Flussonic Media Server 22.09

Flussonic Media Server 22.09 has been released.

Support for SMIL files for VOD adaptive bitrate streaming. Migrating to Flussonic from another media server is now easier. If you already have a library of media files with different quality, you will not have to spend time changing the cataloguing order or performing other manipulations. SMIL support allows you to specify the path to files, so that files with different quality will be collected in one multi bitrate playlist. This works both in the case of local and cloud storage.

This release has enormously increased the accuracy of OCR recognition of subtitles in all languages when converting from DVD to WebVTT. We measured the recognition accuracy of the Hungarian and Romanian languages – it increased from 57% to 92%. Use the functionality of converting subtitles from DVB to WebVTT if you accept DVB subtitles as a bitmap in the incoming MPEG-TS stream and want to be able to show subtitles on mobile devices and players without DVB support.

For convenient running of Flussonic on Kubernetes, we support JSON logs and tag storage in Docker Hub (now you can choose the version of Flussonic you need to install).

Check the full list of improvements and fixes below and get your servers upgraded as soon as possible.

What's New

• #8943 (new) (Flussonic) Significantly improved the quality of subtitiles recognition with Tesseract tool.
• #9797 (new) (Flussonic) It is now possible to use SMIL files for VOD adaptive bitrate streaming. SMIL files allow to make playlists for different combinations of files with different bitrates.
• #17686 (new) (Flussonic UI) Added the "Timeout" option in the "Push live video to certain URLs" section on the "Output" tab of stream settings.
• #20401 (new) (Flussonic UI) Added the possibility to select session keys on the "Auth" tab of stream settings.
• #23297 (new) (Flussonic) Implemented our listener for SRT that allows playback via the srt://flussonic_ip:port URL.
• #24220 (new) (Flussonic) Flussonic now can send UDP push with constant audio bitrate. This allows to improve audio quality and to send AAC audio tracks without trimming.
• #24356 (new) (Flussonic) It is now possible to read SCTE-104 ad markers in ASI streams captured from HD-SDI cards (with support for Video4Linux).
• #25101 (new) (Flussonic) Flussonic can now ingest SDI video and audio directly from DekTec cards.
• #25251 (new) (Flussonic) We will maintain tags for Docker images of Flussonic on Docker Hub for reproduceable installation and predictable upgrade to the specified version.
• #25504 (new) (Flussonic) It is now possible to copy one input raw video source (for example, SDI or HDMI) to other streams using the copy:// directive. It may be useful, for example, when emulationg several sources to test a transcoder performance.
• #21642 (improved) (Flussonic UI) Added the radio buttons to enable CMAF packager (for LL-HLS) on the "Output" tab of stream settings.
• #23895 (improved) (Flussonic UI) Statistic data for peers on the "Cluster" tab is now updated more regularly.
• #24308 (improved) (Flussonic UI) The default bitrate for a new track added by the "Add video track" button in transcoder settings was changed to 1000K.
• #24358 (improved) (Flussonic API) Added the admin_view_token_generate method that allows to generate the administrator authentication token.
• #24453 (improved) (Player) HLS stream now does not load data in the background when autoplay=false is used, so it does not generate unnecessary playback sessions. This is important for playing statistics accuracy.
• #24911 (improved) (Flussonic UI) Improved displaying statuses of Flussonic update, added the "Restart" button for manual restart of Flussonic Media Server after the update.
• #25085 (improved) (Flussonic) Flussonic now supports JSON logs output to console.
• #25145 (improved) (Cloud) Temporarily hid the "Usages" tab from Flussonic Cloud UI until the UI is redesigned.
• #25184 (improved) (Flussonic) Flussonic is now updated to a next release version more smoothly.
• #25284 (improved) (Flussonic UI) Removed the unnecessary "Show logs" button from the "Overview" tab of stream settings.
• #25334 (improved) (Flussonic) Added limitation for reconnect interval when trying to switch to an unavailable source.
• #25472 (improved) (Flussonic) Removed extra logs when checking Flussonic for available updates.
• #25479 (improved) (Player) Reduced the size of WebRTC player package.
• #25502 (improved) (Flussonic) Fixed the problem when Flussonic configuration file was cleared after deleting saved tshttp:// source in a stream settings.
• #24755 (new) (Cloud) Stream titles are now stored after deleting a stream to be further displayed in the "Usages" tab.
• #23418 (improved) (Cloud) Fixed the error when disabling a stream.
• #25229 (improved) (Cloud) The request to authorization backend for a stream in Flussonic Cloud now corresponds to Authorization API schema.

