Wowza Streaming Engine (known as Wowza Media Server prior to version 4) is a unified streaming media server software developed by Wowza. The server is used for

streaming Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...

of live and

on-demand video Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of o ...

, audio, and

rich Internet application A rich web application (originally called a rich Internet application, or RIA or installable Internet application) is a web application that has many of the characteristics of desktop application software. The concept is closely related to a sing ...

s over IP networks to desktop, laptop, and tablet computers, mobile devices, IPTV set-top boxes, internet-connected TV sets, game consoles, and other network-connected devices. The server is a

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

application deployable on most

operating systems An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also inc ...

History

Version 1.0.x was released on February 19, 2007.>(Press Release) This version was originally offered as an alternative to the Adobe

Flash Media Server Adobe Media Server (AMS) is a proprietary data and media server from Adobe Systems (originally a Macromedia product). This server works with the Flash Player and HTML5 runtime to create media driven, multiuser RIAs ( Rich Internet Applications ...

, and supported streamed video, audio and RIA’s for the

Flash Player Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome as Shockwave Flash) is computer software for viewing multimedia contents, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming audio and video content created on the ...

client playback and interaction based on the

Real Time Messaging Protocol Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) is a communication protocol for streaming audio, video, and data over the Internet. Originally developed as a proprietary protocol by Macromedia for streaming between Flash Player and the Flash Communication Se ...

(RTMP) using content encoded with

Spark Spark commonly refers to: * Spark (fire), a small glowing particle or ember * Electric spark, a form of electrical discharge Spark may also refer to: Places * Spark Point, a rocky point in the South Shetland Islands People * Spark (surname) * ...

and

VP6 On2 TrueMotion VP6 is a proprietary lossy video compression format and video codec. It is an incarnation of the TrueMotion video codec, a series of video codecs developed by On2 Technologies. This codec is commonly used by Adobe Flash, Flash Vi ...

codecs. The original product name was Wowza Media Server Pro. Version 1.5.x was released on May 15, 2008>(Press Release) and added support for

H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distri ...

video and

Advanced Audio Coding Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is an audio coding standard for lossy digital audio compression. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves higher sound quality than MP3 encoders at the same bit rate. AAC has been stan ...

(AAC) audio, and ingest support for

Real Time Streaming Protocol The Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) is an application-level network protocol designed for multiplexing and packetizing multimedia transport streams (such as interactive media, video and audio) over a suitable transport protocol. RTSP is us ...

(RTSP),

Real-time Transport Protocol The Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) is a network protocol for delivering audio and video over IP networks. RTP is used in communication and entertainment systems that involve streaming media, such as telephony, video teleconference applicatio ...

(RTP),

MPEG transport stream MPEG transport stream (MPEG-TS, MTS) or simply transport stream (TS) is a standard digital container format for transmission and storage of audio, video, and Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) data. It is used in broadcast systems ...

(MPEG-TS), and ICY ( SHOUTcast/

Icecast Icecast is a streaming media project released as free software maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. It also refers specifically to the server program which is part of the project. Icecast was created in December 1998/January 1999 by Jack Mof ...

) sources for re-streaming to the Flash Player client. Version 2.0.x was released on December 17, 2009.> The product name was changed to Wowza Media Server 2. This version added outbound H.264 streaming support for Apple HTTP Live Streaming protocol for

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

devices (iPad, iPhone, etc.), Microsoft HTTP Smooth Streaming for Silverlight player, RTSP/RTP for

QuickTime QuickTime is an extensible multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. Created in 1991, the latest Mac version, QuickTime X, is avai ...

Player and mobile devices based on Android, BlackBerry ( RIM),

Symbian Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typic ...

(Symbian Foundation), Palm

webOS webOS, also known as LG webOS and previously known as Open webOS, HP webOS and Palm webOS, is a Linux kernel-based multitasking operating system for smart devices such as smart TVs that has also been used as a mobile operating system. Initially ...

(now owned by HP), and other platforms, and TV

set-top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of sign ...

es and

video game console A video game console is an electronic device that Input/output, outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home video game console, home consoles, which are generally placed i ...

s. Version 3.0.x was released on October 7, 2011. This version added network DVR, Live transcoding, and DRM plug-in functionality. Version 3.5 was released on November 7, 2012. This version added Closed Captioning and a Silverlight Multicast Player. Live Stream Record and Media Security, previously additional features external to the software, were incorporated into the server software. Media Security DRM plugins with Verimetrix VCAS, Microsoft

PlayReady PlayReady is a media file copy prevention technology from Microsoft that includes encryption, output prevention and digital rights management (DRM). It was announced in February 2007. Technological Differences The main differences relative to pr ...

