Top tips for streaming your content

In this article we will give you some good tips to ensure a smooth and enjoyable streaming experience for you and your audience. If you would like a more thorough description of how to connect your stream in TicketCo, or how you optimise your setup in OBS, please check out our TMS Welcome Pack.

General

While getting ready to stream your event, you need to make sure that all your hardware and software components are working correctly, so it is worth checking that they have enough processing power. You should also make sure to test your streams prior to going live! This will ensure a smoother user experience for your audience.

Equipment processing power

The higher the quality of your broadcast, the more hardware resources needed, so make sure your computer is able to handle encoding and streaming of the video. It is worth testing your stream at full load to make sure that your equipment can process everything. It is recommended to test performance at least 24hrs prior to the planned live streaming, in order to have time for possible changes and adjustments.

Updated software

Keep your streaming software and hardware drivers up-to-date, and make sure that you are familiar with any updates. 

Testing

Use the Start for 30 min button under Technical information to test your stream before going live. This button is free of charge, and is a good way of ensuring that your setup, internet connection and devices are working as planned. Note that testing is limited to once per event, and that your Stream Keys and URLs for testing will differ from those needed for the actual event.

Stream Health

Remember to refer to the Stream Health tab when streaming your events (both during testing and when live) so that you can monitor the output. You will be able to see if frames are being dropped, or if the bitrate is unstable. If it is, you should adjust your settings accordingly. The incident log on this page with also provide you with a written description of any issues recorded when processing your stream in AWS. 

Bandwidth

Generally speaking, we recommend an upload speed of minimum 12MBps, but you should note that the ideal upload speed depends on the quality of the streamed content. 

When streaming a live video there are couple of things that need to be considered:

1. Stability of the network connection: TicketCo recommends using network ethernet cable instead of relying on WiFi. WiFi can be affected by interference that can occur at any time. If your network connection is down, end users will experience lagging in the video.
2. Unnecessary devices that may share the bandwidth: Make sure that the connection you are using is free of any third party devices that are not essential for streaming. Consider, for example, a smartphone that has planned to download an update - this can affect the output of the internet connection. 
3. Internet connection bandwidth: Since nominal output of the internet connection is an average calculated over a period of time, it is generally recommended to have a buffer of 35-40% of the bandwidth. Assuming you have a stable 10 Mbit bandwidth you will be able to safely stream a video of 720p with 30 fps.

Here are some generally accepted bandwidths according to the quality of the stream:

TicketCo recommends between 2000 and 4000 kbps for video, with up to 160 kbps for audio (with 128 kbps recommended).

Framerate

We recommend using around 25-30fps as this will be HD, and will provide a great viewing experience for your audience. Please note that even if you connect your stream to TicketCo at a frame rate, the output from our end will be capped at 30fps.