Issues Resolved

• #6727 (fixed) (Flussonic) Fixed the issue when Flussonic generated too short segments ignoring the segment_duration stream setting after the restart of a disconnected source.
• #8561 (fixed) (Player) When trying to play video in an unsupported format or codec in a browser, the player now displays the corresponding message.
• #11233 (fixed) (Flussonic UI) Fixed non-working "Upload files" button for VOD locations.
• #13094 (fixed) (Flussonic) Fixed minor security issue when users with permissions to live stream only could download pieces of a DVR archive.
• #15519 (fixed) (Flussonic) Significantly improved the accuracy of converting DVB Subtitles to WebVTT.
• #23892 (fixed) (Flussonic) Fixed CC errors during capturing video from SoftLab cards after changing Flussonic configuration via "Config editor".
• #24715 (fixed) (Player) Fixed inability to play the last hour of an archive in DVR player.
• #24722 (fixed) (Flussonic UI) Added pagination to VOD files list of a VOD location.
• #24783 (fixed) (Flussonic) Fixed inability to set the transcoder option "Bframe" to IBBBBP for CPU transcoder via Flussonic UI.
• #24953 (fixed) (Flussonic UI) Fixed disappearing of DRM settings on the "Auth" tab of stream settings with a certain width of a browser window.
• #25160 (fixed) (Flussonic) Fixed multiple 403 errors before publication starts when trying to publish a stream via WHIP .
• #25176 (fixed) (Flussonic) Fixed the issue when on_play authorization settings with a global authorization backend disappeared from a stream configuration after updating Flussonic.
• #25219 (fixed) (Flussonic) Corrected the list of required fields for the tls_certificate_save operation in Flussonic API.
• #25247 (fixed) (Flussonic) Fixed absence of dates in Flussonic logs.
• #25249 (fixed) (Flussonic UI) Fixed broken rendering of monitored data graphs on the "Pulse" tab.
• #25258 (fixed) (Flussonic UI) Fixed displaying an emtpy page after saving DVR settings of a stream.
• #25260 (fixed) (Flussonic UI) Renamed the "Clients" tab into "Play sessions", improved the message for a stream without playback sessions.
• #25261 (fixed) (Flussonic UI) Improved the message about publishing on the "Input" tab of stream settings, now it says "Allow to publish to the stream".
• #25320 (fixed) (Flussonic) Fixed broken statistic (cpu/memory/bandwidth usage) for peers in a cluster.
• #25425 (fixed) (Flussonic UI) Fixed incorrect displaying of files in subdirectories of a VOD storage.
• #25460 (fixed) (Flussonic UI) Fixed the error when trying to change password via Flussonic UI.

Documentation updates

• #25420 (new) (Flussonic API) Described the dvr_info section with DVR stream's parameters in API schema.
• #4667 (improved) (Flussonic) Added the description of user_id parameter that can be used for secure token generation.
• #19043 (improved) (Flussonic) Described [tcp_closed error] that may occur during capturing MPEG-TS over HTTP or MPEG-TS over TCP.
• #20315 (improved) (Flussonic) Updated description of absolute timeshift in the chapter about DVR playback.
• #20438 (improved) (Flussonic) Updated the section about VOD file playback in the Quick Start.
• #21062 (improved) (Flussonic) Added the description of drmnow!DRM support.
• #22496 (improved) (Cloud) Added the [note] about automatic generation of a stream name in Flussonic Cloud.
• #22516 (improved) (Flussonic) Removed out-of-date description of authorization backend parameters in documentation and added the link to Authorization API schema.
• #23999 (improved) (Flussonic) Improved the structure of the Video Playback chapter, added the links to Streaming API.
• #24215 (improved) (Flussonic) Published a technical post about TWCC approach in WebRTC ABR on the web site.
• #24578 (improved) (Flussonic) Described Locking device IDs of DVB cards when capturing video from multiple DVB cards to prevent changins IDs of the DVB cards after OS reboot.
• #24609 (improved) (Flussonic) Added the description of the "Copy" button on the "Output" tab in Flussonic UI.
• #24713 (improved) (Flussonic) Removed obsolete description of Dynafile used for watermarking.
• #24752 (improved) (Flussonic) Updated the HTTP API guide: added the description of deprecated fields, idempotency token, filtering by condition, and so on.
• #24871 (improved) (Flussonic) Described recommendations to use M4FS protocol when sending encrypted UDP multicast via the Internet.
• #24959 (improved) (Flussonic) Updated and refactored the Quick Start and Transcoder chapters: added UI screenshots, removed extra code snippets.
• #25016 (improved) (Flussonic) Updated the [example] for installing Nvidia driver: specified newer versions of OS an driver.
• #25019 (improved) (Flussonic) Updated the description of DVB cards UI and generating names of streams for receiving programs.
• #25047 (improved) (Flussonic) Added the [note] about the work of Flussonic licensing server and about opening necessary ports.
• #25084 (improved) (Flussonic) Described two types of HLS DVR catchup-playlists: "VOD" and "Event" and the ability to finish the "Event" playlists in future.
• #25098 (improved) (Flussonic) Added the list of possible Decklink card modes.
• #25106 (improved) (Flussonic) Described new properties of cluster peers displayed on the "Cluster" tab.
• #25126 (improved) (Flussonic) Added a note about the limitation for concurrent sessions for [Nvidia NVENC cards].
• #25133 (improved) (Flussonic) Described the ability to start Flussonic without configuration file.
• #25179 (improved) (Flussonic) Added description of transcoding separate audio tracks.
• #25252 (improved) (Flussonic) Updated authorization description to clarify the process of interaction with an authorization backend.
• #25288 (improved) (Flussonic) Fixed the example of configuring event_sink for email notifications.
• #25362 (improved) (Flussonic) Described the ability to select session keys in UI.
• #25437 (improved) (Watcher) Added the requirement on using the public Watcher host address while configuring the [Watcher mobile apps]
• #25481 (improved) (Flussonic) Add the note about the default HTTP port used by Flussonic.
• #25483 (improved) (Watcher) The description of the [DVR path setting] is updated to clearly show that there are two separate ways to configure DVR.
• #25508 (improved) (Flussonic API) Fixed double highlighting of fields with the same name in path parameters and request body in API reference.
• #25556 (improved) (Flussonic) Described [capturing SDI streams from DekTec cards].