The Helix Universal Media Server was a product developed by RealNetworks and originates from the first[citation needed] streaming media server originally developed by Progressive Networks in 1994. It supported a variety of streaming media delivery transports including MPEG-DASH (Standards based HTTP streaming) RTMP (flash), RTSP (standard), HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), Microsoft Silverlight and HTTP Progressive Download enabling mobile phone OS (Android, Blackberry, iOS, Symbian, Windows Mobile) and PC OS media client (Flash Media Player, QuickTime, RealPlayer, Windows Media Player) delivery.
27 July 2002 - Helix Universal Server version 9 launched - the first universal multi-format streaming server - supporting RealMedia, Windows Media, QuickTime and MPEG-4 from a single streaming media platform operating on Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, Compaq Tru64, FreeBSD, IBM AIX, Windows NT and Windows 2000 OS
30 September 2009 - Helix Universal Server version 13 launched as part of Helix Media Delivery Platform. This version added support for HTTP Progressive Download, HTTP iPhone delivery, Server Side Playlists, Advertising insertion, and Live Rate Adaptation for mobile devices.
14 April 2010 - Helix Universal Server version 14 launched supporting universal streaming media delivery transports including RTMP, RTSP, HTTP Live Streaming, Microsoft Silverlight and HTTP Progressive Download enabling mobile phone OS (Android, Blackberry, iPhone OS 3.0, Symbian, Windows Mobile) and PC OS media client (Flash Media Player, QuickTime, RealPlayer, Windows Media Player) delivery. Helix Universal Server continues to support 3GPP, RealMedia, Windows Media, QuickTime and MPEG-4 from a single streaming media platform operating on Linux (RHEL5), Solaris SPARC, Windows 2003 or Windows 2008 Server OS
30 September 2011 - Helix Universal Media Server version 14.2 launched enhancements include 64 bit OS support (Windows 2008, RHEL5 and Solaris SPARC) and Multi-Track streaming capability enabling multi-lingual and multi-camera applications. Helix Multi-Track reduces the amount of encoders and bandwidth required by separating audio and video into individual streams and combining them within the Helix Multi-Track Server. The web application or media player then selects the most appropriate video and audio track related to their chosen language or video camera angle.
8 November 2012 - Helix Universal Media Server version 15 launched enhancements include the first end-to-end implementation of MPEG-DASH standards support for streaming both MPEG2-TS (Smart TV) and ISO BMFF MP4 (Smartphone, Tablet) for delivery to MPEG-DASH compliant players including the Helix DNA SDK client for Android. Additional enhancements include push to CDN (HLS and RTMP push with Akamai integration), MPEG2-TS ingest, Verimatrix DRM direct VCAS integration, enhanced SLTA - "live loop" channels and increased operating performance (*over 12 Gbit/s of performance and 12,000 connections), enhanced H.264+AAC live archiving API and HLS Time Shift API. New OS support including RHEL Linux 6 and Oracle 6 (64 bit)
Helix Universal Media Server is a component of the Helix Media Delivery Platform and enables the delivery of live and on-demand video and audio content to a wide range of media clients on smartphone, tablet, PC, STB and Smart TV playback devices. Helix Universal Servers are able to be linked to distribute content to enable large scale streaming across the Internet or Enterprise networks and to ensure fully redundant operation with no single point of failure.
Helix Universal Media Server operates with a wide range of live RTP or RBS (RealNetworks own secure broadcasting protocol) encoders to provide a wide choice of interoperation with 3rd party vendors. RealNetworks develop their own encoders in both appliance and software versions
Helix Universal Server is a program that streams live and on-demand media with professional-scale reliability and performance. You can reduce costs and customize configurations by creating multiple server instances from a single installation and get fine-tuned control for unique bitrate streaming to specific devices and networks.
In a scary Halloween surprise, RealNetworks announced on its site that it has discontinued the Helix Media Delivery Platform suite of products. The company didn't offer a press release or even a blog post about the decision. The listed press phone number doesn't appear to be in service, and an emailed request for information wasn't answered by press time.
Rather than leaving its customers completely in the cold, RealNetworks arranged for comparable products to be sold from three vendors, and posted contact information on the Helix page. Helix Broadcaster customers should look to DVEO for Gearbox products, Helix Media Library customers should go to StreamingLTD to buy Helix Media Library, and Helix Webcaster customers can go to Intermedia Solutions to purchase Webcaster products.
For other components in the Helix line, RealNetworks had only this to say: "The Helix Universal Server, Helix Producer, and Helix Enterprise Player are no longer available for license from any supplier."
RealNetworks is one of the pioneers of streaming media. In April 2013, this site covered the launch of Helix Broadcaster, a streaming appliance that combined an encoder and media server in a single box. RealNetworks was founded in 1995 and is based in Seattle, Washington.
