Radio and live video encoders
A hardware streaming encoder is a small box that takes the sound from your mixer or the picture from your camera, compresses it and sends it to your streaming server on its own, with no computer in between.
This page helps you pick one for a radio station or a live video channel, and shows exactly what to type into it so it connects to Primcast the first time.
01Why hardware
Most stations and channels start on a laptop, and the laptop is usually what takes them off air: an update that restarts it overnight, a full disk, a sleep setting nobody noticed. A dedicated box does one job, so there is far less to go wrong. It is not always the better choice, though, and the honest list goes both ways.
02For radio
An audio encoder, often called an IP audio encoder, takes a line or XLR feed from your mixing desk and sends it to your station as an MP3 or AAC stream. Any box that can act as an Icecast or SHOUTcast source connects to a Primcast station. These three are the ones radio people ask us about most.
A1Small studio box
The box most small stations end up with. Plug your mixer into it, enter your station details once in its web page, and put it on a shelf.
The older MP3-only Instreamer connects the same way.
Barix Instreamer tutorialA2Broadcast rack
For a station that already runs broadcast equipment. The DB9000-TX goes in the rack and takes analog or digital audio; the DB90-TX does the same job in a compact case.
A3Configured from a browser
Streamit's current streamer, configured from a browser and then left alone. It sends to an external Icecast or SHOUTcast server, which is your Primcast station.
/streamsource (Icecast encoders ask for it)ingest.radio.primcast.com on port 14000 instead, so the encoder connects to whichever of our five cities is nearest. The mount gains your station number there, and the same block fills it in for you. How the radio CDN worksAdd a card or PayPal when you sign up and nothing is charged before day 15. Platinum takes your encoder at 320 kbps through the closest of our five cities. Only need a quick test? The Free plan is there too.
03For live video
A video encoder takes HDMI or SDI from a camera or a switcher and sends an H.264 stream over RTMP, which is what our live video channels take in. What separates the models is where you will be standing: next to one camera, behind a production desk, or outdoors on a mobile network.
V1One camera
Small enough to sit beside the camera, and run from the LiveShell Studio web app. It can send up to three 1080p streams at once over RTMP.
V2Several cameras
An encoder, a switcher and a recorder in one box, so one person can run a multi-camera show: cut between inputs live, stream, and keep a local copy at the same time.
V3Outdoors and remote
Teradek's current encoder line. Prism Flex sits on a desk or in a rack; Prism Mobile carries two cellular modems and bonds them, for a picture from somewhere with no cable.
rtmp://your-domain:1935/your-application, with your own domain and application name from your channel's setup email.04Pick by the job
Start from the job, not the spec sheet. Find the row that sounds like your setup, and the last column tells you which Primcast service the box points at.
| Your setup | Kind of encoder | For example | Points at |
|---|---|---|---|
| A radio studio on air day and night | IP audio encoder | Barix Instreamer ICE, Streamit SAS310 | Radio, Premium or Platinum |
| A broadcast rack with digital audio | Rack-mount audio encoder | DEVA DB9000-TX | Radio, Platinum |
| One camera, one person | Compact video encoder | Cerevo LiveShell W | Live video channel |
| Several cameras, cut live and recorded | Encoder, switcher and recorder | Epiphan Pearl | Live video channel |
| Outdoors, on mobile networks | Bonded cellular encoder | Teradek Prism Mobile | Video CDN with SRT |
Every channel stops at 1,000 people watching at once, and none of them takes 4K. Past either line you need a streaming server of your own, and the same encoder simply points at it.
05Questions
It is a dedicated device that turns live sound or video into a compressed stream and sends it to a streaming server by itself. Audio encoders take a line or XLR feed and send MP3 or AAC to an Icecast or SHOUTcast server. Video encoders take HDMI or SDI and send H.264 over RTMP or SRT. Because the box runs nothing else, there is no computer to update, restart or crash.
Yes. Put an IP audio encoder between your mixer and your router, enter your station's server, port, mount and password once, and it streams for as long as it has power and a connection. Music when nobody is live can come from Auto DJ on our Premium and Platinum plans, so the station keeps playing between shows. See the radio plans.
For many streams, OBS on a reliable computer is enough, and it costs nothing to try. A hardware encoder earns its price when the stream has to stay up with nobody watching it, when you broadcast every day from the same place, or when you need a small box at a venue instead of a laptop. If you want graphics and scenes, software still does that better.
For radio, any encoder that can act as an Icecast or SHOUTcast source; new stations run Icecast, SHOUTcast-only boxes connect too, and you can switch the station to a real SHOUTcast server in the panel on any plan. For live video, any encoder that sends RTMP; the Pro and Platinum video CDN plans also take SRT. You do not need a particular brand, and changing encoder later never means changing host.
For radio, stay at or under your plan's bitrate: 32 kbps on Free, 128 kbps on Premium and 320 kbps on Platinum. From 20 October 2026, a Free station's encoder that sends more is disconnected, and the dashboard shows why. For video, keep video and audio together within 5 Mbps on the paid channels, and well under the upload speed you measure where you broadcast from.
Most dedicated encoders start up and dial the server again on their own once power or the network returns; check the reconnect setting in yours when you first set it up. What no encoder can do is stream over a line that has gone away. A wired connection and a bitrate well under your real upload speed prevent most drops.
Cerevo ended all functions and support for the LiveShell 2 and LiveShell Pro at the end of May 2025, when its Dashboard service closed. The LiveShell X keeps working through LiveShell Studio after a firmware update, and Cerevo now recommends the LiveShell W. Any of the other encoders on this page will feed a Primcast channel instead.
Yes. Our chat answers in seconds at any hour, can look at your station or channel while you set the box up, and tells you which value is wrong. Ask for a person and one joins the conversation. The tutorials below walk through the common encoders screen by screen.
Your encoder needs somewhere to send the stream. Primcast radio stations and live video channels give it an address and a password, and give your audience a player to embed in your own site.