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Direct Streams


midnightstreamer
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What are Direct Streams?

Direct streams are a new way to stream that doesn't rely on FFmpeg. To get the incoming stream and send it to clients, it uses a streaming engine written entirely in PHP (future versions will be written in Rust to save even more CPU cycles).

Direct.jpg.70a1c01b432f9deb5edd761376cb46d0.jpg

Here is a short list illustrating the pros and cons when using Direct streams:

Pros:

  • no audio-sync issues
  • no need to restart streams under any circumstances (some FFmpeg streams need to be restarted periodically in order to work properly)
  • ultra fast stream start when on-demand mode on, even from multiple hops (server1 (on-demand) -> server2 (on-demand) -> server3 (on-demand) -> server4 (on-demand) -> server5 (on-demand) in 4s<)
  • no need to tweak the probe size setting
  • can open sources without prebuffer (slow streams) in on-demand. Regular on-demand cannot open streams in time without or with a small prebuffer
  • avoided issues caused by demuxing and remuxing (note: FFmpeg de/remuxes even if the stream is just copied without transcoding, while Direct streams forward the input to the output as-is)
  • no issues when restreaming encrypted streams
  • less CPU usage (-20% per stream on average compared to FFmpeg)

Cons:

  • no transcoding available
  • no mapping available (audio and subtitle tracks cannot be selected)
  • no HLS input and output available (only MPEG-TS input / output is supported by Direct streams)
  • no archives available
  • no video/audio codec and bitrate info is shown

 

➡️ In MidnightStreamer you can choose between both FFmpeg and Direct streams. It's up to you when to use one or the other.

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