Overview

This article will go through the process of streaming directly to the evexus platform, and give you an understanding of what is and what is not possible with a straight-to-platform (STP) event. 

Pre-requisites

The following is needed for a straight-to-platform event with evexus:

• The ability to stream a complete production to a provided RTMP address, with all audio, video and graphics mixed and streamed by you. This is usually done by a third-party production company that you have engaged for your event.

Instructions

evexus will assign you an RTMP address as your streaming destination for your event. 

The RTMP address will be sent to you like this: rtmp://10.10.10.10:1935/live/thestreamkey

It is important to note that this is both the RTMP Destination URL and the Stream Key within the one address. The URL and the key can be subdivided like this:

URL: rtmp://10.10.10.10:1935/live

Key: thestreamkey

NB: It is common for streaming hardware or software to require you to provide the "URL" and streaming "Key" as separate fields, just like above. Please note, there is no closing back slash character "/" on the URL field when divided in this manner.

On the day of your event, please begin streaming half an hour before the agreed-upon event start time. It is imperative to give yourself enough time for testing should there be any issues with your stream. 

Furthermore, after your event has finished, please delete the RTMP address from any software or encoders your production team are using. 

Testing the Live Stream

In order to test you are broadcasting successfully, you are able to view the live stream before your event is live by accessing the evexus Speaker tools. 

To do this you will need to log in to the evexus event platform, with admin access. 

• Our account management team will set up the appropriate production manager with admin access during the pre-production process. 

• The account management team will also provide you with a URL that will take you directly to the relevant "Speaker Tools" area, where you will be able to watch your Stream test, prior to the channel going live.

• This document provides further information about Speaker Tools.

Please note, as your event won't be "live" during testing, the provided URL is the easiest way to access the relevant Speaker tools to test your stream, as opposed to the "Watch Live" button indicated in the linked article. 

Considerations

• It is important to clarify that evexus straight-to-platform events offer no production services. All program video and audio is the responsibility of your hired production team. 

• evexus' streaming pipelines in no way influence the quality or content of the video streams going to the platform. i.e. There is absolutely no post-processing by evexus. If there are problems with video or audio on the platform, those issues will need to be amended by your on-site production team. 

• It is also possible to organise a stream test sometime before your event. This will need to be discussed and confirmed with your account manager prior to your event.

RTMP FAQ's

When is the stream live?

Your Live Stream is live to the public via the platform, 15mins before the start of your first Agenda item. We recommend starting streaming as early as you can and have a slide/loop ready that will appear to your audience during these 15 minutes. Don’t wait until the event start time to begin your stream.

My stream is buffering / stopping and starting, what can I do?

Very poor internet connections can appear to be buffering or freezing on the platform video player. This is almost always a result of the outbound stream health, and has rarely has anything to do with the RTMP channel itself.

Most streaming hardware and software will provide basic data on the health of your stream. Keep an eye on this to ensure the outbound quality of your stream. There are many factors that contribute to the health of an outbound stream, with network capacity and strength being key among them. For this reason, it is important to test your stream as close to how it will be produced on the day as possible, ie: with the same production equipment, network and related properties such as probable network traffic etc. etc.

What resolution/framerate/bitrate do you require?

The streaming pipeline is agnostic to your format, send the best quality you can reliably provide on your connection.

My stream dropped out, what happened?

evexus doesn’t interfere with the streams in any way and the technical infrastructure that delivers the streams is best-in-class streaming architecture (Amazon Web Services). The streaming channels are more robust than the streaming encoders you are using to stream; if your stream dropped out it is almost certainly from a variable at your end. Even if you didn't make any specific changes, it is likely the change may have occurred in a piece of the outbound streaming signal chain. Try reinitialising the stream (turn it off and on again).

The stream doesn’t sound/look right.

Review your source and encoder settings, we are not applying any kind of processing that will interfere with the source content. Basic video engineering processes should be followed by the onsite production crew. It’s impossible to provide remote technical assistance for your streaming setups, but a common reason is the internet connection. Try lowering resolution/frame-rate/bitrate to see if the stream will stabilise. Keep in mind a speed test is only one metric of connection health.

What is the “key” for the stream?

The key is appended to the end of your stream URL: ie xxxxxxxxxx/stream24.

Many encoders require that you split this URL out so the slug on the end (eg “stream24”) is the “key”. Note that the preceding / will no longer be required in the address, making it:
Address: xxxxxxxxxxx
Key: stream24

The stream won’t initialise

This is likely to be because you are attempting to stream outside of the agreed time and therefore we haven't activated your channel, or your stream credentials have been incorrectly entered.