Video

Our Video service allows you to easily transfer video feeds across the globe for central production.

Pre-requisites

To stream to our service, you need to have each of the following:

Thing	Description
Streaming Software	You need something to stream from, probably OBS Studio, that supports RTMP or SRT
Ingest Server	The server you stream to, we provide this for you
Stream Name	The name of the stream, which must be unique
Stream Auth	A secret key allowing you to stream to this

In our current phase, all of the details above will be provided to you. Management of Stream Name/Keys will be part of Dash in the future

Invidually these don’t mean much, but altogether these form the Server and Stream Key that you need for your broadcasting tool (like OBS), which will look like the following for RTMP:

Server: rtmp://{ingest}.video.vantibyte.com/live/
Stream Key: {streamname}:{streamauth}

Or like the following for SRT:

Server: srt://{ingest}.video.vantibyte.com:{port}?streamid=publish/{streamname}/{streamauth}
Stream Key: [Blank]

Don’t worry about remembering this, we’ll provide these to your exact requirements in the Dash

For Uploaders / Streamers / Observers

Configure your stream software as you normally would, but rather than streaming to a service such as Twitch or YouTube, select a Custom setting. Our RTMP ingest uses the same protocol as the usual streaming services. Enter the server name and stream key as shown in the format above: OBS Stream settings page, with the server name and stream key set

Or if you’re using the SRT ingest, enter the details on the one whole line: OBS Stream settings page, with the server url set

Make sure your Keyframe Interval is set to 2 seconds if you are using our synchronised playback via the RTMP ingest

For Viewers / Casters

You can watch the stream in your preferred media player, so long as it supports RTMP or SRT streams! The most common client used for this purpose is VLC. Open a stream, and enter the URL in the following format:

rtmp://{ingest}.video.vantibyte.com/{application}/{streamname}
srt://{ingest}.video.vantibyte.com:{port}?streamid=play/{streamname}

VLC Media Player "Open Media" dialogue, with the RTMP stream URL entered

For Producers

You probably want to include this stream in your streaming software, to then be presented out to your audience. Similarly to the viewers section above, you can simply add this stream URL into your stream and have it show up like any other source - except it’s likely coming a lot further away than another monitor!

OBS Media source settings, with the RTMP stream URL entered

Stream Settings and Bitrate

We accept ingest in the same format as the popular livestream providers (Twitch, YouTube, etc) using H264 encoding via RTMP, as well as accepting ingest via SRT. Similarly to them, streaming to us with particular resolution and bit rate settings is preferred.

We do not provide specifics on full stream configuration (such as b-frames, encoding profiles, or similar) for some reasons:

The defaults in most streaming software are suitable
The settings you’ve been using with other providers are suitable
The options do not have a major effect on our service (but are very important when streaming for viewers!)
Keeping these up-to-date with industry changes would be annoying

Our recommendations for bitrate for different resolutions and FPS are as below, depending on the encoding you are using.

Additionally, if you are using our synchronised playback (available via RTMP ingest only) you should ensure that your keyframe interval is set to 2 seconds. Not doing so will result in viewers with less reliable internet connections seeing buffering and interruptions.

H.264 (AVC1)

Available via RTMP and SRT

Resolution	FPS	Bitrate (kbps)
1920 x 1080	60	8000
1920 x 1080	30	6500
1280 x 720	60	6500
1280 x 720	30	5000

H.265 (HEVC)

Available via SRT only

Resolution	FPS	Bitrate (kbps)
1920 x 1080	60	6000
1920 x 1080	30	4500
1280 x 720	60	4500
1280 x 720	30	3000