Live streaming
Flussonic Media Server is able to rebroadcast streaming video with multiplexing. That is, a copy of data is taken from the source and delivered to all users who requested this video.
Flussonic Media Server works with three types of streams:
- static — permanently kept running.
- live — user-published.
- ondemand — requested on demand.
Content:
- Static streams
- On-demand streams
- Stream playback
- Stream screenshots
- Substituting stream with a file
- Wildcards
- Recording video stream (DVR)
- Time zone adjustment (Timeshift)
- Stream delivery over UDP multicast
- Stream settings for IP surveillance cameras
- Turning on audio-only HLS
- Capturing stream from another Flussonic Media Server
- DRM in live
- Stream or group settings
Static streams
Static streams are launched upon server start, and Flussonic monitors them continuously.
If for some reason (transcoder went off, antenna broke down) the data source disconnects, Flussonic Media Server will keep trying то reconnect until success or shutdown.
Usually, an IPTV channel or IP camera are declared as a static stream.
Flussonic Media Server supports many types of data sources, which must be pointed at with URLs.
Example of a configuration of /etc/flussonic/flussonic.conf file:
stream ort { url tshttp://10.0.4.5:9000/stream; } stream ipcam { url rtsp://192.168.0.100/channel/101; }
In this config:
-
ort
andipcam
are names of stream that must be used when requesting Flussonic Media Server. -
tshttp://10.0.4.5:9000/stream
andrtsp://192.168.0.100/channel/101
are the data source's URL.
Important! The name of a stream may contain only Latin characters, digits, periods (.
), and minus (-
) and underscore (_
) characters.
If the name contains anything else, correct functioning of the DVR and broadcasting in general cannot be guaranteed.
In order to add a stream via the web interface, open the Media tab:
Press add static stream
enter the name of the stream and the data source's URL. Then press Save and you will be redirected to a stream settings page where you can check ingest status:
On-demand streams
If a stream is not needed all the time but only upon user's request, it is possible to tell Flussonic Media Server to turn it off when it is not being used and turn back on on demand.
Important! If the protocol used for communication between the data source and the repeater is RTMP, RTSP or HTTP MPEG-TS, getting HDS or HLS from the repeater will not be possible due to the fact that these protocols only work with 10-30 seconds long buffering.
The player will not start playback until this buffer is ready, so the user who appears first will just have to stand and wait until then. The only kind of data source that doesn't have this problem is another Flussonic server with HLS protocol.
Flussonic Media Server uses its own extensions that allow for immediate playback on iPhone.
To specify this kind of stream, simply change stream to ondemand:
ondemand ipcam { url rtsp://192.168.0.1/channel/101; }
It is possible to specify the stream's lifetime after client's disconnect:
ondemand ipcam { url rtsp://192.168.0.1/channel/101; retry_limit 10; client_timeout 20; }
The config line above has the following meaning: make no more than 10 attempts to reconnect with a data source if the connection is lost; when the last client leaves, run the stream idly for no longer than 20 seconds.
Stream screenshots
Flussonic Media Server can make screenshots of streaming video. To achieve this, the additional flussonic-ffmpeg package must be installed
and the thumbnails
option turned on in the stream settings.
stream ort { url udp://239.255.0.100:1234; thumbnails; }
You can specify URL where Flussonic Media Server can get screenshots to reduce CPU usage for thumbnails. Many cameras has special URL with screnshots:
stream cam0 { url rtsp://10.0.4.3:554/h264; thumbnails http://10.0.4.3/cgi-bin/snapshot.cgi }
Screenshot URL you can find in documentation for you camera model.
The stream's last screenshot is available at http://flussonic:8080/ort/preview.jpg
MJPEG screenshot stream is available at http://flussonic:8080/ort/preview.mjpeg
Substituting stream with a file
If for some reason the stream is inaccessible, Flussonic provides the option of substituting it with a video file.
stream rtr { url tshttp://10.0.4.5:9000/channel/5; backup vod/backup.mp4; }
Note that if the original stream has no audio (e. g., from IP camera), the stand-in file should have no audio as well.
Wildcards
Sometimes the names of remote server streams are not known in advance, and it makes sense to use proxy with everything. Use special stream type:
rewrite nsk/* rtsp://nsk-origin:554/%s; rewrite ams/* hls://ams-origin:8080/%s/index.m3u8;
If rewrite option is combined with an asterisk at the end of stream name, the substring that precedes the asterisk will replace "%s" in URL.
