Unified Packager

Prepare content for streaming

Prepare your media for Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) playback in HLS, MPEG-DASH, and Smooth Streaming for delivery to any internet connected device. Optionally secure your streams with DRM. Ready for streaming from a standard web server and any Content Delivery Network (CDN).

Key features

• All industry standard playout formats, HLS (TS & CMAF/fMP4), MPEG-DASH, HbbTV, HDS and Smooth Streaming (HSS)

• Comprehensive subtitle support, easily convert between formats; WebVTT, SRT, TTML and CEA-608

• Latest codecs, AV1, HEVC, Dolby Atmos, Dolby AC-4, DTS:X

• Every major DRM system, FairPlay, Marlin, PlayReady, Widevine

Main benefits

• Command Line Tool, no need to maintain a web server for operation

• Deploy anywhere, bare metal on premises, containerized, or in the cloud (even as a Lambda function)

• Easy to integrate, being command-line based, it fits seamlessly into scripted workflows

• Deliver the highest quality stream, stream 4K HDR with advanced audio, subtitle and video formats, and add accessibility options

• Content protection, encryption and support for all major DRM systems with multiple keys and key rotation

• Broaden your audience, deliver captions for the hard of hearing as well as audio description tracks for the visually impaired

How it works

In a fully static workflow you move your content to your origin server or a CDN after packaging it to all the formats you need. After that it is ready to be delivered to your customers.

Static packaging is the process of changing the file format or ‘container’ in which digital content is stored, e.g. changing a progressive MP4 into a fragmented MP4. This means that for every additional format your assets will be duplicated on disk. Adding encryption (and DRM) can be part of the packaging process.

Schematically this looks like the following:

Table of contents

The following sections document how to package content for Unified Origin (USP), HTTP Smooth Streaming (HSS), HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS), HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) and MPEG-DASH.

• Program Usage
  • Commandline options
  • Selecting specific tracks from an input file
  • URLs and paths
  • Decrypting media
  • Authenticate requests to AWS S3
  • Status codes

• Packaging for Unified Origin
  • Package MP4 to fragmented-MP4 and back
  • How to package CMAF
  • Options for fragmented-MP4 packaging
  • Overriding and adding track properties
  • Packaging content for delivery by Unified Origin

• Packaging for MPEG-DASH
  • Options for MPEG-DASH packaging
  • MPEG-DASH profile
  • Creating the media files
  • Creating the media files with Common Encryption
  • Creating the Media Presentation Description file (.mpd)
  • Dolby Vision Support
  • Playback
  • Advanced recipes

• Packaging HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) with TS
  • Options for HLS packaging with Transport Streams (HLS TS)
  • Protocol version
  • Using multiplexed audio/video (protocol version 3)
  • Using multiplexed audio/video with AES-128 (protocol version 3)
  • Using late binding of audio/video groups (protocol version 4)
  • Signaling embedded 608/708 Closed Captions (protocol version 4)
  • Using late binding of audio/video groups with SAMPLE-AES (protocol version 5)
  • Using late binding of audio/video groups with SAMPLE-AES for Apple FairPlay
  • Audio only Sample AES
  • Adding WebVTT subtitles when packaging HLS TS
  • Overriding default playlist values
  • Advanced recipes

• Packaging HTTP Live Streaming with fragmented MP4 (fMP4 HLS)
  • The benefits of streaming fMP4 HLS
  • Overview of steps involved in packaging fMP4 HLS
  • Creating HLS playlists with CMAF packaged content
  • Protecting a statically packaged fMP4 HLS stream

• Packaging for HTTP Smooth Streaming (HSS)
  • Creating the media files (.isma and .ismv)
  • Creating the media files with PlayReady
  • Creating the manifest files (.ism and .ismc)

• Packaging for HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS)
  • Options for HDS packaging
  • Creating the media files (.f4f and .f4x)
  • Using alternate audio
  • Creating the media files with Adobe Primetime DRM
  • Creating the manifest file (.f4m)

• Packaging Subtitles
  • General workflow for adding subtitles to a stream
  • Supported formats for subtitles
  • Packaging TTML, WebVTT or SRT in fMP4
  • Converting WebVTT (or SRT) to TTML
  • Converting TTML to WebVTT
  • Extracting embedded captions (to TTML or WebVTT)

• Adding trick play to a DASH or HLS stream
  • How to package a sync-samples only MP4
  • How to package a tiled thumbnails MP4
  • How to add trick play to DASH
  • How to add trick play to fMP4 HLS
  • How to add trick play to HLS TS

• Encryption & DRM with Multiple Keys
  • Multiple keys 'cenc' CENC encryption for DASH with Widevine and PlayReady
  • Multiple keys 'cbcs' CENC encryption for fMP4 HLS
  • Multiple keys encryption for HLS TS with SAMPLE-AES

• Multi-DRM protected HLS and DASH from a shared CMAF source
  • Demo content
  • Requirement: CPIX
  • Packaging media files as CMAF
  • Creating HLS Media and Master Playlists
  • Creating DASH client manifest (MPD)
  • Testing playback

• Using Cloud Storage
  • Introduction
  • Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
  • Azure Blob Storage
  • Google Cloud Storage