Microsoft Windows 2008 (64 bit), Microsoft Windows 2012 (64 bit)Linux RHEL and CentOS versions 5 and 6 (64 bit), Oracle Linux 6, Solaris SPARC 10 (64 bit)
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.
Helix Universal Media Server supported multiple streaming media codecs including H.264, MPEG-4, Flash Media, RealMedia, QuickTime, Windows Media and audio codecs including AAC/AAC+, MP4, MP3, WAV, RealAudio. It ingested encoder formats including RTP, MPEG2-TS, RTMP (Flash) and Windows Media Push/Pull MMS.
Development of the product was discontinued in 2014, and licensing ended in October 2014.[1]
History
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
16 November 2005 - Helix Universal Server version 11 launched adding mobile support for 3GPP.
13 May 2008 - Helix Universal Server version 12 launched adding Fast Channel Switching for mobile devices.
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.
14 April 2012 - Helix Universal Media Server version 14.3 launched enhancements include RTMP flash ingest support for H.264, AAC, FLV and MP3 codecs, H.264/AAC live archiving support.
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 12Gbit/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)
12 April 2013 - Helix Universal Media Server version 15.0.2 launched enhancements include BuyDRM (Microsoft PlayReady support), MPEG2-TS multi-bit rate (MPTS) support.
8 October 2013 - Helix Universal Media Server version 15.1.0 launched enhancements include virtual hosting, 15Mbps streaming, and additional CDN support.
16 September 2014 - Helix Universal Media Server version 15.2.1 launched enhancements include MPEG-DASH, Flash authentication, and HLS version 5 support.
31 October 2014 - Product development and licensing ended.[1]
Android - Helix DNA SDK including support for MPEG-DASH and HLS with Verimatrix DRM
PC - Flash Media Player, QuickTime, RealPlayer, SilverLight, Windows Media Player
Mobile & Tablet devices - Android, Blackberry, iPhone OS 3.0 or later, Symbian, Windows Mobile 5.0 or later
Set Top Box - Amino, Dune HD, Sysmaster (HLS) tested with HLS
Smart TVs - Samsung (HLS and MPEG-DASH)
Encoders Supported
Helix Producer, Helix Mobile Producer and RealProducer - RealNetworks developed encoding software for Multi-bit rate H.264,H.263,3GPP,MPEG-4 and RealMedia
Helix Broadcaster appliance - RealNetworks developed live multi-screen video appliance
DVEO - MPEG2-TS ingest with H.264, AAC codec support
Teracue - MPEG2-TS ingest with H.264, AAC codec support (note single rate ingest)
Envivio - RTP based hardware encoders with H.264, H.263 codec support
Viewcast - MPEG2-TS, RTP, RTMP based hardware encoders with H.264, AAC codec support
Flash Media Live Encoder - RTMP based encoders with VP6, H.264, MP3, AAC support
MediaExcel - RTMP based hardware encoders with H.264, AAC codec support
Digital Rapids - RTP based hardware encoders with H.264, AAC codec support
Usage
Live streaming of video and audio using Helix Producer, RealProducer or Simulated "Live Loops" using on-demand play-list agent (SLTA) and 3rd party encoders using RTP, RTMP, MPEG2-TS encoding protocols.
On-demand streaming of video and audio files from a wide range of video and audio codecs including H.264, H.263, RealVideo, Windows Media, Flash, AMR, AAC, MP3
Multi-lingual and Multi-camera applications supported using Helix Multi-Track technology which combines audio and video from multiple sources and allows individual video and audio track selection from the media player
Large scalability through Helix to Helix caching and splitting enabling usage in Content Delivery Networks, Enterprise delivery networks and Educational Campus networks
Architecture
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 Broadcaster - for live video transcoding from a wide range of sources (SDI, IP, DVB, HDMI) to H.264, AAC and other codecs with HLS, DASH, RTMP, RTSP delivery
RealProducer - for live and on-demand encoding of RealAudio and RealVideo for RealPlayer clients
Helix Producer - for live and on-demand encoding of H.264, H.263, MPEG4, AAC, AMR and RealAudio, RealVideo for 3GP and MP4 based and RealPlayer clients
Helix DNA was a project to produce computer software that can play audio and video media in various formats and aid in creating such media. It is intended as a largely free and open-source digital media framework that runs on numerous operating systems and processors and it was started by RealNetworks, which contributed much of the code. The Helix Community was an open collaborative effort to develop and extend the Helix DNA platform. The Helix Project has been discontinued.
3ivx was an MPEG-4 compliant video codec suite, created by 3ivx Technologies, based in Sydney, Australia. 3ivx video codecs were released from 2001 to 2012, with releases of related technologies continuing until 2015. 3ivx provided plugins to allow the MPEG-4 data stream to be wrapped by the Microsoft ASF and AVI transports, as well as Apple's QuickTime transport. It also allowed the creation of elementary MP4 data streams combined with AAC audio streams. It only supported MPEG-4 Part 2, it did not support H.264 video.
Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is an audio coding standard for lossy digital audio compression. It was designed to be the successor of the MP3 format and generally achieves higher sound quality than MP3 at the same bit rate.
