Citrix HDX redirection

Copper Contributor

Any chance Stream will ever support HDX redirection on Citrix?  We would love to use Stream but because we run a Citrix environment with 100+ terminals, it's currently not an option.  (We use YouTube instead).

5 Replies

That topic hasn't come up before so I don't know much about Citrix HDX. I glanced at the Citrix page but it didn't go into depth on how HDX works with videos.

 

Do you know if this is changes we'd need to do on the Stream side or changes that would need to happen on the Citrix side to allow it? 

 

How does YouTube work with HDX redirection on Citrix today?

HDX passes the job of rendering HDX-supported video (e.g. Flash video) to the local Citrix terminal, thus taking pressure off our Citrix servers.

 

The user does not notice anything different, e.g. a YouTube video appears to be playing in the YouTube website window but in fact it's being rendered locally and positioned onscreen as an overlay where the user would expect to see the video.  (YouTube uses Flash instead of HTML5 for HDX video playback).

 

Using HDX allows Citrix users to watch HD videos with no lag or stutter.  Unfortunately MS Stream videos do not appear to support HDX and therefore playback is extremely slow and glitchy, with stuttering audio and video, and a massive hit on the Citrix server's CPU.

 

Stream uses HTML 5 Video playback where possible. We only fall back to Flash when the OS/Browser doesn't support our encrypted video playback via HTML5 + MSE. So for Win 7 or older + IE, Stream would play via Flash. For Win 8.1 or newer + IE or on any OS with latest version of Chrome/FF/Opera/Edge we will not use flash and instead use HTML5 + MSE video playback.

 

I'm still not clear on how we'd address this with Citrix HDX. Is it possible there is just some configuration on your company's Citrix that needs to be done to allow our video playback from Stream to use HDX? Are there changes on Citrix's code base that would need to be changed to support HTML5 + MSE playback that Stream does? Or if there is something we need to do in Stream's code base to support this.

 

If you want to discuss this further send me a private message. Maybe we could have a short call? I'm guessing we'd need folks from your organization that own/configure Citrix, someone from Citrix directly, and us from Stream.

 

Hi, it's probably best if you contact Citrix Support and try to make Stream a 'Citrix Ready' platform.

https://www.citrix.com/partner-programs/citrix-ready/

You need Browser Content Redirection to offload Websites like YouTube or Stream. This technology redirects the browser's viewport, allowing it to run on the rendering engine (Chromium in Windows or WebKitGTK+ in Linux) that is bundled with the Citrix Workspace App.