Encoding formats
Encoders are used to define formats into which raw sources should be
encoded by an output. Syntax for encoder is:
%encoder(parameters...)
or, if you use default parameters,
%encoder
.
Formats determine the stream content
In most liquidsoap scripts, the encoding format determines what kind of data is streamed.
The type of an encoding format depends on its parameter. For example,
%mp3
has type format(audio=2,video=0,midi=0)
but %mp3(mono)
has type
format(audio=1,video=0,midi=0)
.
The type of an output like output.icecast
or
output.file
is something like
(...,format('a),...,source('a))->source('a)
. This means
that your source will have to have the same type as your format.
For example if you write
output.file(%mp3,"/tmp/foo.mp3",playlist("~/audio"))
then the playlist source will have to stream stereo audio. Thus it will reject mono and video files.
Liquidsoap provides operators that can be used to convert sources
into a format acceptable for a given encoder. For instance, the
mean
operator transforms any audio source into a mono
source and the audio_to_stereo
operator transforms any
audio source into a stereo source.
Format variables (or lack of, rather..)
You can store an atomic format in a variable, it is a value like
another: fmt = %mp3
. However, an atomic format is an atomic
constant despite its appearance. You cannot use a variable for one of
its parameters: for example
x = 44100
%vorbis(samplerate=x)
is not allowed, you must write
%vorbis(samplerate=44100)
.
If you really need to use variables in encoder, for instance if
bitrate is given by a user’s configuration, you may alleviate that by
generating a pre-defined list of possible encoders and include it on top
of your script using the %include
directive.
List of formats and their syntax
All parameters are optional, and the parenthesis are not needed when
no parameter is passed. In the following default values are shown. As a
special case, the keywords mono
and stereo
can
be used to indicate the number of channels (whether is is passed as an
integer or a boolean).
MP3
Mp3 encoder comes in 3 flavors:
%mp3
or%mp3.cbr
: Constant bitrate encoding%mp3.vbr
: Variable bitrate, quality-based encoding.%mp3.abr
: Average bitrate based encoding.
Parameters common to each flavor are:
stereo=true/false
,mono=true/false
: Encode stereo or mono data (default:stereo
).stereo_mode
: One of:"stereo"
,"joint_stereo"
or"default"
(default:"default"
)samplerate=44100
: Encoded data samplerate (default:44100
)internal_quality=2
: Lame algorithms internal quality. A value between0
and9
,0
being highest quality and9
the worst (default:2
).id3v2=true
: Add anid3v2
tag to encoded data (default:false
). This option is only valid if liquidsoap has been compiled with taglib support.
Parameters for %mp3
are:
bitrate
: Encoded data fixed bitrate
Parameters for %mp3.vbr
are:
quality
: Quality of encoded data; ranges from0
(highest quality) to9
(worst quality).
Parameters for %mp3.abr
are:
bitrate
: Average bitratemin_bitrate
: Minimum bitratemax_bitrate
: Maximum bitratehard_min
: Enforce minimal bitrate
Examples:
- Constant
128
kbps bitrate encoding:%mp3(bitrate=128)
- Variable bitrate with quality
6
and samplerate of22050
Hz:%mp3.vbr(quality=7,samplerate=22050)
- Average bitrate with mean of
128
kbps, maximum bitrate192
kbps andid3v2
tags:%mp3.abr(bitrate=128,max_bitrate=192,id3v2=true)
Optionally, liquidsoap can insert a message within mp3 data. You can
set its value using the msg
parameter. Setting it to
""
disables this feature. This is its default value.
Shine
Shine is the fixed-point mp3 encoder. It is useful on architectures
without a FPU, such as ARM. It is named %shine
or
%mp3.fxp
and its parameters are:
%shine(channels=2,samplerate=44100,bitrate=128)
WAV
%wav(stereo=true, channels=2, samplesize=16, header=true, duration=10.)
If header
is false
, the encoder outputs raw
PCM. duration
is optional and is used to set the WAV length
header.
Because Liquidsoap encodes a possibly infinite stream, there is no way to know in advance the duration of encoded data. Since WAV header has to be written first, by default its length is set to the maximum possible value. If you know the expected duration of the encoded data and you actually care about the WAV length header then you should use this parameter.
FFmpeg
The %ffmpeg
encoder is the latest addition to our
collection. You need to have ffmpeg-av,
ffmpeg-avfilter, ffmpeg-swscale and ffmpeg-swresample installed and
up-to date to enable the encoder during liquidsoap’s build.
