Live streaming is an inexpensive way to share content with a wide audience that is immediate, interactive, and engaging to users. Today, streaming has become the norm for many live production applications due to its high engagement rate.

So, what is streaming?

Streaming means watching a video in real-time from a continuous stream of data from a server. How it works is simple. You take a video signal from a camera and audio from a mixer into an encoder. The encoder connects to the Internet, converts the signal into a compressed format (e.g., H.264 or H.265), and transmits it to a CDN or content delivery network. The most common public CDNs are Facebook and YouTube, but you can also stream to any public or secure platform.

When learning about streaming productions online and using a networked device such as the streaming encoder, students would be able to engage in positive, safe, legal, and ethical behavior when using technology, including social interactions online on streaming platforms. Students need citizenship when preparing content to stream.

To stream your production, you need the following: an Internet connection, a streaming device, a video source, and a Content Delivery Network (CDN). Streaming requires a fast Internet connection with enough upload bandwidth to effectively deliver your stream to the CDN. Check with your Internet provider or do a speed test to find out your upload speed (Figure 3.1). A typical internet service will provide about half of your upload speed compared to your download speed. You can also check your upload speed using a SPEEDTEST app or website (Figure 3.2). Your upload speed is measured in megabits per second. Best streaming practices suggest that your upload speed should be two and a half times your streaming bit rate. For example, if Facebook Live recommends a streaming bit rate of 4 Mbps, your Internet upload speed should be 10 Mbps. This compensates for any dips in the connection because it is not a constant upload.

Another thing to consider is whether or not you are sharing your Internet connection. If you are sharing the connection with people in your organization, they can interfere with the connection bandwidth while you are streaming. This can impact your stream negatively or cause it to stutter, buffer, or drop. It is recommended to have a dedicated Internet connection for your streaming encoder.

If you are in a location where it’s not possible to have access to a high-speed Internet connection, you may want to consider using an SRT streaming protocol. First, let’s go over different types of streaming protocols. There are various types of streaming protocols such as RTMP, RTSP, HLS, and SRT. RTMP is the most popular protocol among broadcasters. RTMP is great if you are streaming on a high-speed data network. However, that’s not always an option.

So, if you have a low upload speed at around 6 Mbps, streaming using the RTMP protocol is going to give you issues, such as buffering and a choppy stream. To fix this problem, you should use the SRT protocol instead of RTMP.

However, not many Content Delivery Networks support SRT at the moment. Most common CDNs like Facebook and YouTube currently don’t support SRT. So, if you want to use SRT, you need a cloud streaming server that supports SRT, acting as a bridge between your encoder and a CDN.