This article introduces the different parts of the Stream Target Details page to help you find your way around the Wowza Video user interface.
You must have an Advanced Wowza Video user role on your user profile to see the Advanced section in our main navigation to use transcoders and stream targets. An org owner can assign the Advanced Wowza Video user role to you so you can access stream targets. You can get to the Stream Target Details page by clicking Stream Targets in the navigation, and selecting a stream target from the Stream Targets list.
The Stream Target Details page contains three tabs that allow you to see the details of your stream target. The tabs that appear depend on the type of target you're creating.
Share Stream button
If you use Wowza CDN with HLS playback, you can view and use the Share Stream feature to host and use Wowza Flowplayer which is our player for Wowza Video. The button is located at the top of the Stream Target Details page. You'll find the viewing formats that Wowza Video generates for your stream, giving you flexibility in presentation. You can use one viewing format or combine them for a more robust viewing experience. If you use our player and Wowza CDN, you'll also be able to gather and view analytics through Wowza Video.
When you click Share stream, you'll get access to the following viewing formats:
- Share Stream
- JavaScript embed code — Copy this code and add it to your site to embed the specified player into your own site.
- iFrame embed code — Copy this code and add it to your site to embed an iFrame with the specified player into your own site.
- Hosted page — Copy the Hosted page link URL and share it directly with your viewers. Wowza Video automatically generates a web page, that we host for you, and embed with the specified player. No coding required.
Overview tab
Wowza CDN and Custom stream targets have an Overview tab.
- Stream Name – The stream name Wowza Video uses to push the stream to the target.
- Playback URLs – The address that can be used to configure playback of the stream using the HLS protocol or DASH protocol. This section is only available for Wowza CDN targets.
Settings tab
The Settings tab displays details you need to configure Wowza Video to connect to the target and to play the stream from the target. The details that appear depend on the type of target you're viewing.
Wowza CDN
- Target Name – A short, descriptive identifier for the target that differentiates it from other targets in Wowza Video.
- Delivery Protocols – Displays the protocols enabled for the stream target.
- Enable a Custom Origin – Connects your Wowza Engine streaming instance to the stream target when enabled. Select this option to connect the Wowza CDN stream target to a Wowza Streaming Engine (WSE) instance or any other type of origin server. You must have a WSE subscription to use this option for WSE. If you use this configuration, you won't add this stream target to a transcoder since you're using WSE, or another origin server, as your transcoder instead of Wowza Video. When enabled, you'll see the following options:
- Region – The location nearest to your Wowza Streaming Engine instance.
- Custom Origin URL – The URL of your Wowza Streaming Engine instance.
- Playback – The URL suffix you want added to the end of your playback URL. This field is displayed only for streams using HLS playback.
Playback field completion causes the Share Stream button to display at the top of your Stream Target Details page. See the Share Stream section above for more information on using Share Stream to host and use Wowza Flowplayer for your stream.
After you've shared the stream, you can review analytics and QoE metrics within Wowza Video.
Security
- Force SSL Playback – Requires users to play the stream over HTTPS. If not enabled, users can play the stream over HTTPS or HTTP.
- Token Authentication – Token authentication protects streams by ensuring that they are accessed only by viewers who have the token. You can use token authentication to make the stream playback URL unavailable after a certain length of time, to limit access approve IP addresses, or apply other restrictions. Token authentication prevents playback URLs from being shared by unauthorized links or player hijacking attacks.
Important: After you enable token auth, you have to generate your own query parameters to secure the stream and update your HLS playback URL to use them.
- Enter a Shared Secret or click Generate. The trusted shared secret must contain only hexadecimal characters (the digits 0 through 9 and/or the letters a through f). The length of the secret must be an even number of characters between 2 and 32.
- Only Protect Playlist File – Protects the Playlist file only and leaves individual media playlists and media segments unprotected. This feature enables playback compatibility with media players that don't support the withCredentials property. It may also be useful when addressing token auth compatibility issues with specific browsers.
- Geo-blocking – Allows you to block or allow selected countries and IP addresses from viewing content.
- By Location – Select Disable, Allow Playback, or Deny Playback. If you select Allow or Deny, select the locations you want to include.
- IP Address Override – Select Disable, Allow Playback, or Deny Playback. If you select Allow or Deny, add the IP addresses you want to include.
Custom
- Target Name – A short, descriptive identifier for the target that differentiates it from other targets in Wowza Video.
- Provider – The third-party CDN provider that you're targeting or protocol.
- Primary URL – The RTMP address, without the preceding protocol and without a trailing slash (/), that the target uses to ingest a stream. For example, [target-domain-or-ip-address]/[EntryPoint]. Hostnames can't contain underscores (_). For help determining the correct RTMP URL, see the destination's help or user guide.
- Stream Name – The stream name Wowza Video uses to push the stream to the target.
Facebook Live
Facebook Live doesn't have tabs, but contains its settings on a single page of the Stream Target Details page. Only the Target Name is editable.
- Target Name – A short, descriptive identifier for the target that differentiates it from other targets in Wowza Video.
- Title – The description that appears with the stream on Facebook.
- Description – The description that appears with the stream on Facebook.
- Video Destination – The location where you posted the stream to on Facebook. You can stream to your Timeline.
- Privacy – A setting that determines who can watch your stream: just you, (Only me), Friends, Friends of Friends, or all Facebook users (Public).
LinkedIn Live
LinkedIn Live doesn't have tabs, but contains its settings on a single page of the Stream Target Details page. Only the Target Name is editable.
- Target Name – A short, descriptive identifier for the target that differentiates it from other targets in Wowza Video.
- Title – The title that appears with the stream on LinkedIn.
- Description – The description that appears with the stream on LinkedIn.
- Region – The region closest to the broadcast location of your transcoder.
Properties tab
Wowza Video provides advanced properties that you can use to customize and optimize Wowza CDN targets and Custom targets. There aren't any advanced properties for LinkedIn or Facebook stream targets.
- Access control: allow origin – Explicitly specify the origin that can access the stream. While most streams won't need the origin explicitly set, you might use this property for older players that don't send the Referer header in their stream request. Format: http://<origin>
Note: This property is only available for Wowza CDN stream targets.
- HLS segment duration – Specifies the duration of the time-based audio and video chunks that Wowza Video delivers to the target. The HLS segment duration can be 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10 seconds. A lower (shorter) duration can reduce latency, but may affect playback on some older devices.
Caution: For most HLS stream targets, the segment duration doesn't need to be changed. Edit it only if viewers experience unacceptably long latency.
- Convert AMF data – Determines whether Wowza Video converts AMF data into ID3 tags. ID3 tags allow you to include metadata in your HLS stream. If enabled, Wowza Video listens for AMF data events coming from the source encoder or camera, parses the data events, maps the events to ID3 tags, and sends the ID3 tags in the HLS stream.
- Playlist seconds – Determines the maximum allowable duration of the playlist. The default, 100, results in a chunklist of 10, because the default chunk size (HLS segment duration) is 10 seconds. You can specify any number of seconds between 6 and 28800 (8 hours).
- Relative playlist – Determines whether a stream's playlist contains relative or absolute paths. Relative playlists allow the viewer to play the stream over HTTP or HTTPS, whichever way their browser connects to the stream target. If it's enabled, it means that relative playlists are used.
Note: If you have started transcoder at any point before updating a property associated with its stream target, you must reset the transcoder for the property to take effect. If you haven't started a transcoder, skip this step.
