24.02 Media Server

Flussonic Media Server 24.02 introduces new features: private screen sharing in WebRTC Player available for testing at demo.flussonic.com, seamless video restreaming to social media from IP cameras and enhanced DVR efficiency through periodic M4F source polling. Read about these new features and bugs we fixed below!

Broadcasting from a camera to social media, video sharing sites, etc

For customers to restream their videos to social media, video hosting and other video sharing sites that require audio, we have added a feature that allows to add an empty audio track to video streams (for example, IP cameras, most of which do not support audio, that does not allow to publish videos directly to video sharing sites). This functionality will be added to the Watcher UI shortly.

Enhanced DVR Efficiency

To save traffic on activating a live on-demand stream when requesting its archive and reduce zap time, we added support for periodic polling of M4F sources to get information from the DVR about the status of the streams (responding/not responding/if there is a DVR on it)

Admin UI

For improved Admin UI performance and reducing CPU load by re-using the connection via HLS/DASH, we added full HTTP/2 support for all endpoints, including Streaming API and API v3.

Flussonic SRT implementation

For enhanced compatibility and ensured compliance with some receiving devices and software that are optimized for strict constant bitrate streaming the support for pushing SRT with constant bitrate is added in Flussonic Media Server set of features.

Flussonic Coder

There are scenarios that imply quick reaction to them by pressing physical tabs, rather than searching for the right tab in the UI, accessing the system with login in and password and other manipulations, to serve the needs of the customers working with these scenarios, we added an integration with Streamlabs USB-IO boards for switching stream inputs manually.

Phone screen orientation

Flussonic Media Server provides enhanced flexibility and control during streaming, ensuring a tailored and uninterrupted viewing experience with the implementation of a feature that allows to change the phone screen orientation (landscape or portrait) or switch from publishing input to file backup and backwards.

Opus codec in LL-HLS output

To deliver video from a browser with low latency to a large audience and to be able to distribute from the same Edge server of WebRTC and LL-HLS, Flussonic now supports the use of the Opus codes in LL-HLS output.

Integration with Beward intercoms

To enhance interoperability and integration capabilities, allowing seamless communication and event synchronization with other ONVIF-compliant devices and systems within their security infrastructure, Media Server supports receiving events from Beward intercoms via ONVIF.

Screen sharing in WebRTC Player

The ability to share a screen without activating the camera is important for privacy of a caller, to provide the users of our WebRTC Player with a more flexible and comfortable communication experience while maintaining control over personal visibility, Flussonic Media Server was enriched with enabling screen sharing without turning on the camera.

Demo.flussonic.com

We implemented a demo for Low-Latency HLS (LL-HLS). Check it out at demo.flussonic.com.

The demo for screen sharing with WebRTC Player was added here: https://demo.flussonic.com/

Bugs fixed:

Archive clean-up
We fixed an issue so that the archive is cleaned up properly, when a global DVR config is set for cloud storages (Amazon S3, Swift).

WebVTT subtitles
WebVTT subtitles do not disappear in an output stream after a short failure in the source with DVB subtitles.

Guardant USB key for licensing
The use of a Guardant USB key for licensing does not cause spikes in the CPU consumption anymore.

SRT implementation
Our Erlang implementation of SRT is now enabled by default for publishing and playing. You do not have to change any settings to use it. With this new implementation, we are able to solve the SRT issues faster and more efficiently. Feel free to contact us if you encounter any troubles.

LL-HLS streams playback
Due to the improvements made in the CMAF packetizer LL-HLS streams playback launches faster without any unnecessary buffering.

Prometheus
The device_id is now returned among other OpenMetrics parameters to distinguish among the boards and facilitate their monitoring.

DVR Playback
When requesting more than 20K DVR segments, HLS DVR playback does not fail via /index-{from}-now.m3u8 URL.

MSE-LD Player
MSE-LD playback does not freeze anymore when switching back to a video track with audio after a track without audio was played in embed.html player.

LL-HLS Playback
LL-HLS Playback of on-demand streams is not interrupted anymore, especially when there are viewers.

Playout server
For working with external buttons we added Raspberry pico as a GPIO USB board for a playout server.

Media Server Documentation

MPTS ingest
An article about MPTS ingest was updated with the cases where MPTS is used.

Bearer and Basic Authorization To help understand which data is needed for authorization and where it can be found, we improved the corresponding descriptions in the API Reference

Configuring NTP To clear out that a Flussonic server should be synchronized with an NTP server, we added recommendations on configuring NTP for multicast.