Review: DVEO Brutus V

MelinaJanuary 16, 2025

3 6 minutes read

This review will highlight Brutus V and DVEO’s IP-to-IP multi-channel AV1, H.264 and H.265 for IPTV or OTT transmitter (Figure 1). I will go over the Brutus V’s options for delivering streams over H.264 and cover streaming delivery over different streaming protocols such as HLS, LL-HLS, Smooth flowand MPEG-DASH. I’ll also dive into transcoding with H.264 and HEVC.

Devio Brutus v

Figure 1. Brutus F

About Brutus F

The Brutus V can deliver streams via UDP, RTSP, RTMP, MPEG-DASH, and HLS using the AV1, H.264, and H.265 codecs. Brutus V is designed for IP delivery and transcodes into different flavors. It is able to perform ingestion via RTSP, SRT, RTMP and HLS and push output to UDP, SRT and RTP. Output to DASH, LL-HLS, MSS, RTMP, MPEG-TS and Shoutcast is also supported.

DVEO Brutus V sells to ISPs, content owners and broadcasters for over-the-air, IPTV/OTT and FAST delivery. Many of the company’s clients use multiple profile encodings of HLS and DASH.

Brutus V runs on NVIDIA GPUs and supports video codecs such as H.264, HEVC, AV1, and others. It also supports AAC, OPUS, and AC3. Customers can send SRT to the Brutus V and can then transcode the stream as well. Customers can also ingest streams into Brutus V and convert the stream to another stream output.

Using Brutus V

To start using Brutus V, remotely log in to the transceiver. All the work is then performed in the cloud directly on the Brutus V.

To create a stream, click + Unpaid invoice. From there, you can add the name of your stream and then the source URL (Figure 2). For my stream, I copied the URL to a stream that was already created for me on the Brutus V. I followed the same process for subsequent streams created in testing this review. New streams appear in the list of available streams on Brutus V.

dveo Brutus Cloud ui

Figure 2. Create flows in Brutus Cloud UI

Once the stream is created, you can test playback using several options available from the Output tab in the Brutus dashboard. You can play broadcasts for DASH, HLS, LL-HLS, MSS, RTSP, Shoutcast, and many other streaming options (Figure 3). You can copy the URL using the copy button on the right side of the page. There is also an embed option.

Brutus vs. Outputs available

Figure 3. View available outputs

Brutus V test

Here’s how to test Brutus V:

First, I was interested to see if adding adaptive bit rate (ABR) streams would be easy or would be a lot of work. So, I set out to test adding ABR streams for H.264, AV1, and HEVC.
Second, I was interested in testing the transcoding. For this reason, I decided to test ABR streams created for H.264, AV1, and HEVC.
Third, I was interested to see how streaming playback would work with my ABR devices. Therefore, I decided to test playback of H.264 ABR streams, since H.264 playback is prevalent.
Finally, I was interested in testing playback of ABR streams using VLC, since many technical experts and streaming experts use the tool regularly.

I thought people at colleges and universities like my alma mater, Ohio State University, could benefit from the results of these tests. We perform thousands of on-demand video transcodings weekly. Even though we don’t have many live streams weekly, live transcoding is still very important in organizations like ours.

Here’s a summary of what I tested:

Added ABR streams for H.264, AV1 and HEVC
H.264, AV1 and HEVC transcoding
Play H.264 ABR streams in media players (THEOplayer, JW Player)
Play H.264 ABR streams in VLC

Added ABR streams for H.264, AV1 and HEVC

In the Transcoder tab of Brutus V (Figure 4), you can add your own ABRs by clicking the “Add Video Track” button. An AAC audio track is already included by default. This can be changed to Opus or another option if necessary. There are some default options when adding your flows, but you can make adjustments to them once you add them. For my tests, I added 1080p, 480p, and 360p ABR streams to test.

Display adaptive bitrates

Figure 4. Added adaptive bitrate display for H.264

Figure 5 Provides a glimpse into how ABR flows appear in the transceiver. You can make many adjustments from here. Clicking the drop-down menu on the right will reveal more encryption settings.

