Livestreaming

Livestreaming is the real-time broadcasting of video or audio content over the internet, enabling viewers to watch and interact with events as they happen. RealtimeKit offers livestreaming services that facilitate one-to-many communication, where a single source streams content to multiple viewers or participants. It enables hosts and participants to engage and interact during the stream, creating an interactive live streaming (ILS) experience.

Key concepts

Interactive live streaming

Interactive live streaming (ILS) is an engaging online broadcasting method where hosts and viewers can actively participate by interacting through comments, chat, polls, and other interactive features.

Stage

RealtimeKit's Interactive Live Streaming (ILS) feature revolves around a virtual stage where hosts have direct access and viewers can request to join.

Hosts - Have full control of the stage and can actively participate, share video and audio, conduct presentations, and more
Viewers - Can request to join the stage using interactive features like chat or raised hand. Once approved by the host, viewers can contribute by sharing their video and audio or participating in discussions

The stage is where all the action happens. It is broadcasted live to all viewers, creating a real-time and engaging experience for everyone.

Restream

Restreaming allows you to redistribute an existing live stream to multiple platforms or destinations simultaneously. It enables content creators to broadcast their live stream to different streaming services, social media platforms, or CDNs, reaching a broader audience and maximizing the content's exposure. Restreaming is a many-to-many communication model, as it enables the simultaneous distribution of a single live stream to multiple platforms, rather than streaming separately to each platform.

RealtimeKit can restream your meeting to any platform that supports an RTMP endpoint, such as YouTube, Twitch, or LinkedIn.

Livestream custom video input

RealtimeKit supports live streaming from applications like OBS, ffmpeg ↗, and others. You can live stream any RTMP input from any source using RealtimeKit.

You can pass the custom input to the ingest server and stream key, and freely distribute it using the playback URL on any HLS/LHLS supported player.

Configure permissions

A preset is a set of permissions and configurations that are applied to participants. They determine the look, feel, and behavior of a livestream participant, with options to set varied permissions, such as the ability to create polls or chat, control access for plugins, and more.

You can define the following permissions and UI configurations:

Max number of people on screen - Set the maximum number of participants who can appear on the screen at any given time. We recommend setting this number between 6 and 9 for the best possible experience
Max number of people screensharing - Set the maximum number of participants who can share the screen at any given time. We recommend setting this number between 3 to 4 for the best experience

Host controls

Host controls allow you as the host to control various aspects of a RealtimeKit livestream, such as managing the participants.

Media permissions

You can manage permissions for your livestreams in Media, such as who can start the livestream and who can join the livestream with what kind of permissions.

Chat permissions

Configure chat permissions to control who can send messages during the livestream.

Poll permissions

Configure poll permissions to control who can create and participate in polls during the livestream.

Plugin permissions

Manage permissions for your plugins:

Select the plugin that you want to use for collaboration within your meeting. Multiple plugins such as Excalidraw, Remote browser, Google apps, Quiz, Chess, and so on are supported. You can select multiple plugins for your meeting
Click Configure
Select permissions for the selected preset. You can provide Full Access or View Only
Select Show only active plugins to view the plugins that you have configured for your meeting

Customization

Colors

You can specify brand color, background color, text color, text color on brand, and video background color.

Theme

Specify the URL of the logo.

Save preset changes

Once you have made all the changes that you need to add to your preset, click Save
Enter the name for your preset and click Save
Your preset is listed - click Edit to make any changes to the preset

Livestream custom video input

RealtimeKit can livestream video from any applications like OBS, ffmpeg ↗ that can stream via RTMP.

Step 1: Get your API keys

Get your Authentication token from the Cloudflare dashboard.

Follow the Quickstart Guide to create a new token via the Cloudflare dashboard ↗.

Step 2: Generate credentials for a livestream

This step generates credentials and ingest URLs for the livestream.

For more information, refer to Create an independent livestream ↗.

Request

curl --location --request POST 'https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/<account_id>/realtime/kit/<app_id>/livestreams' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer <api_token>' \
  --data-raw '{
    "name": "test_livestream"
  }'

Response

The response contains the ingest_server, livestream id, stream_key, and playback_url.

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "status": "OFFLINE",
    "name": "test_livestream",
    "meeting_id": null,
    "ingest_server": "rtmps://live.cloudflare.com:443/live/",
    "id": "9fb22eea-3392-42ad-b884-1129a4f517d2",
    "stream_key": "f26566285faca6fbe2e79a73a66rsrrsrrsr3cde23a2bb7dbc6c2c1761b98f4e4",
    "playback_url": "https://customer-s8oj0c1n5ek8ah1e.cloudflarestream.com/7de6a3fec0f9c05bf1df140950d3a237/manifest/video.m3u8"
  }
}

Step 3: Specify RTMP ingestion URL for live streaming

In your application, enter the ingestion URL you generated in the previous step.

OBS - If you are using OBS ↗, enter the ingest server URL and stream key separately
ffmpeg - For ffmpeg ↗, you must specify both the ingest URL and the stream key together. For example:

ffmpeg -re -f lavfi -i "testsrc=size=1280x720 [out0]; sine=frequency=500 [out1]" \
  -acodec aac -vcodec h264 -f flv \
  rtmps://live.cloudflare.com:443/live/f26566285faca6fbe2e79a73a66rsrrsrrsr3cde23a2bb7dbc6c2c1761b98f4e4

Fetch livestream details

Using the livestream ID that you generated in the previous step, you can fetch details of the livestream.

For more information, refer to Fetch livestream details using livestream ID ↗.

Request

This request returns the ingest_seconds, viewer_seconds, ingest_server, id, stream_key, and playback_url.

curl --location \
  --request GET 'https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/<account_id>/realtime/kit/<app_id>/livestreams/<livestream_id>' \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer <api_token>'

Response

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "status": "OFFLINE",
    "name": "test_livestream",
    "meeting_id": null,
    "ingest_seconds": 0,
    "viewer_seconds": 0,
    "ingest_server": "rtmps://live.cloudflare.com:443/live/",
    "id": "9fb22eea-3392-42ad-b884-1129a4f517d2",
    "stream_key": "f26566285faca6fbe2e79a73a66rsrrsrrsr3cde23a2bb7dbc6c2c1761b98f4e4",
    "playback_url": "https://customer-s8oj0c1n5ek8ah1e.cloudflarestream.com/7de6a3fec0f9c05bf1df140950d3a237/manifest/video.m3u8"
  }
}

Next steps

Explore additional capabilities you can add to your livestreaming experiences:

Recording - Record your livestreams
Chat - Build real-time chat for users in the livestream
Polls - Integrate polls within your livestream

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