Nimble Streamer is a powerful and flexible video-on-demand (VOD) streaming solution. With its ability to re-package content into adaptive bitrate (ABR) protocols like HLS and MPEG-DASH, as well as support for progressive download, Nimble offers a range of options for delivering VOD content to viewers.
The platform supports a variety of input formats, including MP4, MP3, and AAC, and can handle H.264, H.265 and even AV1 video. Nimble Streamer is also equipped with advanced features like server playlist creation, subtitle support, and the ability to act as an edge server for re-streaming content. Nimble Streamer also offers a range of security and protection features, including support for DRM encryption with Widevine, Playready, and FairPlay, as well as hotlink protection, pay-per-view, and geo blocking. The platform also provides server-side ads insertion (SSAI) capabilities and can be used to build secure content delivery networks with SSL protection.
The importance of VOD for streaming video viewers cannot be overstated as it provides a flexible and convenient way for viewers to access video content at any time. Nimble Streamer is an excellent choice for delivering VOD content to viewers. With its wide range of features, flexible input and output options, and robust security and protection capabilities, it provides a comprehensive solution for delivering high-quality video content.
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
- 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