Stream aliases in Nimble Streamer

Stream aliasing is a well-known technique in media streaming. It allows mapping multiple names to single media stream in order to add some flexibility into streaming process.

Nimble Streamer now supports it as well, with WMSPanel being an easy-to-use UI to set it up. It allows defining applications which will be covered by mapped applications' aliases.

Basically, aliases are good for case when you have some media stream and you need to provide it under different names. As example, you are a content provider and want to give your stream to multiple partner websites and services.

Here are the major use cases where aliases may work perfectly:

1. You need different levels of security for each alias. E.g. one of your partners need this stream to be locked to specific country and you need to use geo-location lock. And another partner needs to apply hotlinking protection. Adding separate aliases will allow creating separate security rules via WMSAuth paywall settings.
2. You need to collect viewers' statistics per each of your partners. In this case after the aliases are set up, you create separate data slice for each partners' alias and give them their own logins in a branded panel. Each slice will have full set of stats for tracking audience performance.
3. You need to stream your content from Nimble to CDN.

So physically having 1 actual stream, you will give several "virtual" streams, without overhead of resources, but with all benefits of multiple streams.

Let's see how it is set up.

Log into WMSPanel and go to Nimble Streamer -> Aliases top menu. You will see an empty list of aliases.

Click on Add alias to see a dialog as shown below.

Adding new alias.

Name of application which you'd like to set aliases for.Here you can specify:

• Choose sets of protocols to be applied these aliases to - HTTP-based (HLS, DASH, Icecast), RTMP and RTSP.
• Aliases - you can create any number, setting entering both single names and regular expressions
• Nimble Streamer instances where you'd like to apply these settings.

Having this being set up, you will see new aliases in the list.

Populated list of aliases

You may move aliases within the list in order to set their priorities. The topmost alias has top priority. You may specify some general alias via regular expression, and then override it with specific alias for some specific stream.

Aliases can also be managed via API, check WMSPanel API reference for details.

Having this feature set you can set any variation of aliases settings which will help your scenarios and use cases. Contact us if you need any improvements for this feature set.

Related documentation

Nimble Streamer, Live streaming in Nimble, CDN-friendly streaming, Live Transcoder for Nimble Streamer,