HLS Streaming
(Available in DuraCloud 5.0.0+)
HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) is an HTTP-based streaming protocol which supports delivery of adaptive bitrate video and audio streams. DuraCloud makes use of Amazon CloudFront to deliver its HLS streaming capability, so streaming content must be store in the Amazon S3 storage provider to take advantage of this feature.
Media files must be transcoded into a format which is supported by HLS before streaming may occur. Typically transcoding results in a set of .ts segment files which contain the media in time-boxed fragments and .m3u8 index files which are used to capture the ordering and combinations of .ts files for playback.
Further background and information about HLS can be found on: wikipedia, encoding.com, and apple.com (as well as many other sites).
RTMP Streaming
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The Media Streaming capabilities provided by DuraCloud allow video and audio files to be streamed over RTMP. This feature in DuraCloud takes advantage of Amazon Cloudfront CloudFront streaming, so files to be streamed must be within spaces on an Amazon provider. Amazon Cloudfront This type of streaming uses the Flash Media Server to host streaming files over RTMP. File formats supported include MP3, MP4 and FLV among others. For a full listing of supported file types see the Flash Media Server documentation.
Open and Secure RTMP Streaming
DuraCloud supports two different types of RTMP streaming, open and secure. Open streaming allows anyone with access to the URL for a streamed content item to stream the content. This works well for open access content which is intended to be shared and accessed widely. Secure streaming requires that a request be made to DuraCloud to retrieve a signed URL. That signed URL can then be used to stream the file. The request to retrieve a signed URL can specify how long the content will be available to stream (the default is 8 hours) as well as the IP address or IP address range where the streaming is allowed to take place. The purpose of secure streaming is to restrict the use of the stream. This is ideal for scenarios where streamed content is not free to use or must only be provided to a limited audience. Note that both types of streaming, open and secure, use the RTMP protocol, which protects the source file from being downloaded. The RTMP protocol requires that a flash-based streaming media player be used to play the streamed content.
Using
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RTMP Streaming
Follow these steps to stream media files with DuraCloud
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The Flash Media Server used by Amazon Cloudfront CloudFront and media players like JWPlayer and Flowplayer require certain specific conventions for requesting streamed files. There are two primary variables, one being a prefix which may need to preceed precede the file name (example prefix values are "mp3:" and "mp4:"). The other variable is whether a file extension is allowed on the file name. Getting these combinations right is particularly important when using secure streaming, as the player cannot request the file with alternative file names to match its preferences. Not all file types use the same combination of prefix and file extension settings. For example, it is common for MP4 files to require a prefix and extension (example file name: "mp4:videofile.mp4") while MP3 files require a prefix but no extension (example file name: "mp3:audiofile"). The prefix value, when needed, should be added to the stream path by using the "resourcePrefix" parameter on the get-url or get-signed-url call made through the DuraCloud REST API. In most cases, the file extension will need to be part of the stored file name. Even if files are named with a file extension (which is typically the case), calls to retrieve a streaming URL can specify the file name with no extension. |
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