One API, every transport
A streaming stack usually starts with a transport choice. You pick RTMP, or SRT, or WebRTC, and the rest of the system grows around that decision. Changing it later means changing the system.
WAVE makes a different bet. The Media Engine is one core with one API, and every transport is a thin adapter over it. The protocol becomes a parameter of the call, not the shape of your codebase.
The set
WAVE speaks the transports that real production already uses:
- RTMP — the long-standing ingest default, still everywhere.
- SRT — reliable transport over lossy networks, the contribution workhorse.
- NDI — broadcast-grade video on the LAN.
- Dante — low-latency audio over IP.
- OMT — an open transport for media over IP.
- MoQ — Media over QUIC, the emerging low-latency standard.
- WebRTC — sub-second, two-way, browser-native.
- HLS — scalable one-to-many delivery.
Ingest on one, deliver on another. The source and destination transports are independent — the API is the same either way.
Why a thin adapter matters
Keeping each transport thin is a discipline, not an accident. The adapter handles the wire format; everything else — auth, entitlement, metering, identity — lives once, in the gateway, behind the API. That means:
- A new transport is a new adapter, not a new platform.
- Pricing, payment, and metering are identical across transports.
- A person and an agent reach every transport through the same routes.
{
"ingest": { "type": "srt" },
"deliver": ["webrtc", "hls"]
}
Bring in over SRT, fan out to WebRTC for the interactive end and HLS for the audience — one call, three transports.
The point
The hard part of video infrastructure was never any single protocol. It was carrying all of them through one consistent surface, and pricing and metering them the same way. WAVE's answer is the Media Engine: one API, every transport, each one a thin adapter — and the Money Engine settling the bill behind it, for people and agents alike.
- Transports and the API: docs.wave.online
- Per-transport adapters: ndi · dante · omt · moq, each at
<transport>.wave.online