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ver. 2023-04-19
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PWI Catchup Addon for Wowza Streaming Engine

Catchup - means the service allows to play recorded TV shows during some time after it was broadcasted. Usually the time records are accessible vary from 1day to 14days. Catchup is offered by OTT operators or broadcasters on their web sites. Wowza allows to record live stream with two general methods: live recording in MP4 and live recording in nDVR format which is a special type of container. Both could be used to implement catchup but both will have some disadvantages : record in MP4 started and stopped by EPG schedule could be not accurate due to usual time shifts on broadcasters side and EPG errors. This will be a challenge to play such program's record in full. Record by nDVR module is more flexible and allows to change starting and ending time of the record during playback but nDVR is not suitable to store record longer than 24h-30h. It will require regular conversion to MP4 files for archive and an additional procedure to delete them. PWI Catchup Addon for Wowza Streaming Engine was developed to combine both methods and simplify integration with the web sites or middleware.

The module allows to create an archive of video records and play TV shows by adding parameters to playback URL: start time in UTC and duration . The module supports Apple HLS protocol only. Also the similar HTTP request with parameters returns a set of thumbnail images to select preview thumbnail of TV show recorded. The module records live stream in to a set of small MP4 files and continuously removes them after the time specified in it's configuration. The period of time to store records could be up to 2weeks. Live stream records will be placed in catchup subdirectory created in Wowza applications content directory, thumbnail screenshots in jpg format will be placed in catchup_thumbs subdirectory. Records are being available for playback within one minute after real time and do not require stopping the record of live stream. Playback start speed is independent of archive's storage period. Playback is similar to regular VOD content, multibitrate is supported.

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