Enhanced RTMP to deliver HEVC and AV1

Recently, Veovera Software Organization has released a new Enhanced RTMP spec.

This spec extends the capabilities of RTMP to deliver the content encoded with H.265/HEVC and AV1 codecs.

Some finally, the new generation of codecs can be delivered using this proven technology. Considering lower bandwidth needed to throughput AV1 and HEVC, this can tremendously reduce the costs of delivery and ownership in general.

 

HEVC was supported in our products for a long time using other protocols, while AV1 was available only for VOD via DASH. Now our team has implemented this new RTMP spec across our products to help our customers improve their infrastructure.

Let's see what we can do for you.

Nimble Streamer software media server

RTMP feature set works the same way as before while being able to carry new codecs:

• Receive RTMP as both published and pulled stream
• Re-package HEVC content into into other output live protocol such as HLS, DASH, SRT, MPEGTS etc
• Record DVR and play it.
• Re-publish the stream via RTMP.
• Provide RTMP stream for pulling by other solutions.

So whatever use cases you have with RTMP, the new HEVC and AV1 codecs will go in smoothly.

This brings some new interesting combinations.

Generating live MPEG-DASH with AV1 content is one of them. DASH is supported by a large number of players on various platforms, as well as AV1 decoding, so you can make live AV1 streaming for end users now. The setup is the same, so if you have it in place, you don't need to change anything.

This also opens ability to re-publish HEVC stream to YouTube from Nimble, it works as any other republishing. See also Larix description below for details of this use case.

Read more about AV1 live streaming support in this article.

Notice that previous non-standard RTMP spec extension is still supported via a respective parameter.

Larix Broadcaster mobile apps

Larix supports HEVC as part of Larix Premium in-app subscription. It could be previously delivered via SRT, RIST and RTSP.

Now, RTMP can carry HEVC as well. So is your destination supports RTMP HEVC, Larix will deliver it properly.

This significantly decreases the required bandwidth so your users may stream better quality streams with the same device and network.

Notice that YouTube supports the new spec, which means that you can publish RTMP with HEVC to YouTube Live platform with all the benefits mentioned above. The setup is the same as before, just enter your YouTube streaming parameters as described here, subscribe for Larix Premium and enjoy streaming!

And of course, you can also stream HEVC with RTMP into Nimble Streamer. If you notice any other software that supports new spec, let us know so we could test it and describe here.

Get Larix Broadcaster on your mobile device:

• Google Play
• Apple AppStore

Notice that previous non-standard RTMP spec extension can still be enabled via Connections / settings menu.

We'll write more about related use cases in upcoming articles, stay tuned for updates in this blog and in our social networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Telegram, Reddit

Introducing Larix Premium subscription

Our team started Larix Broadcaster development back in 2015.

At first, it was a proof-of-concept project to follow the demand of our Nimble Streamer customers for an easy-to-use live streaming app.

Over the years Larix turned into a very useful application for streamers with break-though and sometimes unique features like SRT streaming, WebRTC streaming, multiple simultaneous connections and many more. Larix Broadcaster is considered as the best live streaming application on the market by many customers and streaming services. It was and is used in a wide variety of cases from IRL enthusiasts to newsrooms and NFL's 2020 virtual draft.

Larix apps brought a huge added value for our users, and all that was for free, without asking for money.

What's current status?

We were developing Larix on our own expense for years while having occasional sales of SDK to support our mobile engineers. But now the SDK sales are in decline after peak pandemic years.

However, the application is still being developed by a team of professionals. We all want to get paid for our work and we want our engineers be able to feed their families.

At this point we have to move to a subscription model to sustain further development, otherwise we'll have to suspend any further improvements of Larix family of products.

We believe that adding some minor monetization for top-notch capabilities will let us support our engineers and innovate even further by adding new capabilities. For years we could drive in this race of steady development of this world-class product, and and we need further fuel to keep going.

Larix Premium

This month we introduced in-app subscription called Larix Premium and put some existing features under it.

Larix Premium costs 9.99 USD per month and includes features like:

• Remove time limit for streaming.
  Without Premium, Larix allows streaming for 30 minutes for free + another 30 minutes with mandatory overlay. Then the stream is stopped.
• HEVC encoding
• Enhanced RTMP spec which allows publishing HEVC into YouTube and Nimble Streamer
• SEI NTP metadata insertion
• Advanced Connectivity settings menu
• Three or more simultaneous connections and six or more pre-defined connections
• Larix Talkback
• WebRTC streaming for more than 5 minutes
• Dolby HDR on supported Apple devices
• Android Background streaming

In the upcoming releases, Premium will also absorb the following:

• Android OTG USB support with additional fixes and improvements.

Larix Screencaster will also have premium subscription soon.

Streaming providers and services

If you're a streaming platform or a service provider and you want your customers to use Larix Broadcaster for free, please let us know about it so we could provide you with various options to support us.

If you're an active streamer, you may get in touch with your platform and ask them to help you make Larix available for you for free.

Streaming world figured out the way to make money: platforms get ads and subscribers, while streamers make profits with all kinds of monetization. Our team is an important part of this ecosystems and we believe our efforts are worth the subscription that we introduce.

Multiple devices under same account

Notice that if you use the same account on multiple devices, you can use the one subscription to unlock Premium on each of them.

So if you use the same Apple ID on several iPhones in your production setup, you will pay for only one subscription and use it on each of those devices. The same applies to your Google account and Android phones.

Other subscriptions

In addition for Premium, we have a separate subscription for NDI mobile streaming support that costs 19.99 USD per month. It's a proprietary protocol and we have to monetize it separately.