The encoder should support all the options for ffmpeg
’s
muxers and
encoders,
including private configuration options. Configuration value are passed
as key/values, with values being of types: string
,
int
, or float
. If an option is not recognized
(or: unused), it will raise an error during the instantiation of the
encoder. Here are some configuration examples:
- AAC encoding at
22050kHz
usingfdk-aac
encoder andmpegts
muxer
%ffmpeg(format="mpegts",
%audio(codec="libfdk_aac",samplerate=22050,b="32k",
afterburner=1,profile="aac_he_v2"))
- Mp3 encoding using
libshine
at48000kHz
%ffmpeg(format="mp3",%audio(codec="libshine",samplerate=48000))
- AC3 audio and H264 video encapsulated in a MPEG-TS stream
%ffmpeg(format="mpegts",
%audio(codec="ac3",channel_coupling=0),
%video(codec="libx264",b="2600k",
"x264-params"="scenecut=0:open_gop=0:min-keyint=150:keyint=150",
preset="ultrafast"))
- AC3 audio and H264 video encapsulated in a MPEG-TS stream using ffmpeg raw frames
%ffmpeg(format="mpegts",
%audio.raw(codec="ac3",channel_coupling=0),
%video.raw(codec="libx264",b="2600k",
"x264-params"="scenecut=0:open_gop=0:min-keyint=150:keyint=150",
preset="ultrafast"))
- Mp3 encoding using
libmp3lame
and video copy
%ffmpeg(format="mp3",
%audio(codec="libmp3lame"),
%video.copy)
The full syntax is as follows:
%ffmpeg(format=<format>,
# Audio section
%audio(codec=<codec>,<option_name>=<option_value>,..),
# Or:
%audio.raw(codec=<codec>,<option_name>=<option_value>,..),
# Or:
%audio.copy,
# Video section
%video(codec=<codec>,<option_name>=<option_value>,..),
# Or:
%video.raw(codec=<codec>,<option_name>=<option_value>,..),
# Or:
%video.copy,
# Generic options
<option_name>=<option_value>,.. )
Where:
<format>
is either a string value (e.g."mpegts"
), as returned by theffmpeg -formats
command ornone
. When set tonone
or simply no specified, the encoder will try to auto-detect it.<codec>
is either a string value (e.g."libmp3lame"
), as returned by theffmpeg -codecs
command ornone
. When set tonone
, for audio,channels
is set to0
and, for either audio or video, the stream is assumed to have no such content.<option_name>
can be any syntactically valid variable name or string. Strings are typically used when the option name is of the form:foo-bar
.%audio(..)
is for options specific to the audio codec. Unused options will raise an exception. Any option supported byffmpeg
can be passed here. Streams encoded using%audio
are using liquidsoap internal frame format and are fully handled on the liquidsoap side.%audio.raw(..)
behaves like%audio
except that the audio data is kept as ffmpeg’s internal format. This can avoid data copy and is also the format required to use ffmpeg filters..%audio.copy
copies data without decoding or encoding it. This is great to avoid using the CPU but, in this case, the data cannot be processed through operators that modify it such asfade.{in,out}
aorsmart_cross
. Also, all stream must agree on the same data format.%video(..)
is for options specific to the video codec. Unused options will raise an exception. Any option supported byffmpeg
can be passed here.%video.raw
and%video.copy
have the same meaning as their%audio
counterpart.Generic options are passed to audio, video and format (container) setup. Unused options will raise an exception. Any option supported by
ffmpeg
can be passed here.
The %ffmpeg
encoder is the prime encoder for HLS output
as it is the only one of our collection of encoder which can produce
Mpeg-ts muxed data, which is required by most HLS clients.
Some encoding formats, for instance mp4
require to
rewing their stream and write a header after the fact, when encoding of
the current track has finished. For historical reasons, such formats
cannot be used with output.file
. To remedy that, we have
introduced the output.url
operator. When using this
operator, the encoder is fully in charge of the output file and can thus
write headers after the fact. The %ffmpeg
encoder is one
such encoder that can be used with this operator.
Ogg
The following formats can be put together in an Ogg container. The
syntax for doing so is %ogg(x,y,z)
but it is also possible
to just write %vorbis(...)
, for example, instead of
%ogg(%vorbis(...))
.
