As the the year of 2019 is over, we want to recap the most significant products and features which we introduced during past 12 months.
We'd like to remind you that you can track all of our latest Softvelum changes via our Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn posts and even YouTube channel news podcasts.
This year we released a new product called Qosifire. It's a streaming quality monitoring web service which allows tracking live HLS, RTMP and Icecast streams. Qosifire checks for stream correctness from protocol integrity and general content consistency viewpoints. Qosifire agent software checks streams 24/7 using your own server, then our web service console collects data to analyse and sends alerts via email and mobile push notifications.
Read more about why you may need Qosifire for your streaming infrastructure and how you can get started with Qosifire. In addition, read a Qosifire review article by Jan Ozer and find more information in Qosifire knowledge base.
You can also run a free 30-seconds checkup for your live stream without a sign-up.
As we explained in January, Flash has been continuously removed in all browsers which caused the decline of RTMP playback. This affects primarily live low latency streaming, this is why we've been working on low latency improvements in our products.
SLDP. First of all, SLDP ABR capabilities ignited a wide adoption among our customers. They use Nimble Streamer for their delivery edges and play their content via HTML, Android and iOS players to have nearly a latency of just about a second long.
Apple introduced Low Latency HLS earlier and released it for developers community.
Now Apple Low Latency HLS is supported in Nimble Streamer with MPEGTS, audio-only and fMP4 containers. Read this introduction article which describes Nimble Streamer setup and LL-HLS usage. As of iOS 13.3, Apple hasn't released LL-HLS from beta stage yet, so we don't have player app available. But our iOS SLDP Player SDK is able to provide this for our subscribers.
BTW, LL-HLS is working on top of HTTP/2 implementation available in Nimble Streamer. You can use it for HLS and MPEG-DASH live streaming delivery.
SRT. Another outstanding technology which we improved over this year was SRT reliable delivery over UDP. Being a member of SRT Alliance we contributed to the community and kept improving user experience allowing to tune latency and maxbw to improve reliability. Our products always have the latest stable versions of SRT library to make sure they have all the latest improvements.
Icecast. Speaking of other improvements, we added more features related to Icecast metadata as described on our Icecast feature page.
SSL. For those of our customers who use Certbot with Let's Encrypt, we made a detailed description for using this duo with Nimble Streamer.
Live Transcoder has been improved in several ways as well. First, take a look at Transcoder overview screencast and Transcoder documentation reference page to see what we got.
We've added SVT-HEVC software library for H.265/HEVC encoding in Live Transcoder for Nimble Streamer.
This feature utilizes the latest improvement, the ability to run encoder out-of-process which allows securing the main Nimble Streamer process in case if some encoder library causes crashes.
The HEVC in general has been on the rise this year. To meet customers' demands we've released an experimental support of H.265/HEVC over RTMP in Nimble Streamer and Larix Broadcaster apps.
As for encoder libraries, QuickSync hardware acceleration is now available on Ubuntu which makes it easier to install.
Nimble Advertizer was improved through this year to handle SCTE-35 markers:
Reference pages. Last but not least, we added a couple of useful digest pages:
Our mobile solutions were improved over this year.
One of the most significant improvements is adding SRT playback into SLDP Player for Android and iOS. You can also take a look at our SRT digest page to find out more about product support for this technology.
As was mentioned earlier, our iOS SLDP Player SDK is able to provide Low Latency HLS playback capabilities for those who would like to try this new technology. Feel free to subscribe to iOS SLDP Player in order to obtain the latest version and build your own app with LL-HLS.
We also released Larix Screencaster for iOS - a highly anticipated great addition to our mobile apps bundle.
Larix Broadcaster is now able to produce RTMPS and RTSPS, which means RTMP and RTSP can be delivered via SSL. It's a great advantage for those who would like to secure their live streams in un-secure environments like mobile networks or public WiFi.
Larix also has ABR support for outgoing streams which means it can lower bitrate and framerate according to network conditions.
Softvelum website now has Larix documentation reference which has links to all articles and pages related to mobile streaming with our products.
You can read SDKs release notes to find out more about our updates and releases.
Follow us via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube to get updates on time.
We'd like to remind you that you can track all of our latest Softvelum changes via our Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn posts and even YouTube channel news podcasts.
