A media server is a software platform or hardware system dedicated to receiving, processing, and distributing live video streams to viewers. It accepts incoming streams from encoders via ingest protocols, optionally transcodes them into multiple formats or bitrates, and then delivers them to viewers or hands them off to a CDN for wide distribution. Media servers are the central hub of a live streaming infrastructure, and popular software options include Wowza Streaming Engine and NGINX with the RTMP module.