All ogg encoders have a bytes_per_page
parameter, which
can be used to try to limit ogg logical pages size. For instance:
# Try to limit vorbis pages size to 1024 bytes
%vorbis(bytes_per_page=1024)
Vorbis
# Variable bitrate
%vorbis(samplerate=44100, channels=2, quality=0.3)
% Average bitrate
%vorbis.abr(samplerate=44100, channels=2, bitrate=128, max_bitrate=192, min_bitrate=64)
# Constant bitrate
%vorbis.cbr(samplerate=44100, channels=2, bitrate=128)
Quality ranges from -0.2 to 1, but quality -0.2 is only available with the aotuv implementation of libvorbis.
Opus
Opus is a lossy audio compression made especially suitable for interactive real-time applications over the Internet. Liquidsoap supports Opus data encapsulated into Ogg streams.
The encoder is named %opus
and its parameters are as
follows. Please refer to the Opus documentation for
information about their meanings and values.
vbr
: one of"none"
,"constrained"
or"unconstrained"
application
: One of"audio"
,"voip"
or"restricted_lowdelay"
complexity
: Integer value between0
and10
.max_bandwidth
: One of"narrow_band"
,"medium_band"
,"wide_band"
,"super_wide_band"
or"full_band"
samplerate
: input samplerate. Must be one of:8000
,12000
,16000
,24000
or48000
frame_size
: encoding frame size, in milliseconds. Must be one of:2.5
,5.
,10.
,20.
,40.
or60.
.bitrate
: encoding bitrate, inkbps
. Must be a value between5
and512
. You can also set it to"auto"
.channels
: currently, only1
or2
channels are allowed.mono
,stereo
: equivalent tochannels=1
andchannels=2
.signal
: one of"voice"
or"music"
Theora
%theora(quality=40,width=640,height=480,
picture_width=255,picture_height=255,
picture_x=0, picture_y=0,
aspect_numerator=1, aspect_denominator=1,
keyframe_frequency=64, vp3_compatible=false,
soft_target=false, buffer_delay=5,
speed=0)
You can also pass bitrate=x
explicitly instead of a
quality. The default dimensions are liquidsoap’s default, from the
settings frame.video.height/width
.
Speex
%speex(stereo=false, samplerate=44100, quality=7,
mode=wideband, # One of: wideband|narrowband|ultra-wideband
frames_per_packet=1,
complexity=5)
You can also control quality using abr=x
or
vbr=y
.
Flac
The flac encoding format comes in two flavors:
%flac
is the native flac format, useful for file output but not for streaming purpose%ogg(%flac,...)
is the ogg/flac format, which can be used to broadcast data with icecast
The parameters are:
%flac(samplerate=44100,
channels=2,
compression=5,
bits_per_sample=16)
compression
ranges from 0 to 8 and
bits_per_sample
should be one of: 8
,
16
, 24
or 32
. Please note that
32
bits per sample is currently not supported by the
underlying libflac
.
FDK-AAC
This encoder can do both AAC and AAC+.
Its syntax is:
%fdkaac(channels=2, samplerate=44100, bandwidth="auto", bitrate=64, afterburner=false, aot="mpeg2_he_aac_v2", transmux="adts", sbr_mode=false)
Where aot
is one of: "mpeg4_aac_lc"
,
"mpeg4_he_aac"
, "mpeg4_he_aac_v2"
,
"mpeg4_aac_ld"
, "mpeg4_aac_eld"
,
"mpeg2_aac_lc"
, "mpeg2_he_aac"
or
"mpeg2_he_aac_v2"
bandwidth
is one of: "auto"
, any supported
integer value.
transmux
is one of: "raw"
,
"adif"
, "adts"
, "latm"
,
"latm_out_of_band"
or "loas"
.
Bitrate can be either constant by passing: bitrate=64
or
variable: vbr=<1-5>
You can consult the Hydrogenaudio knowledge base for more details on configuration values and meanings.
Gstreamer
The %gstreamer
encoder can be used to encode streams
using the gstreamer
multimedia framework. This encoder
extends liquidsoap with all available GStreamer formats which includes
most, if not all, formats available to your operating system.
The encoder’s parameters are as follows:
%gstreamer(channels=2,
audio="lamemp3enc",
has_video=true,
video="x264enc",
muxer="mpegtsmux",
metadata="metadata",
log=5,
pipeline="")
Please refer to the Gstreamer encoder page for a detailed explanation of this encoder.
External encoders
For a detailed presentation of external encoders, see this page.
%external(channels=2,samplerate=44100,header=true,
restart_on_crash=false,
restart_on_metadata,restart_after_delay=30,
process="progname")
Only one of restart_on_metadata
and
restart_after_delay
should be passed. The delay is
specified in seconds. The encoding process is mandatory, and can also be
passed directly as a string, without process=
.