3GP is a multimedia container format defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for 3G UMTS multimedia services. It is used on 3G mobile phones but can also be played on some 2G and 4G phones.
High-Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding (HE-AAC) is an audio coding format for lossy data compression of digital audio defined as an MPEG-4 Audio profile in ISO/IEC 14496–3. It is an extension of Low Complexity AAC (AAC-LC) optimized for low-bitrate applications such as streaming audio. The usage profile HE-AAC v1 uses spectral band replication (SBR) to enhance the modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) compression efficiency in the frequency domain. The usage profile HE-AAC v2 couples SBR with Parametric Stereo (PS) to further enhance the compression efficiency of stereo signals.
Flash Video is a container file format used to deliver digital video content over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player version 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. 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. Users include Hulu, VEVO, Yahoo! Video, metacafe, Reuters.com, and many other news providers.
The following is a list of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC products and implementations.
GPAC Project on Advanced Content is an implementation of the MPEG-4 Systems standard written in ANSI C. GPAC provides tools for media playback, vector graphics and 3D rendering, MPEG-4 authoring and distribution.
HTTP Live Streaming is an HTTP-based adaptive bitrate streaming communications protocol developed by Apple Inc. and released in 2009. Support for the protocol is widespread in media players, web browsers, mobile devices, and streaming media servers. As of 2022, an annual video industry survey has consistently found it to be the most popular streaming format.
Flash Media Live Encoder (FMLE) was a free live encoding software product from Adobe Systems. It was available for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS.
Adaptive bitrate streaming is a technique used in streaming multimedia over computer networks.
Sirannon is a free, open-source, media server and client. The goal is to aid in video research and experimental streaming. Sirannon allows the programmer to create a wide variety of media-handling components such as streaming, reading, writing, packetizing. By organizing these components in a workflow the programmer can create many applications such as a media server, media proxy or video tool. Sirannon was introduced at the ACM multimedia conference in October 2009 under its former name xStreamer.
Wowza Streaming Engine is a unified streaming media server software developed by Wowza. The server is used for streaming of live and on-demand video, audio, and rich Internet applications over IP networks to desktop, laptop, and tablet computers, mobile devices, IPTV set-top boxes, internet-connected TV sets, game consoles, and other network-connected devices. The server is a Java application deployable on most operating systems.
Unified Speech and Audio Coding (USAC) is an audio compression format and codec for both music and speech or any mix of speech and audio using very low bit rates between 12 and 64 kbit/s. It was developed by Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and was published as an international standard ISO/IEC 23003-3 and also as an MPEG-4 Audio Object Type in ISO/IEC 14496-3:2009/Amd 3 in 2012.
Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH), also known as MPEG-DASH, is an adaptive bitrate streaming technique that enables high quality streaming of media content over the Internet delivered from conventional HTTP web servers. Similar to Apple's HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) solution, MPEG-DASH works by breaking the content into a sequence of small segments, which are served over HTTP. An early HTTP web server based streaming system called SProxy was developed and deployed in the Hewlett Packard Laboratories in 2006. It showed how to use HTTP range requests to break the content into small segments. SProxy shows the effectiveness of segment based streaming, gaining best Internet penetration due to the wide deployment of firewalls, and reducing the unnecessary traffic transmission if a user chooses to terminate the streaming session earlier before reaching the end. Each segment contains a short interval of playback time of content that is potentially many hours in duration, such as a movie or the live broadcast of a sport event. The content is made available at a variety of different bit rates, i.e., alternative segments encoded at different bit rates covering aligned short intervals of playback time. While the content is being played back by an MPEG-DASH client, the client uses a bit rate adaptation (ABR) algorithm to automatically select the segment with the highest bit rate possible that can be downloaded in time for playback without causing stalls or re-buffering events in the playback. The current MPEG-DASH reference client dash.js offers both buffer-based (BOLA) and hybrid (DYNAMIC) bit rate adaptation algorithms. Thus, an MPEG-DASH client can seamlessly adapt to changing network conditions and provide high quality playback with few stalls or re-buffering events.
Unreal Media Server is a streaming server software created by Unreal Streaming Technologies.
Media Source Extensions (MSE) is a W3C specification that allows JavaScript to send byte streams to media codecs within web browsers that support HTML5 video and audio. Among other possible uses, this allows the implementation of client-side prefetching and buffering code for streaming media entirely in JavaScript. It is compatible with, but should not be confused with, the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) specification, and neither requires the use of the other, although many EME implementations are only capable of decrypting media data provided via MSE.
Nimble Streamer is a software media server developed by Softvelum. The server is used for streaming of live and on-demand video and audio to desktop computers, mobile devices, internet-connected TV sets, IPTV set-top boxes and other network-connected devices. Its first stable version 1.0.0-1 was released on October, 21st, 2013, with a number of preliminary versions done before that. The release cycle is intensive and introduces a new version every week or less. Nimble Streamer was the finalist in Streaming Media European Readers' Choice Awards for 2016 as the Best Streaming Innovation and for 2021 as Hardware/software Server.
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