Publish a video file as a live stream with Wowza Streaming Engine

This article describes how to use the Wowza Streaming Engine™ media server software ServerListenerStreamDemoPublisher server listener to publish a video-on-demand file as a live stream. The file will loop endlessly.

Note: This setup is basic and static. Other, more dynamic solutions are offered in the following articles:

• Schedule streaming with a Wowza Streaming Engine Java module
• Do basic server-side publishing with the stream class and Wowza Streaming Engine Java API
• Do scheduled, adaptive bitrate streaming using Stream class streams
• Switch streams with the Wowza Streaming Engine Java API
• Stream Class Example

1. Add the following <ServerListener> to the <ServerListeners> list of [install-dir]/conf/Server.xml:

   <ServerListener>
       <BaseClass>com.wowza.wms.module.ServerListenerStreamDemoPublisher</BaseClass>
   </ServerListener>

2. Add the following property to the <Properties> container at the bottom of [install-dir]/conf/Server.xml:

   <Property>
       <Name>streamDemoPublisherConfig</Name>
       <Value>appName=myApplication,srcStream=mp4:sample.mp4,dstStream=myStream,sendOnMetadata=true</Value>
   </Property>

3. Configure any of the following:
   • appName – Application name, in the form application/appInstance (appInstance can be omitted).
   • dstStream – Destination stream name.
   • playlistRepeat – If true, the file or playlist is repeated. Formerly called repeat.
   • publishDuration – Time, in seconds, the stream will publish (format: HH:MM:SS.mmm).
   • publishPauseTime – If publishRepeat is set to true, the time, in seconds, the stream pauses before being republished (the format is HH:MM:SS.mmm, default is 1 second).
   • publishRepeat – If true, the stream is re-published in a loop after the publishDuration time has elapsed (publishDuration must be greater than zero, default is false).
   • random – If true and if using an M3U8 playlist, the items in the playlist are streamed in a random order.
   • sendOnMetadata – If true, instructs the publisher to send onMetadata events. 
   • speed – Playback speed. This is a floating point value that can be negative (default is 1.0, be careful with this one - may not work in all cases).
   • srcStream – Name of video file to stream as live content (MP4, MP3, and M3U8 files are supported).
   • timeBetweenItems – Time, in milliseconds, between playlist items (default is 80 milliseconds).
   • vhostName – Virtual host (VHost) name. If omitted, the stream will be created for all VHosts.
   The following are example configurations to accomplish specific behaviors:
    
   • You can publish multiple live streams by adding them to the property value as a list of entries delimited by the pipe (|) character. For example:

     <Property>
         <Name>streamDemoPublisherConfig</Name>
         <Value>appName=myApplication,srcStream=mp4:sample.mp4,dstStream=myStream,sendOnMetadata=true|appName=myApplication,srcStream=mp4:sample.mp4,dstStream=myStream2,sendOnMetadata=true</Value>
     </Property>

   • You can also publish a playlist of files by creating a text file in the [install-dir]/content folder with the .m3u8 file extension. This file should contain simple streams names on each line like this (for this example we will use the file name filelist.m3u8):

     mp4:sample.mp4
     mp4:file2.mp4
     mp4:file3.mp4

   • To play this playlist, use a streamDemoPublisherConfig value like this:

     <Property>
         <Name>streamDemoPublisherConfig</Name>
         <Value>appName=myApplication,srcStream=m3u8:filelist.m3u8,dstStream=myStream,random=false,timeBetweenItems=250</Value>
     </Property>

   • To configure a stream to play for 10 seconds, pause for 2 seconds, and then repeat, use a streamDemoPublisherConfig value like this:

     <Property>
         <Name>streamDemoPublisherConfig</Name>
         <Value>appName=myApplication,srcStream=mp4:sample.mp4,dstStream=myStream,random=true,publishDuration=10,publishRepeat=true,publishPauseTime=2</Value>
     </Property>

4. After configuring your VOD asset to play as a live stream, you can use your player or the test players on the Video Test Player webpage to verify that it's playing properly. For more information, see Test playback.