Recording video stream (DVR)
Flussonic Media Server has an excellent stream recording system.
The stream archiver can record video, provide access to a particular video interval, export parts of the archive as mp4 files, clean up old archive files, and maintain ample free space on the storage disk.
To turn on the archiver, simply specify the dvr option in the stream config line:
stream foxlive { url tshttp://trancoder-5:9000/; dvr /storage 90% 5d; }
See a more detailed archive management description under a dedicated section.
Time zone adjustment (Timeshift)
Flussonic Media Server can play the archive record of a stream with a fixed delay.
Note that Flussonic Media Server maintains the delay painstakingly, so if for some reason the archive has lacunae, end users will be getting no video for the duration of the gap.
The timeshift feature uses a separate data source protocol:
stream ort { url tshttp://trancoder-5:9000/; dvr /storage 90% 5d; } stream ort-4h timeshift://ort/14400;
The delay is specified in seconds.
Stream delivery over UDP multicast
Flussonic Media Server is able to rebroadcast a stream from a data source over local network.
Note that Flussonic Media Server will attempt to serve UDP as evenly in time as possible in order to avoid sharp network load increases.
stream ort { url tshttp://trancoder-5:9000/; udp 239.0.4.4:1234; }
Stream settings for IP surveillance cameras
It is possible to tell Flussonic Media Server to request a stream from camera via UDP only.
Sometimes this is necessary when working with the cameras that have issues with TCP.
stream cam1 { url rtsp://10.0.4.3:554/h264; rtp udp; }
Important! Of the desktop browsers, H265 can now actually be shown only Microsoft Edge (version 16 and higher) and Safari (version 11 and higher). From mobile browsers — Safari and Chrome for iOS, (version 11.0 and higher). Read more in the article «Playing H265».
If there is no need to get audio from the camera (for instance, in G.726), Flussonic Media Server can be told to capture only one track.
The number of the track must be specified in the stream settings line:
stream cam1 { url rtsp://10.0.4.3:554/h264; tracks 1; }
In order to transcode a G.711a or G.711u audio coming from the camera into AAC, the other protocol must be specified:
stream cam1 { url rtsp2://10.0.4.3:554/h264; }
Turning on audio-only HLS
When validating apps in AppStore, Apple may require the stream to have an audio-only version. If this command is added to the config:
stream cam1 { url rtsp://10.0.4.3:554/h264; add_audio_only; }
and the stream has both video and audio, Flussonic Media Server will generate a multi-bitrate variant playlist of two streams: one standard, the other audio-only.
Capturing stream from another Flussonic Media Server
The details of transferring video between Flussonic Media Server servers are discussed in the Flussonic video stream clusterization article.
Stream or group settings
auth
auth http://backend/; |
Turning on authorization for a stream. See more under the authorization section. |
domains
domains host1.ru *.host1.ru; |
Specifying the domains, within which playing this video is allowed. This does not work for those clients that do not pass the value of Referer. To work correcty in the WEB the flussonic domain must present in the list (the domain of the embed. |
allowed_countries
allowed_countries RU US CN; |
The list of two-character codes of countries where the access is allowed (for code reference see the MaxMind database). |
url
url tshttp://transcoder:port/; |
URL of the data source. It is possible to list several URLs for trying the first available data source. |
Important: If a UDP source is used, the configuration file must contain this particular UDP address only once. If multiple streams use the same UDP address, chances are it will not work.