, BuyDRM KeyOS Services, EZDRM Hosted DRM, AuthenTec DRM Fusion. Wowza also released Wowza StreamLock free AddOn which provides 256-bit SSL for RTMPS and HTTPS. The release included enhancements to Wowza Transcoder AddOn; transcoder overlays that can be used for advertising, tilting, watermarks and tickers. Other new features include B-frame support, Dolby Digital Plus (EAC3) pass-through for HLS, MPEG-DASH, HTTP Origin. Version 3.6 was released June 10, 2013. Wowza Media Server 3.6 added basic support for

Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH), also known as MPEG-DASH, is an adaptive bitrate streaming technique that enables high quality streaming of media content over the Internet delivered from conventional HTTP web servers. Similar to Apple ...

(DASH). Expanded support for

closed captioning Closed captioning (CC) and subtitling are both processes of displaying text on a television, video screen, or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information. Both are typically used as a transcription of the audio por ...

formats for live and video-on-demand streams. Version 4.0 was released February 11, 2014. The product name was changed to Wowza Streaming Engine. This release includes a new web-based graphical interface which interacts with the server via a

REST Rest or REST may refer to: Relief from activity * Sleep ** Bed rest * Kneeling * Lying (position) * Sitting * Squatting position Structural support * Structural support ** Rest (cue sports) ** Armrest ** Headrest ** Footrest Arts and entert ...

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...

and provides monitoring and configuration functions. This release also brings full support for MPEG-DASH and support for additional for captioning formats. Previously available separately, the MediaCache and Push Publishing add-on modules are now included in the server. Version 4.2 was released on June 16, 2015. This release included the Stream Targets feature in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager, enabling you to send an incoming live source stream to one or more destinations that re-distribute the source stream to users. Stream target destinations allow you to scale and add redundancy to your live streaming workflow. Version 4.3 was released on October 6, 2015. New functionality included full access to the Wowza Streaming Engine REST API. You can use the REST API to configure, manage, and monitor the media server through HTTP requests. Version 4.7.3 was released on November 14, 2017. Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.3 software added support for Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) in Wowza Streaming Engine media servers on Linux and Windows operating systems. Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.3 also introduced the ability to create a generic stream target that sends an SRT stream from Wowza Streaming Engine to destinations such as content delivery networks (CDNs) and streaming services for distributed delivery. Version 4.7.6 was released on July 31, 2018. New functionality included support for

MPEG-DASH Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH), also known as MPEG-DASH, is an adaptive bitrate streaming technique that enables high quality streaming of media content over the Internet delivered from conventional HTTP web servers. Similar to Apple ...

with nDVR. The Wowza nDVR feature enables you to record a live stream with Wowza Streaming Engine while simultaneously allowing users to play or pause the live stream, rewind it to a previously recorded point, or resume viewing at the current live point. Version 4.7.7 was released on November 13, 2018. Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.7 added support for

WebRTC WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is a free and open-source project providing web browsers and mobile applications with real-time communication (RTC) via application programming interfaces (APIs). It allows audio and video communication to wor ...

. Wowza Streaming Engine can ingest source WebRTC audio and video content and deliver it to supporting players. It can also transmux or transcode WebRTC to other streaming protocols, including Apple HLS, Adobe HDS, RTMP, RTSP, and Microsoft Smooth Streaming. Version 4.7.8 was released November 5, 2019. Added functionality included support for Low-Latency HLS. Wowza Streaming Engine can now generate Low-Latency HLS live streams. Wowza Streaming Engine now also supports Common Media Application Format (CMAF), the open, extensible standard that enables efficient streaming using the HLS and MPEG-DASH protocols. Version 4.8 was released February 18, 2020. The update added full support for WebRTC and Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) streaming; the addition of the CMAF packetizer for MPEG-DASH, HLS, and Low-Latency HLS streaming; and added support for recording MPEG-DASH live streams with the nDVR feature. Version 4.8.5 was released June 17, 2020. Extensive updates were added related to WebRTC including improved accuracy of RTCP feedback messages for adaptive encoding. There is now support for SRT version 1.4 and EXT-X-PRELOAD-HINT media playlist tag for Low Latency HLS. The new version also increased security.

Formats

Wowza Streaming Engine can stream to multiple types of playback clients and devices simultaneously, including the

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia Computing platform, software platform used for production of Flash animation, animations, rich web applications, application software, desktop applications, mobile apps, mo ...

player,

Microsoft Silverlight Microsoft Silverlight is a discontinued application framework designed for writing and running rich web applications, similar to Adobe Inc., Adobe's Run time environment, runtime, Adobe Flash. A plugin for Silverlight is still available for a v ...

player, Apple QuickTime Player and iOS devices (

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating s ...

, iPhone,

iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a music pl ...

), mobile phones, IPTV set-top boxes (Amino, Apple TV, Enseo, Fire TV,

Roku Roku ( ) is a brand of hardware digital media players manufactured by American company Roku, Inc. They offer access to streaming media content from online services. The first Roku model, developed in collaboration with Netflix, was introduce ...

, Streamit and others), and game consoles such as

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...

, and

PS4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 in E ...

