Nimble Streamer is a powerful and flexible video-on-demand (VOD) streaming solution. With its ability to re-package content just-in-time into adaptive bitrate (ABR) protocols like HLS and MPEG-DASH on-the-fly, as well as support for progressive download, Nimble offers a range of options for delivering VOD content to viewers.
Recent update:
Our latest article Building a multi-CDN streaming strategy using Nimble Streamer
highlights what features you can use for creating a powerful origin for your CDN delivery
VOD files input specs
HLS and MPEG-DASH transmuxing creates a VOD stream from file in a file system using just-in-time (JIT) packager.
- Supported formats: MP4, MP3, AAC, F4V.
- MP4 is supported as video+audio, video, audio, original MP4, Apple QuickTime extension.
- Both H.264 and H.265 video is supported.
- AV1 codec is supported for MPEG-DASH transmuxing.
- EditListBox MP4 atom is supported.
Progressive download allows streaming files with no re-packaging
- Supported formats: mp4, mp3, flv, oga, ogv, wav, webm, mkv.
- Seeking is supported by HTTP Range header and Flash time marks.
VOD output protocols
The supported output protocols for VOD are:
- ABR HLS with both MPEG-TS and fragmented MP4 (fMP4) container.
- ABR MPEG-DASH
- Progressive download
- New: HTTP/3 protocol is supported in Nimble Streamer along with QUIC for better delivery of HLS content.
- HTTP/2 can be used for VOD HLS, MPEG-DASH and progressive download in modern browsers.
HLS and MPEG-DASH output processing
Just-in-time (JIT) high-performance packaging allows saving a lot of space and provides output streams for various VOD scenarios.
- MP4 transmuxing to HLS in VOD mode.
- Transmuxing MP4 to MPEG-DASH in VOD mode.
- Remote HTTP storage support allows to effectively stream files, those size exceeds available file system capacity.
- Adaptive bitrate support via SMIL files.
- Supports audio and video tracks selection for MP4 to VOD HLS transmuxing process.
- You can use multiple audio-only and video-only tracks transmuxing for HLS.
- Produceaudio-only HLS from MP3 and AAC for decreasing traffic overhead of your internet radio.
- VOD cache is controlled with several parameters like chunks LRU life time and some others.
VOD output options
- Server playlist allows creating live streams from VOD files.
- Take a look at VOD streaming setup example to see step-by-step how-to.
- WebVTT, TTML and SRT subtitles support for single files and SMILs.
It’s supported for HLS and MPEG-DASH, while SRT is supported for HLS only.
Read more in Subtitles reference page. - Nimble can also be used as an edge server for re-streaming the HLS, MPEG-DASH and progressive download to the consumers.
- CDN-friendly streaming setup is available for outgoing HLS streams.
- Stream aliases are available for making flexible security settings and statistics.
- If-Modified-Since header is supported for CDNs requests.
- Nimble Streamer can be used as an origin for peer-to-peer streaming. It has all necessary features for being the source. StreamRoot has prepared a step-by-step how-to describing the setup and usage of Nimble Streamer with StreamRoot P2P infrastructure.
- Take a look at performance tuning basics to see basic approaches to best performance.
- You may create robust delivery networks by using load balancing techniques for spreading the load between several Nimble instances.
Nimble DRM for video-on-demand
Nimble Streamer DRM provides CENC encryption of VOD content for digital rights management.
- Google Widevine for MPEG-DASH.
- Multi-key HLS can be protected using both Widevine and FairPlay.
Read Widevine DRM support for HLS article to learn more. - Microsoft Playready for MPEG-DASH.
- Apple FairPlay for HLS.
- Supports EZDRM, Axinom, Cloud DRM, BuyDRM KeyOS, castLabs DRMToday, PallyCon, Sigma DRM and Verimatrix VCAS CPIX providers.
- Supports Widevine Cloud Service with key rotation.
- CENC-powered MPEG-DASH and fMP4 HLS formats support DVR and VOD encryption.
- All encryption works for H.264/AVC and H.265/HEVC.
Easy setup is described on Nimble Streamer DRM page.
Server-Side Ads Insertion (SSAI) for VOD
Nimble Advertizer server-side ads insertion (SSAI) framework allows performing dynamic ads insertion into your VOD streams.
- Pre-roll and mid-roll ads.
- Custom business logic and Personalized ads
Currently VOD HLS with MPEG-TS and fMP4 containers are supported. Read more on Advertizer page.
VOD Paywall
Nimble Streamer is used for building secure content delivery networks.
- Hotlink protection, pay-per-view and geo blocking feature set is available for all output streams.
- HLS AES-128 encryption is available for HLS.
- HLS and MPEG-DASH output streams can use SSL protection to stream via HTTPS