Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.20 Release Notes

Important: A newer version of Wowza Streaming Engine is available. For more information, see Latest software updates for Wowza Streaming Engine.

Version: Wowza Streaming Engine™ 4.8.20+1 build 20220919162035 released on September 21, 2022.

Java support: Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.20 is built on Java 11 (OpenJDK Java SE JRE 11.0.2), but can be used with Java versions 11 - 12. For more information, see Manually install and troubleshoot Java on Wowza Streaming Engine.

New features and functionality in Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.20


Wowza Streaming Engine is a robust, customizable, and scalable media server software that powers reliable streaming of high-quality video and audio to any device, anywhere. Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.20 contains several enhancements and fixes that help to improve the functionality of the media server software.

Scaling option - Wowza Streaming Engine transcoder manager

With Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.20, you can set the scaling preset to Default or CUDA implementation. The Default implementation enables the built-in software video scaler that uses the CPU resources, whereas the CUDA implementation enables the NVIDIA-CUDA GPU video scaling.

Access MPEG-TS SCTE-35 tags for DASH streaming

With Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.20, you can use the Wowza Streaming Engine Java API to access MPEG-TS SCTE-35 tags for DASH streaming for a live stream. For more information, see this example module.


Installation and update considerations for Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.20


If you are updating to Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.20 from a base installation of Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.17 or earlier, before you update, you need to install a supported version of Java, such as Java 11-12 or the OpenJDK Java SE JRE 11.0.2 installed with Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.18 (available from the Downloads tab of My Account). Then instruct Wowza Streaming Engine to use that version of Java according to the instructions in Manually install and troubleshoot Java on Wowza Streaming Engine.

When using the Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.18 installer to install a new instance of Wowza Streaming Engine on Windows, you may need to install additional dependencies in order to ingest SRT MediaCaster streams or use the generic SRT stream targets destination to publish an SRT stream. To address this, install the latest version of the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio appropriate to your operating system.

For step-by-step instructions on how to install or update Wowza Streaming Engine, see the following articles:

Breaking changes in Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.20


Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.18 (or later) is compiled using Java 11 (OpenJDK Java SE JRE 11.0.2) and supports Java versions 11 - 12. Earlier versions of Java aren't supported. 

Important notes about changing the Java version:

  • Wowza Streaming Engine versions before 4.8.18 were compiled using Java 9. If you're updating an earlier installation of Wowza Streaming Engine to version 4.8.18 (or later), you must install OpenJDK Java SE JRE 11.0.2 before running the Wowza Streaming Engine updater. For your convenience, we've provided the OpenJDK Java SE JRE 11.0.2 files as a zip on the Downloads tab of your Wowza account.
  • If your Wowza Streaming Engine workflow uses custom modules or plugins, we recommend testing them with Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.18 (or later) in a non-production environment before updating your media server software. The following Java modules are included:
    • java.base
    • java.datatransfer
    • java.desktop
    • java.instrument
    • java.logging
    • java.management
    • java.management.rmi
    • java.naming
    • java.prefs
    • java.rmi
    • java.scripting
    • java.scripting.jgss
    • java.security.sasl
    • java.sql
    • java.transaction.xa
    • java.xml
    • jdk.crypto.cryptoki
    • jdk.crypto.ec
    • jdk.httpserver
    • jdk.management
    • jdk.management.agent
    • jdk.naming.rmi
    • jdk.unsupported
    • jdk.xml.dom
  • If you have other dependencies, you must install a Java 11 JRE or JDK that includes all your dependencies.

For more information, see Manually install and troubleshoot Java on Wowza Streaming Engine.

Detailed list of changes in Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.20


Changes since Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.19

  • Added scaling option to Wowza Streaming Engine Transcoder Manager.
  • Updated Wowza Streaming Cloud to Wowza Video in Stream Target Manager.
  • Removed references to Adobe HDS and MS Smooth Streaming.
  • Fixed a slow memory leak in cupertino packetizer with WebRTC to HLS.
  • Fixed an issue with transcoder not starting the encode job on certain sources.
  • Fixed a bug with RTMP publishing using a bitrate above 25mbps.
  • Fixed an issue with transcoder freezing on certain sources when using Safari's native HLS Player.
  • Implemented a feature where all playback types are unchecked by default during the new application setup process.
  • Implemented a feature to add support for SCTE-35 Tags in MPEG-DASH live streams.
  • Implemented a feature to use Beamr's video processing library as the default software scaler.

Changes outside Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.20 Release

You can now start a trial in your My Account portal if you already have a Wowza paid subscription or free trial. If you're an org owner, under the Products tab in My Account, click Start free trial to be taken to a screen to complete information and start your trial. You can access:

  • A Wowza Video free trial if you don't have an active, unexpired Wowza Video trial, Wowza Video paid subscription, or Wowza Streaming Cloud subscription. 
  • A Wowza Streaming Engine free trial if you don't have an active, unexpired Engine trial.

We'll be replacing the existing IP addresses for Wowza CDN on Fastly stream targets. While the change hasn't gone into effect yet, if you stream directly to Wowza CDN from Wowza Streaming Engine, you should add these IP addresses to your firewall rules, so your integration continues to work seamlessly when the change occurs. When we've completed the transition to these new IP addresses, you should remove the old addresses from your rules. We'll add information to these release notes when the transition is complete, so you know when to remove the old addresses.

We expect the IP addresses below to remain static moving forward.

  • 129.153.100.158

  • 129.153.114.13

  • 129.154.207.194

  • 132.145.253.238

  • 138.3.255.30

  • 141.147.1.186

  • 146.56.156.1

  • 158.101.43.210

  • 193.123.241.42

To learn more, see Send a stream from Wowza Streaming Engine to a Wowza CDN HLS target using Wowza REST APIs and Stream to Wowza CDN from Wowza Streaming Engine.

Known issues with Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.20


For a detailed list of known issues that are still in effect, see Known issues with Wowza Streaming Engine.