With Norsk Studio, you can build complex live video workflows in minutes — just check out Dom Robinson’s “Three Demos and a Funeral (for Traditional Broadcast Methods)” for a few examples. However, even the simplest requirements can contain hidden complexities.
Consider a basic case: taking an SRT input and outputting it to WebRTC via WHEP. One input, one output, with no ABR ladder, no onscreen graphics — nothing fancy. We even have a tutorial showing how effortlessly you can create this live video workflow in Norsk Studio (click the arrow button in the lower right if you want to advance to the next step). Drag on two boxes and one connector, and you’re done! Hit play, send in some SRT, and you can see the stream in the Studio UI or our WebRTC player.
Norsk Studio Under the Hood
But those of you with a more technical nature might be feeling slightly queasy right now. WebRTC only supports Opus for its audio. You can’t even put Opus into an SRT stream. But there’s your workflow, happily running in Norsk.
While Norsk takes care of all the messy technical details, it’s more than happy to share what it’s up to. If you open up the Visualizer for that workflow, you’ll see TS over SRT in, which sends its audio and video to WebRTC. Yup — that’s what we asked for. And if that’s all you need to know, huzzah!
But but but … why is it working??
Unlike a magician, Norsk is more than happy to show how the trick works. There’s even a button for it. Maybe we should rename it to “spoil the trick,” but right now it’s labeled a rather more straightforward “show conversions.” Go ahead and click on it, and you’ll see the following.
Norsk noticed that it was receiving AAC. It also noticed it was publishing WebRTC, so it knows a little magic is involved. It goes ahead and converts the AAC audio into Opus. While it’s at it, the video needs a bit of a tweak: it came in MP4 Encapsulated (whatever that is!) and WebRTC wants Annex B (I think that’s where the government lackeys hid the treasure at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark). If you like to know how the trick works, then great. If you even want to change the way it works, go ahead — throw in an explicit audio encode. If you’re simply happy that the magic trick works, then sit back and enjoy the show.
Norsk also keeps the magic to a minimum. What if I run this workflow – SRT -> WebRTC and HLS. HLS loves AAC, so Norsk provides the original unadulterated (and therefore highest quality) AAC to the HLS output and the Opus (which will still sound great, but a transcode never improves things!) to the WebRTC.
What If You’re a Developer?
But let’s say you are a video engineer or a DevOps expert. Norsk Studio offers power, control, and introspection that belies its no-code interface. Want stats in your monitoring system? Norsk has your back. Need to be able to control a running instance with a REST API? Norsk Studio automatically generates one for you, based on the components you have chained together in your workflow. So stop and start sources? No problem. Stop and start publication? No problem. Switch from a source to a slate? No problem. Change what data is overlaid on a stream? Well, you get the idea.
We think it’s just the right balance of straightforward, fun, and powerful (yeah!), with serious, professional, monitorable, and controllable. Not necessarily everyone’s idea of fun, but to operate at scale, you need that stuff.
Beyond the basic representation of what’s happening under the hood, you can select the checkbox in each top-level box to reveal real-time metrics on factors such as sync and jitter buffer. You can also select “details” within each box for more information and filter the metrics to display only the ones you want.
If you click on the Live Docs button at the top of the Studio interface, you’ll be taken to a Swagger interface that exposes APIs for each of the components you choose (in this case, SRT Listener and WHEP Output).
As you can see, Norsk Studio isn’t just an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface for building live streaming workflows. It’s as powerful as you need it to be.
What sorts of live video workflows can you build with Norsk Studio? Get in touch for a quick demo and free trial license.