urls
urls source1 source2; |
A list of data source URLs. More info about switching sources. |
url_prefix
url_prefix prefix for instance url_prefix http://my.domain.address.com:8080
|
When using HLS protocol, the addresses of individual segments and playlists within the variant playlist will start with the specified prefix. This option may be used not only as part of an individual stream's settings but also in the global portion of the config file. If the option is specified globally, it will be applied to all streams on the server. |
dvr
dvr /storage 1d 50% schedule=8:00-16:00; |
Turning on archiving feature. This command tells Flussonic Media Server to store archived data in the /storage/streamname directory and clean up that directory either once a day or when the disk gets 50% full. Instead of days, hours can be specified: 20h. Parameter `schedule` allows you to set a schedule on the DVR the form of intervals. The time is specified in UTC in hours and optionally with minutes, the interval can overlap midnight: 22-1:30 . A schedule can contain multiple intervals, separated by a comma: 8:00-16:00,22-1:30 . |
dvr_offline
dvr_offline /storage 1d 50%; |
With this option specified, the stream will not turn on archiving on start. It will have to be turned on explicitly via API. This option used in place of dvr option. |
udp
udp 239.0.0.1:5001 multicast_loop; |
This causes Flussonic Media Server to send the stream via MPEG-TS over UDP. To set MULTICAST_TTL parameter on UDP socket use following syntax: udp 239.0.0.1:5001?ttl=8; . To set constant bitrate (CBR) use following syntax: udp 239.0.0.1:5001?cbr=2000; , where 2000 is bitrate in kbit/sec. |
thumbnails
thumbnails; |
Turns on generation of stream preview thumbnails. The flussonic-ffmpeg package must be installed. |
segments
segments 5; |
Specifies the number of segments in the HLS and HDS playlists. |
retry_limit
retry_limit 10; |
This sets the number of times Flussonic Media Server will try to connect to the data sources before closing a non-static stream. |
clients_timeout
clients_timeout 10; |
This sets the time period (in seconds), for which Flussonic Media Server will keep serving a non-static stream after the client's last request. |
source_timeout
source_timeout 10; |
Specifies the period of time, in seconds, for which Flussonic Media Server will wait for new frames to come from the data source. When this time passes, Flussonic will attempt to reconnect to the data source. Default source_timeout is 60 seconds. |
password
password secret; |
The password that will be passed via query string (http or rtmp) for publication in a stream or group. |
push
push rtmp://destination-server/name; |
This option tells Flussonic to publish the stream to another server. |
backup
backup vod/blank.mp4; |
Setting this option for the stream will launch the specified file vod/blank.mp4 while the video from the data source is unavailable. |
publish_enabled
publish_enabled; |
Specifying this option for the stream allows to publish video into it. Meaningless for a group of streams. |
on_publish
on_publish http://host/publish.php; |
Causes publishing to this stream or stream group to call a script or send HTTP request with such parameters as the stream name, publisher's IP, etc. In response it is possible to refuse publication or allow: the HTTP backend must return 200 OK or 403 Forbidden ; the .lua script must return {true, {}} or {false, {} . |
max_sessions
max_sessions 1000; |
Sets the limit on the quantity of sessions for the stream. |
settings_rtp
rtp udp; |
Turns on obligatory use of UDP for working with RTSP cameras. |
add_audio_only
add_audio_only; |
Adds to the HLS playlist a link to an audio-only stream. This is needed to validate the app in Apple devices. |
no_prepush
no_prepush; |
Turns off the quick-start prepush feature. Might be useful for keeping real-time streaming. |
prepush
prepush 10; |
Enables a buffer of specified duration, in seconds. If the client's connection to the server is interrupted or slowed down, it plays video from the buffer, which allows the player to start faster, but with a lag. |
max_bitrate
max_bitrate 1000; |
Sets the bitrate limit for the stream being published. |
logo
Version 4.6.15 and above.
logo path=flu/embed-logo.png height=100 width=100 left=0 top=0; |
Add logo at playback. This logo will not be displayed on mobile devices and in the DVR player. To add logo to video use transcoder. path (required) — path relative to wwwroot directory. height , width — logo image size in px. If ony only one of these parameters is present then the other is scaled proportionally. Omit these parameters to display logo in the original size. left , top , right , bottom — logo image location specified by offset in px. For example, right bottom corner: right=0, bottom=0 . Don't use left and right , top and bottom parameters together. |
mpegts_pids
mpegts_pids pmt=4095 sdt=0x12 v1=211 v2=212 a0=220 t0=16#fb; |
This parameter sets PIDs values for outgoing MPEG-TS stream. It is possible to set PID for PMT, STD and tracks. Tracks numbered starting from one: a1=123 sets PID for the first audio track. It os possible set base index for the tracks of certain type using the 0 (zero) index. Example: `t0=100` sets PID=101 for the first track, 102 for the second, and so on. Numbers can be given in decimal form (by default) or in hexadecimal with 0x prefix. |
gop_duration
gop_duration 8; |
GOP size (GOP duration), interval between keyframes. |
segment_count
segment_count 4; |
Number of segments for buffering. |
disabled
disabled; |
Stop stream. |