Flash Video is a container file format used to deliver digital video content (e.g., TV shows, movies, etc.) over the Internet using Macromedia Flash Player 6 and newer. Flash Video content may also be embedded within SWF files. There are two different Flash Video file formats: FLV and F4V. The audio and video data within FLV files are encoded in the same way as SWF files. The F4V file format is based on the ISO base media file format, starting with Flash Player 9, update 3.[1][2] Both formats are supported in Adobe Flash Player and developed by Adobe Systems. FLV was originally developed by Macromedia.In the early 2000s, Flash Video was the de facto standard for web-based streaming video (over RTMP). Users include Hulu, VEVO, Yahoo! Video, metacafe, Reuters.com, and many other news providers.
Flash Video FLV files usually contain material encoded with codecs following the Sorenson Spark or VP6 video compression formats. As of 2010, public releases of Flash Player (collaboration between Adobe Systems and MainConcept) also support H.264 video and HE-AAC audio.[3] All of these compression formats are restricted by patents. Flash Video is viewable on most operating systems via the Flash Player plug-in or one of several third-party programs. Apple's iOS devices, along with almost all other mobile devices, do not support the Flash Player plugin and so require other delivery methods such as provided by the Adobe Media Server (formerly Macromedia Flash Media Server).[4]
The 2002 release of Macromedia Flash Player 6 added support for video in the SWF file format. The 2003 release of Flash Player 7 added direct support for the FLV file format. Because of restrictions in the FLV file format, Adobe Systems created new file formats in 2007, based on the ISO base media file format (MPEG-4 Part 12). In this way, the F4V format shares a common base with the MP4 format, which is why F4V is sometimes informally called "Flash MP4". Flash Player does not check the filename extension but instead examines the file to determine the format.[5][6]
The new file formats are very different from the older FLV file format. For example, F4V does not support Screen video, Sorenson Spark, VP6 video compression formats and ADPCM, or Nellymoser audio compression formats.[1][6] Authors of Flash Player strongly encourage use of the new standard file format F4V (ISO base media file format) because it overcomes functional limits with the FLV structure when streaming H.264 or AAC, which is one reason Adobe Systems is moving away from the older FLV file structure.[6] Since 2002, the initial format is Flash Video and the file suffix is .flv with a MIME derived Internet media type of video/x-flv.
The Adobe-branded file suffix .f4v was extended from 2007 to support the ISO base media file format using the same MIME derived Internet media type of video/mp4 as the Apple file suffix of .m4v and the general file suffix of .mp4. Adobe-branded file suffixes exist for .f4p which relates to media encrypted with their Adobe Access DRM scheme; .f4a and .f4b relate respectively to .m4a and .m4b with the same MIME derived Internet media type of audio/mp4.
SWF files published for Flash Player 6 and later versions are able to exchange audio, video, and data over RTMP connections with the Flash Media Server. One way to feed data to server is from files in the FLV file format. Flash Player can play SWF files created for Flash Player 7 and later versions in FLV format directly (MIME type video/x-flv). Flash Player can also play the new F4V file format, beginning with SWF files created for Flash Player 9 Update 3.[1]
Commonly, Flash Video FLV files contain video bit streams which are a proprietary variant of the H.263 video standard,[10] under the name of Sorenson Spark (FourCC FLV1).[11][12] Sorenson Spark is an older codec for FLV files but it is also a widely available and compatible one, because it was the first video codec supported in Flash Player.[13] It is the required video compression format for Flash Player 6 and 7.[14][15] Flash Player 8 and newer revisions also support the playback of On2 TrueMotion VP6 video bit streams (FourCC VP6F or FLV4). On2 VP6 is the preferred video compression format for use with Flash Player 8 and higher.[7][11] On2 VP6 can provide a higher visual quality than Sorenson Spark, especially when using lower bit rates. On the other hand, it is computationally more complex and therefore will not run as well on certain older system configurations.[14][16]
The Flash Video FLV file format supports two versions of a so-called 'screenshare' (Screen video) codec which is an encoding format designed for screencasts. Both these formats are bitmap tile based, can be lossy by reducing color depths and are compressed using zlib. The second version is only playable in Flash Player 8 and newer. Audio in Flash Video files is usually encoded as MP3. However, audio in Flash Video FLV files recorded from the user's microphone use the proprietary Nellymoser Asao Codec.[8] (Flash Player 10 released in 2008 also supports the open source Speex codec.)[17] FLV files also support uncompressed audio or ADPCM format audio. Recent versions of Flash Player 9 support AAC (HE-AAC/AAC SBR, AAC Main Profile, and AAC-LC). Support for encoding Flash Video files is provided by an encoding tool included with Adobe's Flash Professional and Creative Suite products, On2's Flix encoding tools, Sorenson Squeeze, FFmpeg and other third party tools.
b1e95dc632