Overview

A Publishing point refers to the physical location of the streaming server that the live video feed is first delivered to (ingest) via an encoder and the playback URLs the VIDIZMO player uses to playback live stream (egress), effectively hosting the stream for all viewers. A publishing point allows you to fine tune and re-use your Playback URLs for frequent live events.


Publishing Point is a combination of Ingest Point(s) and a Playback URL, with the ingest point on one end of the Streaming Server which takes input from the encoder and on the other end, the streaming server provides a Playback URL for the player to playback the content. The quality of the playback content depends upon the streaming server's ability to transcode different renditions for the player.


VIDIZMO Streaming Servers are specially designed to simultaneously live transcode ingested streams in different qualities i.e. 240p, 360p, 480p, 720p etc. and combine them to create a single source file or manifest file for the player. Manifest files store stream metadata, which is used by the players to provide the best quality streams. The player, depending upon the available bandwidth, then takes relevant information from the manifest file and decides which quality to stream.

To learn more about the VIDIZMO Streaming Servers, see: VIDIZMO Streaming Server Options. 


Follow the steps below to learn how to create a Publishing Point using Wowza On Premise Streaming Server for live streaming in VIDIZMO:


Before you start

  • Only Administrators and Managers can add a Publishing Point for live streaming.
  • In order to set up a publishing point, you need to configure an ECDN node as Wowza On-Premise streaming server that you will be using to publish your live stream. VIDIZMO offers easy integration with 4 different streaming servers (along with the flexibility of adding more), but here we will be demonstrating how to set up Wowza streaming server provider for live streaming. Follow the steps in How to Configure Wowza On-Premise Streaming Server Provider before you proceed to create a publishing point.
  • In order for the servers to communicate with each other, your VIDIZMO Portal and Wowza Streaming Engine both should have the same protocol, either http or https.
  • Before you start publishing live streams using Wowza On Premise Streaming Engine, you will have to configure Transcoder settings in Wowza to match the playable renditions selected while configuring Publishing Point in VIDIZMO application. For example, if you select 160p, 480p and 720p quality renditions against the Publishing Point, then you will have to configure the transcoder in Wowza Streaming Engine to have support for the chosen encoding presets.


Add a Publishing Point

1. From the Portal's Homepage:

i. Click on the navigation menu on the top left of your screen.

ii. Expand the Admin tab.

iii Click on Control Panel.



2. From the Manage Portal navigation panel:

i. Select the Live Streaming tab to list options available under it.

ii. Click on the Publishing Point tab to open its screen on the right-hand side.

iii. To add a Publishing Point for your streaming server, use the Add Publishing Point button.



3. From the Add Publishing Point screen:

i. Enter the Title for your Publishing Point.

ii. Now, select a Server from the dropdown list. In the Server field, you can select from the list of names appearing in the drop-down. These values are populated from the "Title" field when setting up the ECDN from Admin > Control Panel > ECDN > Add ECDN. Now, choose the Wowza On-Premise Streaming Server node that you configured using How to Configure Wowza On-Premise Streaming Server Provider.


Note: Below are some of the options that help you configure and manage your Live Application in Wowza Streaming Engine. To learn more about the options and what they mean, see: Live Application Configuration .


iii. Enter the name of your Stream here.

iv. Select Low-latency to use this application to publish and play live video content to one or a few client applications, such as in a video chat. 

v. Select the Stream Qualities in which you wish your content to be available for playback. However, you will have to configure Transcoder settings in Wowza to match the selected renditions. For example, if you select 160p, 480p and 720p quality renditions here, then you will have to configure the transcoder in Wowza Streaming Engine to have support for the chosen encoding presets.

vi. Enable Authentication: Enabling Authentication will require you to provide login credentials when setting up your encoder to push stream to streaming server. When this checkbox is enabled, User Name and Password are required to publish live stream into the ingest point of Wowza streaming server.

vii. Here, you may add a Description for your Publishing Point for ease of understanding.

viii. Choose which of the default Wowza Transcoder templates do you wish to configure for your content against this Publishing Point. To learn more about these templates and how to configure them, see: Set up and run Transcoder in Wowza Streaming Engine.


Note: Make sure that the template you choose has encoding presets enabled for all stream qualities selected above.


ix. To allow source connections from specific IP addresses to bypass authentication, enter the Publish Whitelist IP addresses as a comma-separated list in the box. Connections from all other IP addresses must pass authentication.

x. To prevent source connections from specific IP addresses, enter the restricted Publish Blacklist IP addresses as a comma-separated list in the box. Connections from all other IP addresses must pass authentication.

xi. To allow playback connections from specific IP addresses to bypass authentication, enter the Whitelist IP addresses as a comma-separated list in the box. Connections from all other IP addresses must pass authentication. 

xii. To prevent playback connections from specific IP addresses, enter the Blacklist IP addresses as a comma-separated list in the box. Connections from all other IP addresses must pass authentication.

xiii. Maximum Playable Connections allows you to limit the number of concurrent viewers accessing your live stream. To learn more about it, see: Limit maximum connections.

xi. Click Add to create your Publishing Point.

 



Setup Encoder

After configuration, go back to Publishing Point screen and hover over your configured point to edit it. From the Edit Publishing Point screen, obtain the following four values that will be used for configuring your encoder's output settings:

i. Ingest Point

ii. Stream Name

iii. Username

iv. Password


For a demonstration of how to set up Telestream Wirecast encoder to push your stream to your streaming server, see: Setting Up Wirecast Encoder for the Live Stream.




Preview Live Stream


The Publishing Point has been tested and verified to stream the right content. It can now be used to schedule a Live Webcast.