Stream Types

In Wowza Media Server 3, MediaStreams represent an incoming or outgoing stream of video, audio or metadata. Wowza Server provides a mechanism for defining custom server-side MediaStream implementations or stream types. These stream types are configured using the Streams/StreamType property in the Application.xml file. The following table lists the more commonly used stream types and their intended use (for a complete list, consult the User’s Guide):

• default: Video on demand streaming of static Flash media, H.264/AAC and MP3 content
• record: Video recording
• live: Publish and play live video content (best for one-to-many streaming of live events)
• live-lowlatency: Publish and play live video content (best for one-to-one or one-to-few video/audio chat applications)
• live-record: Same as live plus content will be recorded
• shoutcast: Audio re-streaming of a SHOUTcast/Icecast MP3 or AAC+ audio stream
• shoutcast-record: Same as shoutcast plus content will be recorded
• liverepeater-origin: Origin stream type used by live stream repeater to deliver a single streaming using origin/edge configuration
• liverepeater-edge: Edge stream type used by live stream repeater to deliver a single stream using origin/edge configuration
• rtp-live: Re-streaming of an RTSP/RTP, native RTP or MPEG-TS stream
• rtp-live-record: Same as rtp-live plus content will be recorded

Supported Media

Wowza Media Server 3 supports the following media file formats: FLV (Flash Video), MP4 (QuickTime container) and MP3 content (see table below for common file extensions). To play video on demand content, the proper prefix must be prepended to the file name to create a stream name. For example to play the MP4 file mycoolvideo.mov use the stream name mp4:mycoolvideo.mov. The following table lists the more common file type prefixes (for a complete list consult the User’s Guide):

• flv: FLV (Flash Video – this is the default media type so the qualifier and the file extension can be omitted)

  Example: “flv:mycoolvideo.flv”

• mp4: MP4 (QuickTime container – .mp4, .f4v, .mov, .m4v, .mp4a, .3gp, and .3g2)

  Example: “mp4:mycoolvideo.mov”

• mp3: MP3 (.mp3)

  Example: “mp3:mycoolsong.mp3″

• smil: SMIL (XML files used to configure multi-bitrate streams – .smil)

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