Also, Larix Player for Android and iOS now has its subscription that covers a brand new Videowall functionality that allows watching multiple streams on the same screen. It costs 9.99 USD per month.

The mentioned prices are for the United States, the final price may vary depending on country of purchase and local taxes.

As we describe above, adding monetization helps us develop the project further and helps all of our users to keep using the best mobile streaming application on the market.

Please let us know if you have any thoughts on this monetization or other forms of supporting our mobile development team.

Dante audio support in Nimble Streamer

Dante support has been discontinued in Nimble Streamer as of November of 2024.

The information below is irrelevant.

 

Nimble supports two scenarios of processing Dante audio.

• Receiving Dante audio from local live production environment and using it for further content transformation. The resulting audio can be used for further live streaming via conventional protocols like HLS, MPEG-DASH, SRT. Icecast and any other. You may combine it with any available live video input like NDI and produce full-featured live video output.
• Generating Dante by getting live streams via any available protocol (SRT, RTMP, NDI etc) and providing Dante audio output into your local production environment.

Thus you can process Dante audio and integrate it into your live production environment seamlessly with low cost of ownership.

This article will be updated with latest links and more use cases and related features, stay tuned for updates in our social networks.

Let's see how you can set up Dante and add it into your workflow.

Nimble pre-requisites

At the moment, Dante technology is only available in Nimble Streamer for Windows. The minimum version of Nimble Streamer is 4.0.1-1. Dante is processed by Live Transcoder for Nimble Streamer so you'll need to obtain a respective license. Also, you have to purchase Dante license to make Nimble work with it.

Here are the steps you need to follow in order to start processing Dante with Nimble on your Windows machine.

1. Sign up for WMSPanel account.
2. Install latest Nimble Streamer on Windows and subscribe for it.
3. Install Live Transcoder package on Windows and active its license.
4. Set up transcoder scenario to receive or send Dante streams.
5. Purchase and activate a respective Dante license.

We assume you will pass steps 1-3 easily within a few minutes using our instruction, so we'll focus on setting up Dante in Nimble Streamer and activating a license.

Receiving Dante

To receive Dante, you need to set up Nimble Live Transcoder to obtain the audio and transform it into other codecs suitable for your use cases.

Click on Transcoder top menu, you'll see transcoder scenarios page.

Click on Create new scenario to see a blank scenario where you can add video and audio inputs, add transformation filters if needed and then set up encoders to produce the output.

To have Nimble receive Dante, drag and drop new audio source and choose Dante in the respective dialog.

Enter Dante name which will be used in your Dante scenarios, such as license activation and routing with other Dante-powered devices.

Then add audio encoder element and link it to your Dante input. Nimble provides various audio codecs, and in order to test the scenario you can choose AAC audio with default settings.

Once you save scenario and it's synced to Nimble instance, you'll be able to connect to audio stream using any supported audio protocol.

To define the protocols you can go to Nimble Streamer top menu / Live streams settings to open the respective page.

Here you may set up either global server setup for output protocols or define specific application setting. In our case we define live application with Icecast, audio-only HLS and SLDP.

You may also re-stream this output via RTMP republishing or SRT publication, please refer to the respective docs for details.

Sending Dante

If you have any live stream input in your Nimble Streamer instance, you can use it as a sourse for Dante output. You may use any protocol like RTMP, SRT, NDI, WebRTC, Icecast or any other from the list of supported technologies.

In our case we have a live stream available, this page can se accessed via Nimble Streamer top menu / Live Streams.

Active live stream input

Now we need to set up a transcoder scenario. To generate Dante output. As mentioned in previous case, click on Transcoder top menu, you'll see transcoder scenarios page. Then click on Create new scenario to see a blank scenario.

In this new scenario, first add an Audio source to decode your audio source stream. There you need to use the name of your input stream. In our case it's /live/stream/ (see picture below).

Transcoder scenario for Dante output

Then you need to drag and drop Audio output. There you choose Dante in the respective dialog.

Dante output settings

Use Dante name field to define the name which will later be used for device activation and routing.

Once you have your Dante stream set in Nimble Streamer, you need to purchase and activate a respective license as well as set up device routing for your audio stream.

Activating Dante license and mapping devices

Those of our customers who use Dante, know the licensing procedure very well, so we'll show basic steps and device mapping.

First, the Dante stream at Nimble instance will become visible as a new unlicensed device.

Start Dante Activator to start the license purchase process.

Choose the number of channels you'd like cover and proceed with the purchase.

Now the license is activated and our new device can be used properly.

After that you can route your audio to other devices. In our case we route Nimble's Dante output into a  Dante-powered speaker.

You can contact Audinate support team for more information about activating Dante license.

Further steps

Once you have Dante being active and mapped, your device will be able to receive or send data, becoming part of your live streaming production and content delivery infrastructure.

We'll be improving this feature set and will provide with more use cases so you could use Dante with better return of investments.

Let us know of your experience of using Dante.

Related documentation

Nimble Streamer, Live Transcoder, NDI support in Nimble Streamer, 

NDI HX2 support in Larix Broadcaster

Larix Broadcaster now has NDI®|HX2 support!

You can turn your mobile device into NDI source:

• Output streaming via NDI®|HX2
• Preview stream support
• Discovery Server and connection metadata
• Handle zoom from NDI Studio Monitor

It's based on NDI SDK 2023-04-10 r134150 v5.5.4

You can install it now and subscribe for just $19.99 per month in-app.

Download on the AppStore

Get it on Google Play

Let us know of your suggestions and feedback regarding this feature set.