About Wowza Streaming Engine

Wowza Streaming Engine (known as Wowza Media Server prior to version 4) is unified streaming media server software developed by Wowza Media Systems. The server is used for streaming of live and on-demand video, audio, and rich Internet applications overIP networks to desktop, laptop,
and tablet computers, mobile devices, IPTV set-top boxes, internet-connected TV sets, game consoles, and other network-connected devices. The server is a Java application deployable on most operating systems.

History

Version 1.0.x was released on February 19, 2007.^[1] This version was originally offered as an alternative to the Adobe Flash Media Server, and supported streamed video, audio and RIA’s for the Flash Player client playback and interaction based on the Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) using content encoded with Spark and VP6 codecs. The original product name was Wowza Media Server Pro.

Version 1.5.x was released on May 15, 2008 and added support for H.264 video and Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) audio, and ingest support for Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP), Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP), MPEG transport stream (MPEG-TS), and ICY (SHOUTcast/Icecast) sources for re-streaming to the Flash Player client.

Version 2.0.x was released on December 17, 2009. The product name was changed to Wowza Media Server 2. This version added outbound H.264 streaming support for Apple HTTP Live Streaming protocol for iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, etc.), Microsoft HTTP Smooth Streaming for Silverlight player, RTSP/RTP for QuickTime Player and 3GPPmobile devices based on Android, BlackBerry (RIM), Symbian (Symbian Foundation), Palm web OS (now owned by HP), and other platforms, and TV set-top boxes and video game consoles.

Version 3.0.x was released on October 7, 2011. This version added network DVR, Live transcoding, and DRM plug-in functionality.

Version 3.5 was released on November 7, 2012. This version added Closed Captioning and a Silverlight Multicast Player. Live Stream Record and Media Security, previously additional features external to the software, were incorporated into the server software. Media Security DRM plugins with Verimetrix VCAS, Microsoft PlayReady, BuyDRM KeyOS, EZDRM Hosted DRM, AuthenTec DRM Fusion. Wowza also released Wowza StreamLock free AddOn which provides 256-bit SSL for RTMPS and HTTPS. The release included enhancements to Wowza Transcoder AddOn; transcoder overlays that can be used for advertising, tilting, watermarks and tickers. Other new features include B-frame support, Dolby Digital Plus (EAC3) pass-through for HLS, MPEG-DASH, HTTP Origin.

Version 3.6 was released June 10, 2013. Wowza Media Server 3.6 added basic support for Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH). Expanded support for closed captioning formats for live and video on-demand streams. Allows mobile encoding with GoCoder app for iOS and Android.

Version 4.0 was released February 11, 2014. The product name was changed to Wowza Streaming Engine. This release includes a new web-based graphical interface which interacts with the server via a REST API and provides monitoring and configuration functions. This release also brings full support for MPEG-DASH and support for additional for captioning formats. Previously available separately, the MediaCache and Push Publishing add-on modules are now included in the server.

Formats

Wowza Streaming Engine can stream to multiple types of playback clients and devices simultaneously, including the Adobe Flash player, Microsoft Silverlight player, Apple QuickTime Player and iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch), 3GPP mobile phones, IPTV set-top boxes (Amino, Enseo, Roku, Streamit and others), and game consoles such as Wii, Xbox, and PS3.

Wowza Streaming Engine is compatible with standard streaming protocols. On the playout side, these include RTMP (and the variants RTMPS, RTMPT, RTMPE, RTMPTE),HDS, HLS, MPEG DASH, RTSP, Smooth Streaming, and MPEG-TS (unicast and multicast). On the live ingest side the server can ingest video and audio via RTP, RTSP, RTMP, MPEG-TS (unicast and multicast) and ICY (SHOUTcast / Icecast) streams. It also supports incoming streams via the RTSP and WOWZ protocols from mobile Android and iOS devices running the Wowza GoCoder mobile encoding application.

For on-demand streaming, Wowza Streaming Engine can ingest multiple types of audio and video files. Supported file types include MP4 (QuickTime container - .mp4, .f4v, .mov, .m4a, .m4v, .mp4a, .mp4v, .3gp, and .3g2), FLV (Flash Video - .flv), and MP3 content (.mp3).

Other media servers that provide similar capabilities are Helix Universal Server, Unified Origin, Red5 Media Server and Adobe Flash Media Server.

Awards

• 2007 Streaming Media Magazine Editors’ Pick
• 2008 Streaming Media Magazine Editors’ Pick
• 2008 Streaming Media Magazine US Readers’ Choice (Best Server)
• 2009 Streaming Media Magazine US Readers’ Choice (Best Server; Best Streaming Innovation)
• 2010 TV Technology Europe Magazine STAR Award
• 2010 Streaming Media Magazine European Readers’ Choice Awards (Best Server; Best Innovation)
• 2010 WFX New Product Award (Best Overall New Media Product; Best Podcasting, Webcasting, and Website Streaming Media Solution)
• 2011 Streaming Media Magazine European Readers’ Choice Awards (Best Server; Best Streaming Innovation)
• 2012 European Readers' Choice Award (BestServer Software and Best Transcoding Solution)
• 2013 Streaming Media Magazine’s All-StarTeam named Wowza Co-Founder and CTO Charlie Good
• 2013 Streaming Media European Readers’ Choice Award (Server Hardware/Software)
• 2013 Streaming Media Readers’ Choice Award (Media Server)
• 2014 Streaming Media European Readers’ Choice Award (Best Streaming Innovation)