Live Streaming from Home
The Corona crisis has forced all of us to adapt to absurd and new circumstances. We have to solve problems which did not exist in all the time before. And we are facing intense moments in life which we have imagined differently.
The Background Story
I am personally affected by such a case, because I was unable to celebrate my wedding with friends and family, which I find very sad. Yet, there is no way around adhering to the regulations and safety measures of your country. To protect the lives of others and those who are especially endangered.
The Basic Idea
So, after all these negative words, now my version of how to make the best of this situation:
Letting friends and family participate in the ceremony via live stream!
Sounds easy, right? Nowadays, we have all those free and feature-rich platforms like YouTube and Twitch. But honestly, who wants to share such intimate moments with the public? Also, in days where every big tech company is hunting for your personal data, it is nice to host some services in your own cloud.
What You Can Expect Here
Putting the background story you have just read aside, let me tell you what exactly you can expect in the remainder of this article:
- I will show you the software and tools required to set up your own streaming proxy.
- I will show you how to configure OBS, a well-known streaming and recording program for your PC.
- I will name some optimization options in case you do not have an enterprise-grade internet connection at home.
Now that know what you will find in this article, let’s get technical!
The Streaming Proxy
Streaming services such as Twitch.tv or YouTube often use the protocol RTMP, which is short for Real-Time Messaging Protocol. The raw video you send from your source machine to the streaming proxy is sent in this format, but consumers of the stream – such as smartphones, tablets or computers – expect a different format. I will go more into detail later, but even at this point it becomes obvious that some type of conversion has to take place such that consumers can access the stream.