mg

Essential Open Source Web Media Streaming

Use MPEG-DASH and HLS to effectively serve your video.

mg packages MP4 files in order to be streamed on web. Once they are packaged you may deploy your video to any web server to stream it.

Add or improve your video communication. MediaGoom let you use video on the web effectively since using adaptive streaming let you:

• improve media startup time
• use your bandwidth evenly
• give each user the best possible experience based on their bandwidth

Essential since does not require any infrastructure in your site in order to achieve this. It just uses plain files.

In order to produce mp4 file to be consumed by mg you can follow this guide: How to encode files to use with mg

Packaging

mg allows you to package your MP4 files. In this way you they can be effectively streamed on the Internet.

Packaging format:

1. Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH)
2. Http Live Stream (HLS)
3. Smooth Streaming

In order to generate the dash segments using mg you should have available one or more MP4 files. All this files should be gop aligned.

Read here to know how to produce your files in case you do not have them.

In order to verify that your files are gop aligned you can use this command:

mg -k:gop -i:<mp4 file>

Running the same command on all file should result in the same gop list. Some file could have more gop. However all files should have the same gops even if gops in between are different.

Once you have verified the input file are correct, you can use mg to produce either or both the mpeg dash or hls segments:

mg -k:adaptive -o:<output directory> \
-i:<first file> -b:<first bitrate> -s:0 -e:0 \
-j:<second file> -b:<second bitrate> \
-j:<third file> -b:<therd bitrate> \
-j:<nth file> -b<nth bitrate>

For instance if you followed the explanation to encode a media file you could have the following files:

• test_1024x576_h264-750Kb_aac-lc.mp4
• test_1280x720_h264-1200Kb_aac-lc.mp4
• test_1280x720_h264-2000Kb_aac-lc.mp4
• test_1280x720_h264-3500Kb_aac-lc.mp4
• test_256x144_h264-120Kb_aac-lc.mp4
• test_512x288_h264-320Kb_aac-lc.mp4

So your command line should be:

Bash

mkdir dash
mg -k:dash -o:./dash \
-i:./test_1024x576_h264-750Kb_aac-lc.mp4 -b:750 -s:0 -e:0 \
-j:./test_1280x720_h264-1200Kb_aac-lc.mp4 -b:1200 \
-j:./test_1280x720_h264-2000Kb_aac-lc.mp4 -b:2000 \
-j:./test_1280x720_h264-3500Kb_aac-lc.mp4 -b:3500 \
-j:./test_256x144_h264-120Kb_aac-lc.mp4 -b:120 \
-j:./test_512x288_h264-320Kb_aac-lc.mp4 -b:320

Powershell

mkdir dash
mg -k:adaptive -o:./dash \
-i:./test_1024x576_h264-750Kb_aac-lc.mp4 -b:750 -s:0 -e:0 `
-j:./test_1280x720_h264-1200Kb_aac-lc.mp4 -b:1200 `
-j:./test_1280x720_h264-2000Kb_aac-lc.mp4 -b:2000 `
-j:./test_1280x720_h264-3500Kb_aac-lc.mp4 -b:3500 `
-j:./test_256x144_h264-120Kb_aac-lc.mp4 -b:120 `
-j:./test_512x288_h264-320Kb_aac-lc.mp4 -b:320

Once you have your directory with mpeg-dash segment you can publish them in a Web Server.

Editing and ad insertion

You can create a stream, which is a subset and or a join of multiple content. At the moment time is inputted in mg as hundreds of nanoseconds. This means milliseconds multiply by 10000. For a simple example let say you have a file with your major content whit a length of 2 minutes. You also have a small ad which you want to insert exactly in the middle. First of all you should produce the same bitrates files for both contents. Let’s say you have 2 bitrates for both content. You would have 4 files:

• main_content_low_bitrate.mp4
• main_content_high_bitrate.mp4
• ad_content_low_bitrate.mp4
• ad_content_high_bitrate.mp4 Now the following command would produce streaming content with the add in the middle:

mg -k:adaptive -o:./outputdir \
-s:0 -e:600000000 -i:main_content_low_bitrate.mp4 -b:300 \
-j: main_content_high_bitrate.mp4 -b:1500 \
-s:0 -e: 0 -i:ad_content_low_bitrate.mp4 -b:300 \
-j: ad_content_high_bitrate.mp4 -b:1500 \
-s: 600000000 -e: 0 -i:main_content_low_bitrate.mp4 -b:300 \
-j: main_content_high_bitrate.mp4 -b:1500 \

The above command line is telling mg to add to the streaming output 1 minutes of the main content with two bitrates. Then add all the content of the ad. Finally add the main content starting from 1 minutes to the end.

Contributing

Contribution are welcome.