flash HTTP streaming is not designed for low latency streaming. The RTMP protocol is best suited for low latency streaming. Where as Flash HTTP streaming is best suited for multi-bitrate higher latency live streaming and video on demand streaming.

Charlie

Thank you Charlie, will be very useful …

Charlie,

Amazing, first question, what is the API name for Know how many users are connected to this type of Stream?

I would like to add to my monitoring system.

Thanks

Alejandro

This is not hooked up yet. It will be coming soon. Still lots of work to do.

Charlie

The error message:

LiveStreamPacketizerSanJose.handleHolder: Invalid video/audio codec combination for iPhone/iPod: video:7 audio:

Is bogus. There is still a lot of work to do with San Jose streaming. I believe at this time only H.264/AAC work properly.

Charlie

  1. How is resource utilization on the server in regards to http compared to rtmp and rtmpt ?

It should be about the same or lower. We do not have the tools to do head to head performance testing.

  1. Will there be a secure variant akin to rtmpte, i.e. https ?

Flash Access is most likely the right way to secure these streams. We are still working out how Wowza and Flash Access might work together.

  1. Will logging be able to show play, seek, and other “streaming” events with this protocol?

Certainly play and stop and some form of seek that is similar to Silverlight seek. I don’t think we get the data from the player to get the precise play, pause, seek, stop information that we get today over RTMP. So what we report will be derived based on which segments of the video are requested.

  1. Since this is http, and behaves like IIS smooth streaming, is it fair to say Apache, IIS, and other web servers are likely/easily able to add Flash http support in the future?

I really don’t know. Certainly live and multi-bitrate will be tougher for the web server solutions.

Charlie

What demos links are not working for you? I assume you have double checked to be sure you are running Flash player 10.1?

Charlie

Thijsie,

I am a bit confused. Your post refers to Big Buck Bunny and Elephants Dream but you say you tried live. Please describe in detail what you have tried.

Does this link work for you?

http://www.wowza.com/_demo/flashhttp/OSMFPlayer.html

This link works for me everywhere that I have Flash player 10.1 installed. If this does not work then it could be an issue with the OSMF player.

Charlie

I had all the Wowza folks here run the following test and they were all able to play the video. See if you follow these steps if it works. If not, I would try other computers and other network setups to see if you can isolate why it is not working for you. It does work:

I need help with a quick test of the new Flash HTTP streaming. Please first upgrade to the latest version of Flash (10,1,53,64). You can check your version here:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/155/tn_15507.html

If you need to update flash player go here:

http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Once you have verified you have the correct version of Flash, please try this link and send me the results:

http://www.wowza.com/_demo/flashhttp/OSMFPlayer.html

Charlie

Hi, Charlie!

When some API like IModuleOnHTTPCupertinoStreamingSession

will be available? As I understand it was not written yet…

Do you mean IModuleOnHTTPSanJoseStreamingSession? I don’t have specific dates as to when we plan on completing our Flash HTTP streaming work.

Charlie

When you say your own Flash player what do you mean? To stream using Flash HTTP streaming you need to use the OSMF framework. It provides the HTTP streaming functionality. At this time I do not know of any other way to do it. The OSMF framework info is here:

http://www.osmf.org/

http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/osmf/Open+Source+Media+Framework

Charlie

Hi, Charlie!

When some API like IModuleOnHTTPCupertinoStreamingSession

will be available? As I understand it was not written yet…

Try this patch:

WowzaMediaServer2.1.2-patch2.zip

It should add support for IModuleOnHTTPSanJoseStreamingSession. So you should be able to add the following methods to your modules:

public void onHTTPSanJoseStreamingSessionCreate(HTTPStreamerSessionSanJose httpSanJoseStreamingSession)
{
	getLogger().info("onHTTPSanJoseStreamingSessionCreate");
}
public void onHTTPSanJoseStreamingSessionDestroy(HTTPStreamerSessionSanJose httpSanJoseStreamingSession)
{
	getLogger().info("onHTTPSanJoseStreamingSessionDestroy");
}

Charlie

Be sure that the Streams/LiveStreamPacketizers setting in conf/[application]/Application.xml is not set to anything. If this is set it assumes it is a live stream which is what it looks like it is doing.

<LiveStreamPacketizers></LiveStreamPacketizers>

Charlie

I would start off with a more simple case just to get it working (remember this is very early alpha-ish code). I would try FMLE with H.264 baseline level 3 AAC audio stream type set to live. Keep it simple and get that working first. I have not tried live in a while so there is a chance it might be broken.

Charlie

This I believe is a Wowza problem with live Flash HTTP streaming. Again, very early in our implementation. Video on demand is futher along than live. Not sure when we will release another version with improved live support.

Charlie

I have updated the FlashHTTP package to fix live streaming. It should work properly now. Still working on live stream repeater and multi-bitrate. I figured I would push out this fix before I moved on to these features.

Charlie

I installed the addon and was able to get flash http streaming working using the OSMF player. However, when I refresh the client page while it is playing a VOD smil file, the stream fails to restart playing and is taking the server a long time to disconnect the client. If I clear the cache on the browser, the client plays fine after a refresh.

I have seen this as well. Have not had a chance to dig into it. I think I might know what it is. Had similar issues with Silverlight. Had to do with HTTP keep alive and delivery of the crossdomain.xml file.

Charlie

You may need patch5. I would go ahead and install patch5 then install the Flash HTTP AddOn.

Charlie