New RTMPMiniServer version. UHD-video transmission between continents
Before going dipper into the theme of the article, we would like to pay respect to all users of our program. From the very beginning of the project, we have received plenty of feedbacks including messages about bugs and ideas about functions of the program. Thanks to you it found out that RTMPMiniServer had problems of compatibility with some devices, such as Mevo camera and DJI products. Also, it identified some cases when the program crashed and so on.
All of it was considered and fixed in the new version RTMPMiniServer 1.2.
The main innovations in version 1.2:
1)The compatibility with streaming devices was improved;
2) We decreased the latency. The assessable value is about 300 ms in the local net;
3) Bugs were fixed and the stability was improved;
4) Now RTMPMiniServer 1.2. is compatible with 4K@60fps flow which is our main achievement, but we are going to tell about it more detailed lower.
A problem with UltraHD@60fps
The majority of our users stream FullHD@30 or FullHD@60 flows. However, recently there has been appeared a trend which represents the TRANSMISSION of a higher quality — UltraHD@60. The previous version of our program failed to manage this flow. Even on high-capacity computers, 4K was handled in 40fps maximum.
It is important to mention that we also got feedbacks that alternative solutions had some difficulties with processing 4K@60 (although everything was all right with 4K@25). That is why we devoted many efforts and a huge amount of time in order to solve this problem. We were testing the program for a long time searching “narrow” places and finally, we got the new version which is able to process the flow of such format.
In order to demonstrate the new version, we decided to test and transmit the 4K@60fps flow between the continents. To imitate the studio, we rent a server in North Virginia from Amazon and there we set RTMPMiniServer and NDI Studio Monitor for watching NDI-flow.
vMix was installed as a source in Moscow in our friends’ agency and they transmitted the flow through it. There was added a timer, so we had an opportunity to control the latency. We used Remote Desktop to see anything happening on the server.
Here is a general scheme:
As you can see, a latency on 4K@60 flow is only about one second! What is quite significant, that is between the continents!
So, owing to the test we have proved that it is possible to stream UHD flow on long distances with rather tiny latency and receive NDI for the next processing in the output.
Now we carry out the beta-testing of the program and RTMPMiniServer can be downloaded and used for free: http://garaninapps.com/rtmpminiserver
