Q1 2021 news: Cloud backups, Advertizer, Talkback, tutorials and more

Softvelum team kept working on products' improvements during Q1 of 2021 so let's see what we've got.

WMSPanel cloud service is the best way to control Nimble Streamer as it provides web UI for operating the vast majority of its features. Nimble settings are defined in the panel and synced up with Nimble instance.

Our customers always needed some way to back up their server settings, so in Q1 we introduced Nimble Cloud Backup. With cloud backups you can save streaming configs of your Nimble Streamer instances into distributed cloud database to improve redundancy. You can do it manually or automatically. If a customer needs to get back to some version of their cloud backup, he or she can restore it within WMSPanel account as a new server instance. After a backup is restored, a customer can initiate respective server instance to obtain these settings from WMSPanel, thus make new server to move into previous state. Learn more about Cloud Backups and try it in action.

Nimble Streamer Advertizer now has VOD server-side ads insertion. At the moment, HLS output with MPEG-TS and fMP4 containers is supported. Take a look at VOD SSAI overview article and also read tech spec page for full details.

We are working on other improvements for server-side ads insertion so stay tuned for updates.

SLDP protocol is actively used by our customers to provide low latency playback, especially after Flash has been officially abandoned and has put RTMP playback at denial. One of the use cases that our customers have discovered is browser-based videowall.

So we've made mosaic videowall demo page which allows playing 4 streams simultaneously. You can make your own mosaic using reference simplified version on our github. You may change it accordingly to make as many players as you need.

This quarter we also posted a number of video tutorials on our YouTube channel.

• Converting NDI to Apple Low Latency HLS. There we demonstrate how you can use Nimble NDI feature set to get NDI input and transform it into Apple Low Latency HLS output. This can be a great case for customers who need to deliver live streams with low latency, check this brief description as well.
• NDI to SRT to AWS Elemental MediaConnect via Nimble Streamer. Amazon recently introduced SRT support in their MediaConnect service. In our video we show how to take NDI input and use SRT feature set to stream live content out into AWS.
• Widevine EZDRM setup in Nimble Streamer. Nimble DRM allows protecting live, DVR and VOD content using Widevine, Playready and FairPlay using various key management providers. This video uses EZDRM to show how easily you may set up Nimble DRM.
• RTMP setup in Nimble Streamer. RTMP feature set is one of the most popular in Nimble Streamer so there we show all major scenarios related to the protocol.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get other upcoming updates.

Larix Broadcaster has got a number of significant updates this quarter.

Larix Broadcaster now supports Talkback, which is the ability to get an audio return feed. So while you generate a stream, you may get audio stream via SRT, RTMP, SLDP or even Icecast. This is a great feature for those creators who need to get a word from their studios while streaming live. Other updates of Larix include SRT Listen and Rendezvous support and some improvements for RIST protocol.

The talkback feature already got some attention. Take a look at How to: mobile reporter video demonstrating SRTMiniServer working with Larix Broadcaster by getting its live stream and returning talk back feed.

Larix Broadcaster SDK for Android and SDK for iOS pages now have architecture overview of Larix Broadcaster to make it easier to understand for beginners. They also refer to apps' sample code available on github.

Larix Player for Android and iOS was also updated with fresh libsrt and got SRT playback in Listen and Rendezvous modes.

You can learn more about Talkback, Larix SDKs updates and other features by reading this blog post.

Also, since we've mentioned MediaConnect, we've made Stream to AWS MediaConnect via SRT from Larix Broadcaster article describing the process in case you need to stream there from mobile.

That's all for now. Follow us via social networks to get our updates as they appear: Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, LinkedIn, YouTube and Reddit.