Qosifire web service
This year we released a new product called Qosifire. It's a streaming quality monitoring web service which allows tracking live HLS, RTMP and Icecast streams. Qosifire checks for stream correctness from protocol integrity and general content consistency viewpoints. Qosifire agent software checks streams 24/7 using your own server, then our web service console collects data to analyse and sends alerts via email and mobile push notifications.
Read more about why you may need Qosifire for your streaming infrastructure and how you can get started with Qosifire. In addition, read a Qosifire review article by Jan Ozer and find more information in Qosifire knowledge base.
You can also run a free 30-seconds checkup for your live stream without a sign-up.
Nimble Streamer bundle updates
As we explained in January, Flash has been continuously removed in all browsers which caused the decline of RTMP playback. This affects primarily live low latency streaming, this is why we've been working on low latency improvements in our products.
SLDP. First of all, SLDP ABR capabilities ignited a wide adoption among our customers. They use Nimble Streamer for their delivery edges and play their content via HTML, Android and iOS players to have nearly a latency of just about a second long.
Apple introduced Low Latency HLS earlier and released it for developers community.
Now Apple Low Latency HLS is supported in Nimble Streamer with MPEGTS, audio-only and fMP4 containers. Read this introduction article which describes Nimble Streamer setup and LL-HLS usage. As of iOS 13.3, Apple hasn't released LL-HLS from beta stage yet, so we don't have player app available. But our iOS SLDP Player SDK is able to provide this for our subscribers.
BTW, LL-HLS is working on top of HTTP/2 implementation available in Nimble Streamer. You can use it for HLS and MPEG-DASH live streaming delivery.
SRT. Another outstanding technology which we improved over this year was SRT reliable delivery over UDP. Being a member of SRT Alliance we contributed to the community and kept improving user experience allowing to tune latency and maxbw to improve reliability. Our products always have the latest stable versions of SRT library to make sure they have all the latest improvements.
Icecast. Speaking of other improvements, we added more features related to Icecast metadata as described on our Icecast feature page.
SSL. For those of our customers who use Certbot with Let's Encrypt, we made a detailed description for using this duo with Nimble Streamer.
Live Transcoder has been improved in several ways as well. First, take a look at Transcoder overview screencast and Transcoder documentation reference page to see what we got.
We've added SVT-HEVC software library for H.265/HEVC encoding in Live Transcoder for Nimble Streamer.
This feature utilizes the latest improvement, the ability to run encoder out-of-process which allows securing the main Nimble Streamer process in case if some encoder library causes crashes.
The HEVC in general has been on the rise this year. To meet customers' demands we've released an experimental support of H.265/HEVC over RTMP in Nimble Streamer and Larix Broadcaster apps.
As for encoder libraries, QuickSync hardware acceleration is now available on Ubuntu which makes it easier to install.
Nimble Advertizer was improved through this year to handle SCTE-35 markers:
- Inserting ads according to SCTE-35;
- Passing SCTE-35 markers through;
- Triggering SCTE-35 markers insertion via API.
Reference pages. Last but not least, we added a couple of useful digest pages:
- Configuration and control of Nimble Streamer with all available options;
- Server parameters reference for configuration file.
Mobile solutions
Our mobile solutions were improved over this year.
One of the most significant improvements is adding SRT playback into SLDP Player for Android and iOS. You can also take a look at our SRT digest page to find out more about product support for this technology.
As was mentioned earlier, our iOS SLDP Player SDK is able to provide Low Latency HLS playback capabilities for those who would like to try this new technology. Feel free to subscribe to iOS SLDP Player in order to obtain the latest version and build your own app with LL-HLS.
We also released Larix Screencaster for iOS - a highly anticipated great addition to our mobile apps bundle.
Larix Broadcaster is now able to produce RTMPS and RTSPS, which means RTMP and RTSP can be delivered via SSL. It's a great advantage for those who would like to secure their live streams in un-secure environments like mobile networks or public WiFi.
Larix also has ABR support for outgoing streams which means it can lower bitrate and framerate according to network conditions.
Softvelum website now has Larix documentation reference which has links to all articles and pages related to mobile streaming with our products.
You can read SDKs release notes to find out more about our updates and releases.
Softvelum team wishes you a Happy New Year and looks forward to bringing you more features and improvements!
Follow us via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube to get updates on time.
