Purpose

Perfect Streamer

Perfect Streamer is server software for the reliable delivery of MPEG-TS streams across the public Internet with packet loss and latency, as well as for the reception, processing, multiplexing, transcoding, and OTT distribution of television channels. The product is aimed at broadcasters and telecom operators: backbone channel transport between operators, DVB-to-IP headends, IPTV/OTT platforms, and distribution networks.

Perfect Streamer is shipped as a single application for Linux x86-64 with a built-in web interface and HTTP API. A single installation performs all stages of the pipeline: reception, processing and remultiplexing, transcoding, transport between nodes, OTT distribution and archiving (DVR), monitoring, and much more.

Stream transport between nodes

For each stream, a transmitter server (Sender) and one or more receivers (Receiver) are configured. Four Peer protocols are available for transporting streams between the transmitter and the receiver, as well as for communicating with third-party equipment:

  • PS1 (Perfect Stream) — a proprietary UDP-based protocol that operates on the Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ) principle with selective retransmission. Low resource consumption; transport of high-bitrate streams, including a full-size MPTS. Particularly efficient in point-to-multipoint configurations, one sender and many receivers.

  • SRT — an open protocol that is widely adopted and offers good packet-loss compensation; listener/caller modes; compatible with third-party equipment and cloud services.

  • RIST — an open protocol based on RTP/RTCP. It operates on the ARQ principle without ACK, using only NACK, which ensures high efficiency; Simple and Main profiles.

  • Pro-MPEG / RTP+FEC (Pro-MPEG COP3, also known as SMPTE 2022-1/2) — RTP with forward error correction (FEC) and no return channel. Its advantages are low latency and compatibility with professional broadcast equipment; its drawbacks are constant additional traffic and poor recovery under large packet loss.

All Peer protocols support AES encryption. A detailed description of the protocols and the planning of transport channels is provided in the Planning and data transmission protocols section.

In addition to the Peer protocols, standard inputs and outputs are supported: UDP (unicast/multicast), RTP, HLS/HTTP, RTMP/RTMPS, file/device, named pipe (pipe), and external application (std); additionally, as inputs only — TCP and RTSP.

Main functions

  • Processing without transcoding — allowed and blocked PID lists, PID remapping and automatic PID arrangement for the program, editing of the SDT and audio languages, PNR change, removal of unneeded tables (SDT/CAT/NIT/TDT, teletext, subtitles), bringing PAT/PMT intervals into compliance with TR 101 290; bitrate modes, including CBR with stuffing up to a DVB-compliant constant bitrate.

  • MPTS multiplexer — assembling a multiplex from individual programs with PSI/SI generation and an output compliant with TR 101 290.

  • Demultiplexer — extraction of individual programs from an MPTS into standalone SPTS.

  • Transcoder — hardware transcoding on NVIDIA GPU and Intel VPL, software transcoding on the CPU; multiple encoders from a single decoder (for example, for adaptive bitrate).

  • Analyzer — TR 101 290 (DVB) compliance monitoring for SPTS and MPTS, PCR drift detector, T-STD buffer model, deep stream analysis, SCTE-35 analyzer, CBR/VBR detector.

  • EPG and EIT — capturing EIT from the air into the EPG database, XMLTV import, generating correct EIT (present/following and schedule) into the outgoing stream, forced SDT generation.

  • EPG server — serving full XMLTV at /xmltv with the channel set restricted by login, for OTT middleware.

  • Test streams — a built-in test signal generator.

  • Meshwork — combining servers into domains based on the gossip protocol of decentralized networks: live node status, a shared directory of the addresses and ports in use (resource library), alert replication across the domain.

  • Session accounting and access control — connection limits per user, per-channel ACL, prefix/suffix login for integration with middleware. Authorization of client sessions in external billing — verification of each session on connection and periodic reauthorization with access revocation in the middle of a session (a RADIUS-style lifecycle: Start / Interim / Stop); a universal HTTP connector for connecting the operator’s billing. Accounting is done separately for each protocol — HLS/DASH for OTT and PS1/SRT for stream peering.

  • Web interface — management of all functions, administrator roles, adaptive profiles for workstation, tablet, and phone.

  • Automatic TLS certificates (ACME) — automatic issuance and renewal of certificates, hot reload of TLS; HTTPS and HTTP/3 out of the box.

  • Analyzer and monitoring — TR 101 290 (DVB) monitoring at the input, unified alerting delivered via Email, Telegram, or to an external script, channel mosaic.

Also available: source redundancy with automatic failover; integration with monitoring systems (Zabbix, Grafana, Prometheus, InfluxDB, Nagios); integration with external billing to authorize client sessions; backup and export/import of settings.

For DVB broadcasters

Available to satellite, cable, and terrestrial broadcasting headends (DVB-to-IP, remultiplexing, inter-site contribution):

  • Reception from DVB cards — DVB-S, DVB-S2, DVB-T, DVB-T2, and DVB-C with a full set of tuning parameters; LNB and DiSEqC 1.0 control, LNB sharing between tuners.

  • Transponder scanner and blind scan — traversal of the reference lists (satellites.xml, cables.xml, terrestrial.xml) with PSI/SI collection, building a multiplex → program tree, and measurement of SNR, level, and BER; discovery of non-standard transponders without a reference file.

  • Descrambling — hardware CI/CAM (EN 50221) with a CAM combined with the DVB receiver, and software BISS-1 / BISS-E (keys by PNR or PLP, hot update). Conditional-access cleanup on output — removal of ECM/EMM, CAT, and CA descriptors from the PMT to obtain a clean FTA stream.

  • T2-MI decapsulation (ETSI TS 102 773) — simultaneous output of the outer DVB-S/S2 multiplex and all embedded T2-MI carriers: reception of regional DVB-T2 over satellite without a separate gateway.

  • Signal monitor (femon) — continuous measurement of lock, level, SNR, BER, and UCB with plotting over time.

  • Demultiplexer — extraction of an individual program (by PNR) from a received transponder into a standalone SPTS.

For OTT broadcasters

Available to IPTV/OTT operators and distribution platforms:

  • OTT delivery — HLS, Low-Latency HLS, and MPEG-DASH over CMAF; delivery over HTTPS and HTTP/3 (QUIC); adaptive multi-bitrate (ABR) in a single master playlist; GOP/IDR-aligned segmentation; raw MPEG-TS over HTTP for TS clients.

  • WebVTT subtitles — decoding of DVB teletext and DVB subtitles into WebVTT for OTT players, including in the archive.

  • Network DVR — recording of each OTT channel to a disk archive in parallel with delivery; archive playback via the same HLS/DASH URLs (timeshift and VOD), seamless archive → live transition, EPG-based catch-up, adaptive VOD and CMAF archive, multi-disk storage with retention and automatic cleanup.

  • Transcoder and ABR ladder — a single decoder feeds multiple encoders, each with its own resolution, bitrate, and codec (1toN); in hardware on the GPU (NVIDIA, Intel VPL) or in software on the CPU.

  • CDN readiness — content-addressable segments with immutable headers, a normalized cache-key, and CORS for scaling behind a reverse proxy or CDN.