. Wowza Streaming Engine is compatible with standard streaming protocols. On the playout side, these include RTMP (and the variants RTMPS, RTMPT, RTMPE, RTMPTE), HDS, HLS,

, RTSP,

Smooth Streaming Adaptive bitrate streaming is a technique used in streaming multimedia over computer networks. While in the past most video or audio streaming technologies utilized streaming protocols such as RTP with RTSP. Today's adaptive streaming technol ...

, and

MPEG-TS MPEG transport stream (MPEG-TS, MTS) or simply transport stream (TS) is a standard digital container format for transmission and storage of audio, video, and Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) data. It is used in broadcast syste ...

(unicast and multicast). On the live ingest side the server can ingest video and audio via RTP,

RTSP The Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) is an application-level network protocol designed for multiplexing and packetizing multimedia transport streams (such as interactive media, video and audio) over a suitable transport protocol. RTSP is us ...

, RTMP, MPEG-TS (unicast and multicast), ICY (SHOUTcast / Icecast) and

streams. In 2017 Wowza and Haivision created SRT Alliance to develop and promote an open-source SRT protocol for low latency reliable-UDP delivery. For on-demand streaming, Wowza Streaming Engine can ingest multiple types of audio and video files. Supported file types include MP4 (QuickTime container - .mp4, .f4v, .mov, .m4a, .m4v, .mp4a, .mp4v, .3gp, and .3g2),

FLV Flash Video is a container file format used to deliver digital video content (e.g., TV shows, movies, etc.) over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player version 6 and newer. Flash Video content may also be embedded within SWF files. There are ...

(Flash Video - .flv), and

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

content (.mp3).

Awards

* 2007 ''Streaming Media Magazine'' Editors’ Pick * 2008 ''Streaming Media Magazine'' Editors’ Pick * 2008 ''Streaming Media Magazine'' US Readers’ Choice (Best Server) * 2009 ''Streaming Media Magazine'' US Readers’ Choice (Best Server; Best Streaming Innovation) * 2010 ''TV Technology Europe Magazine'' STAR Award * 2010 ''Streaming Media Magazine'' European Readers’ Choice Awards (Best Server; Best Innovation) * 2010 WFX New Product Award (Best Overall New Media Product; Best Podcasting, Webcasting, and Website Streaming Media Solution) * 2011 ''Streaming Media Magazine'' European Readers’ Choice Awards (Best Server; Best Streaming Innovation) * 2012 European Readers' Choice Award (BestServer Software and Best Transcoding Solution) * 2013 ''Streaming Media Magazines All-StarTeam named Wowza Co-Founder and CTO Charlie Good * 2013 ''Streaming Media Magazine'' European Readers’ Choice Award (Server Hardware/Software) * 2013 ''Streaming Media Readers’ Choice Award (Media Server) * 2014 ''Streaming Media Magazine'' European Readers’ Choice Award (Best Streaming Innovation) * Wowza Media Server Pro won the Server Hardware/Software category in the Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards in 2008. * Wowza Media Server 2 Advanced won the Best Streaming Innovation category in the Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards in 2009. * Wowza Media Server Pro won the Server Hardware/Software category in the Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards in 2009. * Wowza Media Server 2 won the Server Hardware/Software and Best Streaming Innovation of 2010 categories in the Streaming Media European Readers' Choice Awards in 2010. * Wowza Media Server 3 won the Server Hardware/Software and the Best Streaming Innovation categories in the Streaming Media European Readers' Choice Awards in 2011. * Wowza Media Server 3 won the Server Hardware/Software and the Best Streaming Innovation categories in the Streaming Media European Readers' Choice Awards in 2012. Additionally, the Wowza Media Server Transcoder Add-On won the Transcoding Solution category in the Streaming Media European Readers' Choice Awards in 2012. * Wowza Media Server won the Server Hardware/Software category in the Streaming Media European Readers' Choice Awards in 2013. * Wowza Media Server won the Media Server category in the Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards in 2013. * Wowza Streaming Engine won the Best Streaming Innovation category in the Streaming Media European Readers' Choice Awards in 2014. * Wowza Streaming Engine won the Media Server category in the Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards in 2014. * Wowza Streaming Engine won the Media Server category in the Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards in 2015. * Wowza Streaming Engine won the Media Server category in the Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards in 2016. * Wowza Streaming Engine won the Server Hardware/Software category in the Streaming Media European Readers' Choice Awards in 2016. * Wowza Streaming Engine won the Media Server category in the Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards in 2017. * Wowza Low Latency Streaming Platform won the Best Live Production/Streaming Product in the RedShark News awards at IBC 2017. * Wowza Streaming Engine won the Media Server category in the Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards in 2018. * Wowza was listed as one of the 50 Companies That Matter Most in Online Video in 2019 by Streaming Media. * Wowza CEO David Stubenvoll has been named a finalist in the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2019. * Wowza named Google Cloud Partner of the Year for Media 2019.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wowza Media Server Media servers Streaming software

History

Formats

Awards

See also

References

External links