Guides for live video
These hardware video encoder tutorials show you how to set up a Teradek Cube, an Epiphan Pearl or a Hauppauge StreamEez-Pro so it sends your camera to a Primcast live video channel over RTMP. Each one names the screen, the field and the value you type into it.
Find the box you own and open its guide. Have your channel's setup email open beside it, because every value the guide asks for is in there.
T1Every Cube
On a Cube 600 or 700, open its web page, choose Manual RTMP under Video Stream Output and type your server address, stream name, username and password. Older Cubes reach the same fields through TeraCentral. Press Apply, then Broadcast.
T2Pearl family
Pick your channel, open Streaming and add a new RTMP push stream. The server address, stream name, username and password each get a field of their own. Older Epiphan boxes with a Publish Stream page are covered in the same guide.
T3Older unit
If you still run one, the guide connects it through a publisher in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager and loads the hauppauge.xml file it gives you.
Every hardware encoder asks for the same handful of values, just on different screens. Here is what each one means on a Primcast channel.
rtmp://your-domain:1935/your-applicationYour domain and application name are in your channel's setup email. Many channels use live as the application, but copy yours rather than assuming it.rtmp://user:password@host. That is why our channel passwords are 10 to 64 characters of letters, digits, hyphens and underscores only: symbols like @ or : would break the address.Live video channels take RTMP. If your encoder works best over SRT, for example a bonded cellular unit on a shoot outdoors, the Pro and Platinum plans of our video CDN take SRT in. The Cube and Pearl tutorials show the SRT fields as well.
A stream that has never worked is nearly always one of these four. Check them in order.
Split them. The server URL ends with the application name, and the stream name goes in its own field.
Copy it from your setup email letter for letter. Capital letters count.
Run a speed test where the encoder sits, then set the bitrate to well under what it shows.
Set the interval to 2 seconds by hand. Some boxes call it GOP length; at 30 frames a second that is 60.
If nothing changed on your side, your settings are not the problem. Open the chat and tell us; it can look at your channel straight away.
It is a small box that takes the picture from your camera or video switcher, usually over HDMI or SDI, compresses it and sends it to a streaming server. No computer has to stay on during the show, so a laptop update or a full disk cannot take you off air.
Open the encoder's web page or app, find its streaming or publish settings and choose RTMP. Type the server URL, then the stream name in its own field, then the publish username and password. For a Primcast channel all four are in your setup email, and the tutorials above show where each one goes on a Teradek, Epiphan or Hauppauge box.
Set the keyframe interval to 2 seconds and keep it fixed. For bitrate, stay under 5 Mbps for video and audio together, which is the ceiling on our paid live video plans and plenty for 1080p. On a slow upload, choose a lower figure and a lower resolution rather than letting the encoder drop frames.
Not on a live video channel. They carry 1080p, so set a 4K encoder to output 1080p. If you really need 4K, or more than 1,000 people watching at once, a dedicated streaming server is the right home for it, and the same encoder simply points there.
Yes, if it can send H.264 video over RTMP. Look for the words RTMP, custom server or publish in its menus and use the values from the settings list on this page. If it only speaks SRT, the Pro and Platinum plans of our video CDN take it.
Up to 1,000 at the same moment on every live video channel. Your viewers watch in their browser through a player you embed on your own page.
Open the chat on this page. Our AI assistant answers in seconds, can check your channel and your settings while you wait, and brings in a person from the team whenever you ask.
A Primcast live video channel takes your encoder's RTMP stream on our servers in New York or Bucharest and plays it to your viewers on any device, through a player on your own website.