Wowza Module Life Cycle (RTSP)

Wowza module event hooks and their properties and life-cycle.

These tables form part of a blog post. It is too long for Google.

If there's one thing that's been bothering me about Wowza module development, it's that the lifecycle seems to be poorly documented, or else it is hidden away somewhere.

Here I present the life-cycle of a module and the available objects at those milestones.

1. RTP
2. HTTP — Cupertino HLS streaming

RTP

To test the life-cycle the stream was played as described in the sections below.

• The stream was opened for playing
• The stream was left playing for two minutes
• The stream was paused
• The stream was resumed
• The stream was skipped to a point in the future
• The stream was stopped

Click on the event names for more information

Opened the stream for playing in the media player (from a web link)

Originator	Time ⟶
IModuleOnApp	onAppStart
IModuleOnRTPSession		onRTPSessionCreate																	onRTPSessionDestroy
IModuleOnStream			onStreamCreate															onStreamDestroy
IMediaReaderActionNotify				onMediaReaderCreate	onMediaReaderInit	onMediaReaderOpen	onMediaReaderExtractMetadata									onMediaReaderClose
IRTSPActionNotify								onDescribe	onSetup	onSetup	onPlay		onOptions		onTeardown
IMediaStreamActionNotify												onPlay					onStop
Idle time														4s

Originator	Time ⟶
IModuleOnApp
IModuleOnRTPSession	onRTPSessionCreate
IModuleOnStream		onStreamCreate
IMediaReaderActionNotify			onMediaReaderCreate	onMediaReaderInit	onMediaReaderOpen	onMediaReaderExtractMetadata
IRTSPActionNotify							onDescribe	onSetup	onSetup	onPlay		onOptions
IMediaStreamActionNotify											onPlay
Idle time

Stream is playing without player intervention

Originator	Time ⟶
IModuleOnApp
IModuleOnRTPSession
IModuleOnStream
IMediaReaderActionNotify
IRTSPActionNotify		onOptions		onOptions
IMediaStreamActionNotify
Idle time	55s		55s		37s

Stream is paused by the player and later resumed

Originator	Time ⟶
IModuleOnApp
IModuleOnRTPSession
IModuleOnStream
IMediaReaderActionNotify
IRTSPActionNotify	onPause		onOptions		onPlay		onOptions
IMediaStreamActionNotify						onSeek
Idle time		18s		12s				16s

Notice that the time between onOption events is still 55 seconds (27 + 28) even when the stream is paused.

Skipped to a later part of the stream in the media player

Originator	Time ⟶
IModuleOnApp
IModuleOnRTPSession
IModuleOnStream
IMediaReaderActionNotify
IRTSPActionNotify	onPause	onPlay		onOptions
IMediaStreamActionNotify			onSeek
Idle time					26s

Stopped the stream in the media player

Originator	Time ⟶
IModuleOnApp							onAppStop*
IModuleOnRTPSession					onRTPSessionDestroy
IModuleOnStream				onStreamDestroy
IMediaReaderActionNotify		onMediaReaderClose
IRTSPActionNotify	onTeardown
IMediaStreamActionNotify			onStop
Idle time						1m

* the application instance stops if there are no active streams for a period of time.