[FFmpeg-user] Switching live streams without interruption?

[Luke Davis]

On Sat, 25 Oct 2014, Felix E. Klee wrote:

> Thanks Luke! Hm, I thought it was standard feature. But being not, I

Of ffmpeg?  The ability to add to the list of sources after the process has 
started?  I highly doubt it.
I have never seen a feature like that in ffmpeg described.  Maybe you need the 
ability to read a list of sources from STDIN on an as-needed basis?

But don't take my word for it Felix, I could still be quite wrong.

The requirement for continuous video is how I *think* it works, and that weird 
segmenting idea is the only way I can think of using only ffmpeg to do it.

I would imagine that if there is another way to have ffmpeg stream from a file, 
and add to that file dynamically, you could accomplish the same thing, but I 
still think you would need a headerless format (I.E. MPEGTS) to make it work.

I am no authority on this, I just wanted to present a possible answer that 
nobody else mentioned.

  > guess I'll first look at Wowza which seems to be scriptable with
> ActionScript. Fortunately, I've used ActionScript before: Many years
> ago, I wrote a streaming video player, based on AMS.

If I recall, Wowza has a JAVA API as well, if you want to get really serious 
about it.  But your problem hasn't changed, you just moved it from the source to 
the server.  It may be that Wowza already has a connection keeping feature for 
this.  Present it on their list and see what you get.

> Anyhow, there must be a smooth solution.  l just can't believe that
> it's not possible to run something akin to a TV station on the
> Internet.

I'm sure you can, as long as you can avoid interrupting the stream.  Which was 
my whole point.  You would seem to need a constant stream, with ability to 
switch sources in and out of it on the fly.  But there always has to be 
something streaming, even in the short gap between sources.  Someone correct me 
if I'm wrong please.

Luke