Viewcast Releases Niagara Streaming Software for iPhone, iPad

ViewCast has released Niagara SCX 6.2, an enhanced version of the company’s streaming media management software that now supports HTTP-based adaptive streaming to Apple iPhone, iPad, and iTouch mobile devices. New features include integrated segmenting, adaptive bit-rate encoding, support for CDN authentication protocols, and built-in AES-128 encryption. Niagara SCX software supports all of the most popular media formats, including Adobe Flash Dynamic Streaming, Windows Media, RealVideo, and 3GPP.

“The adaptive and dynamic capabilities that we’ve brought to Niagara SCX 6.2 will markedly improve the live streaming delivery experience for both broadcasters and iPhone users,” said Dave Stoner, President and CEO of ViewCast. “By eliminating the need for an external stream segmenter, we have also simplified encoding workflows and reduced overall system costs. Adaptive HTTP streaming for Apple iPhone mobile devices is the first of many extended features that we have planned for Niagara SCX v6 software in 2010.”

At the heart of Niagara SCX 6.2 is the new “iPhone Live Media Publisher” component, which includes proprietary, built-in MPEG-2 Transport Stream file segmenting and HTTP-based upload capabilities. The “iPhone Live Media Publisher” multiplexes encoded audio and video packets into multiple GOP-aligned, simultaneously output, MPEG-2 Transport Stream (M2TS) files, including one audio-only M2TS file.  AAC audio encoder and H.264 video encoder configuration is made easy by profiles included in Niagara SCX 6.2. The M2TS files, along with their associated manifest files, are uploaded to major Content Delivery Networks (CDN) using CDN-specific authentication. Content protection is available via built-in AES-128 encryption.