Coding definition files

Figure 5. Additional details are needed when adding encryption profiles

Keep in mind that when adding ABR streams, you’ll need to add more information if you’re transcoding with H.264, AV1, and HEVC. In addition to the profile, you will need to be prepared to include additional details such as prior preparation, levels, frames of reference, information about the Open GOP and whether or not you will have an overlap.

I was able to add my H.264 and HEVC profiles without issue but had challenges adding AV1 profiles, which I’ll discuss later in this review. Adding information to profiles was easy. However, I had to view the Wikipedia source to add my levels for H.264 and HEVC. Users must be familiar with encoding profiles to configure transcoding.

H.264, AV1 and HEVC transcoding

For my tests, H.264 and HEVC transcoding worked great. However, the transcoding of AV1 was not successful and resulted in errors. I think this issue may be related to an issue with the AV1 presets. When I went to adjust the ABR streams for AV1, I noticed that settings and values typically found in H.264 profiles appeared in the AV1 settings.

I used transcoded H.264 files to test streaming playback. Once you enable encoding and then add your ABR streams for H.264 and HEVC, the transcoding process begins on the Brutus V. Also, all links to your stream outputs will play the ABR streams as well.

Test playback of H.264 ABR streams in media players (THEOplayer and JW Player)

To test ABR streams to H.264 transcoding, I selected THEOplayer stream test (Figure 6) and JW Player Stream Tester (Figure 7) to confirm operation.

HLS streaming playback theplayer

Figure 6. Play streaming for HLS in THEOplayer

Figure 7. Play HLS stream in JW Player

I copied the URL from the Output tab in my stream and pasted it into each player’s online copy. You can see the format I used for the stream I tested in both players Figure 8.

Added streaming url in vlc

Figure 8. Streaming URL added in VLC

Streaming worked great and played well in both media players. You’ll notice in both Figures 6 and 7 that the ABR streams for the converted H.264 stream appear to play.

Test playback of H.264 ABR streams in VLC

Additionally, I tested the same HLS stream from H.264 transcoding in VLC. Streaming worked in VLC as well. Figure 8 shows where you added the URL.

Table 1 Details of streaming playback tested with Brutus V and results.

Protoss vs

Figure 9 Displays playback view in VLC.

hls play streaming in vlc

Figure 9. Play HLS stream in VLC

The H.264 transcoded stream played great with MPEG-DASH, HLS, and LL-HLS in both JW Player and THEEOplayer. The converted stream also played great in VLC with smooth streaming.

Concluding thoughts

The Brutus V has a wealth of capabilities, and the transcoder is easy to use. However, the lack of an available online manual or document explaining the inner workings of the transcoder made me unsure about grasping streams and many other functions that I wanted to explore further with the Brutus V transcoder. The Brutus V experience could certainly be improved if DVEO provided an online guide Internet or manual available for download in PDF format. Blog resources or how-to videos for various common tasks such as ingesting streams, enabling publishing and authentication, using DVR features, and adding encryption profiles will also be helpful for users.

In terms of accessing the stream created for me on the Brutus V, I was easily able to use this UDP stream to create additional streams for playback testing and also to test the Brutus V’s transcoding features for H.264, HEVC, and AV1. I was disappointed that I wasn’t able to test transcoding with the AV1.

Where the Brutus V excels is in the time-package of simplifying playback to HLS, MPEG-DASH, MSS, LL-HLS, and other streaming options. Stream bagging provides significant time savings for testing streams in different protocols. I also absolutely loved having quick links to all your streaming output in one place. I appreciated the built-in trigger that acted as a trust monitor to verify the operation of the configured flows. The Brutus V shines with a variety of operating options.

It looks like Brutus V could use some tweaking regarding the additional information required to add ABR flows. I generally like having a lot of controls related to encryption, but I like not having to add a lot of other details. When adding ABR flows, I prefer not to have to add levels for each flow. My preference is to select the profile and resolution and have the encoder configure the level for me. Perhaps DVEO can provide an advanced option for users who wish to include these details.