24.01 Media Server

We step into 2024 with a new version (24.01) of Flussonic Media Server. In the first changelog of the year we are thrilled to present our demos designed specifically for you to test the capabilities of our technologies: WebRTC for video meetings, SRT publishing with a dynamic port and DVR Player. The demos are available at demo.flussonic.com.

And that’s not all! We also prepared a bunch of new features and improvements (as well as bugs fixed) in the freshest as the January frost version of Flussonic Media Server!

embed.html

For the customers to insert a low latency stream into their sites, LL-HLS playback is supported in embed.html.

Embedded software

To ease installation of an OS on the platform of a customer, we implemented a framework for appliance firmware creation.

FairPlay for HLS HEVC fMP4 streams

For enhanced protection capabilities and for expanding a set of codecs with FairPlay DRM, we now support encryption of HLS HEVC fMP4 streams for Apple devices.

Cisco CMS support

To organize and record VCS (with saving costs on the number of required Cisco CMS licenses), to broadcast content to other platforms (both external portals and internal corporate intranet ones), to perform video analytics and event reporting with its further archiving, Media Server provides support for Cisco Meeting Server when accepting publications via RTMP protocol.

Watcher Client Web UI (PWA)

Users of the Watcher Client Web UI (PWA) can now download any archive fragment from the Player. Try it here: https://demo.flussonic.com/#/dvr-demo

Converting DVB subtitles to WebVTT

To display subtitles on Apple devices and players that do not support DVB subtitles, to comply with the regulators of some countries and and to cover a wider audience including those having hearing complications, Flussonic Media Server is enriched with converting DVB subtitles to the WebVTT subtitle format using OCR technology on all options.

Config _external refresh

To improve user experience and make it visible if external config is successfully refreshed, config_external_success event was added.

Bugs fixed:

SRT implementation
Our own SRT implementation now supports key refresh without restarting a stream every 5h (before this function was supported by ‘libsrt’)

SSAI ad insertion
To avoid buffering problems when SCTE-35 markers are not filtered, especially on streams with the frequent ads insertion, and creating too short segments with ‘bad_segment’ messages in logs, we fixed an issue with inserting ‘ad_splice’.

Not to lose any content after transcoding (this issue is quite crucial with commercials when a 1 sec loss results in losing part of the commercial), we fixed an issue with the [file_processor] (https://flussonic.com/doc/api/reference/#tag/file_processor/operation/file_processor_save)

Duplicate SPTS streams with a standby enabled
Previously using several standby servers caused duplication of packets that led to the picture degradation, we fixed an issue with duplication of SPTS streams when any standby server is enabled. Please refer to the documentation for more information: https://flussonic.com/doc/api/reference/#tag/stream/operation/stream_save%7Cbody%7Cpushes%7Cstandby

WebRTC Player
To make it easier for developers to find information on how to share screen over WebRTC, we updated the readme for Flussonic WebRTC Player npm package and added missing descriptions of methods like screenShare() and options like start_track.

RTSP playback stability
We improved RTSP playback stability for VLC and some other players.

Freeze of injected ads
To ensure accuracy of ad insertion and make it predictable as expected, we fixed the freeze of the last frame in segments with subtitles before going to injected ads.

Flussonic API
To avoid overload in the logs of Flussonic Media Server and backends of customers, we improved the requests routing: ‘config_external’ backend does not receive internal HTTP requests. Srt_port_resolve was moved to stream stats as intended.

ASI output bitrate
To avoid any potential problems with the receiving equipment where a stream is sent, we fixed an issue with ASI output bitrate, so that it complies with the actual bitrate specified in the config.

Changes in MediaInfo
We fixed an issue with changes made in MediaInfo, so that streams no longer crash and restart, when there are any changes made.

Transcoder overload
For our customer to transcode a HEVC stream and sell their services to their clients, we improved H.265 (HEVC) transcoding to optimize CPU utilization.

DVR Player in Chrome
We fixed an issue with DVR Player working in Chrome, so that playback does not freeze in the browser, when selecting points on the timeline one after another.

Requesting a list of episodes from Central
We fixed an issue with Media Server requesting a list of episodes from Central in the wrong way that resulted in not deleting the expired recorded episodes, all this led to a large increase in storage capacities of customers using motion recordings.

Archive export to MP4 via API
To let our customers export more than an hour-long archive to an MP4 file on a server disk via the API, we fixed an issue so that the export is not interrupted by timeout anymore.

Copying video archives to the cloud
HTTP 500 error does not appear when playing DVR from Amazon S3 over segment-based protocols when copying is configured and the segments that are not yet in memory are requested.

RTMP push restart
We fixed an issue with RTMP push restarts every time when the source is disconnected by timeout with a backup file configured.

Archive cleanup
We improved an archive cleanup process by excluding unnecessary bypassing in the work of the archive cleaner. That led to the actual recording being made without interruptions.

iOS
To improve user experience on iOS and let our customers see what interval they select, we fixed an issue with numbers being cropped in the archive fragment selection box.

To avoid any confusion for a customer using iOS we fixed an issue with the “play” button displayed instead of “pause” when autoplay is enabled.

When clicking on the fast playback, it starts correctly without changing playback position on the timeline in Safari, iOS 17.1.1.

Media Server Documentation

Creating an IPTV channel
We updated an article on how to create your own IPTV channel(https://flussonic.com/doc/create-tv-channel-with-playout/#create-tv-channel-with-playout) with instructions on ad insertion.

Monitoring Flussonic with Prometheus
We fixed an example on Prometheus configuration in the documentation: https://flussonic.com/doc/monitor-with-prometheus/

IPTV/OTT quick start
Transcoder instructions are added to the [IPTV/OTT quick start] page.

Use of firewall
An article about the use of a firewall was added to the Documentation, explaining why you don’t need it on servers with Flussonic Media Server: (https://flussonic.com/doc/configure-firewall/)

Filtering collections
The [Filtering collections] principle of Flussonic API design was updated to clarify that _is and _is_not filters are only applied for comparison with NULL.

MSE Player
An obsolete information about the use without npm and synchronous playback of several DVRs at the same time was removed from an MSE Player page (https://flussonic.com/doc/reduce-latency-on-website-with-mseld-player/).

Copying EIT with EPG
We described how to copyEIT with EPG from a specified source to MPTS.

Using SRT protocol
The link to API on the SRT page was fixed, as well as the description of the ‘latency’ parameter used for SRT input and SRT push.

Flussonic RAID for DVR
the information about allowing various disk sizes is now available in the documentation of Flussonic RAID for DVR (https://flussonic.com/doc/standby-mode-of-multicast-pusher/.

LL-HLS Playback
LL-HLS Playback instructions are collected on one page for a more convenient access.

Client Area (24.01) 2024-01-09

Demo.flussonic.com

We implemented a separate site with our demos on

• WebRTC to demonstrate Flussonic WebRTC capabilities in a video chat room
• SRT publishing with a dynamic port (the port changes every time the page is updated). A stream via SRT can be pushed from OBS Studio, Larix Broadcaster, ffmpeg, Flussonic Media Server, etc and is instantly shown in the player.
• DVR Player. You can watch live video and archive of a CCTV camera and download the archive fragments.

Try all this for free on https://demo.flussonic.com/