HowTo: Third-Party Stream Ingest

You want your live content to be streamed over the C3VOC infrastructure during CCCongress or another large event? Here's how.

(Recordings have to be dealt with separately)

To make sure your stream works on day 1 of the event we need to know of it beforehand so we can:

1. configure your ingest endpoint
2. provide appropriate transcoding-capacity
3. adapt the streaming website

When we have provided you with an ingest endpoint name to use you need to configure your encoder for one of the formats below.

SRT is our preferred method of ingest, because it performs well even over flaky networks. Please note however that SRT won't prevent you from saturating your uplink, so choose a streaming bitrate appropriate for your ISPs bandwidth.

• Transport: SRT
• Container: MPEG-TS
• Video-Streams:
  • H.264**, 1920×1080, 25 fps
  • For detailed recommendations see “Recommended encoder settings” at the bottom of the page
• Audio-Streams:
  • (atleast 1, up to 3)
  • AAC LC, Stereo, 48KHz, 192kbit/s

• Hosts:
  • ingest.c3voc.de
  • ingest2.c3voc.de
• Publish:
  • srt://{host}:1337?streamid=publish/{your_endpoint}/{auth_key}
• Play:
  • srt://{host}:1337?streamid=play/{your_endpoint}/{auth_key}

Same settings as with RTMP, but use the following in Settings → Stream:

• Service: Custom…
• Server: srt://{host}:1337?streamid=publish/{your_endpoint}/{auth_key}

Audio: Use this OBS Fork (compiled version) to be able to stream multiple audio Streams (for translations).

ffmpeg -y -re -nostdin -hide_banner \
	-thread_queue_size 512 -i … \
	-c:v libx264 -preset:v veryfast -profile:v main -pix_fmt yuv420p -flags +cgop \
	-threads:v 0 -aspect 16:9 \
	\
	-r:v:0 25 -g:v:0 75 -crf:v:0 23 -maxrate:v:0 4M -bufsize:v:0 12M \
	-map 0:v:0 \
	\
	-c:a aac -b:a 192k -ar:a 48000 -ac:a 2 \
	-map 0:a:0 \
	\
        -f mpegts \
        srt://ingest.c3voc.de:1337?streamid=publish/{your_endpoint}/{auth_key}

You can play back your stream at the same endpoint you pushed to, e.g.:

mpv srt://ingest.c3voc.de:1337?streamid=play/{your_endpoint}

The transcoded stream should be available via

mpv http://cdn.c3voc.de/hls/yourname/native_hd.m3u8

RTMP is the most widely used format for origin streams and is supported by many hardware/software-encoders. It is however limited to H264 video and Stereo MP3/AAC audio.

• Transport: RTMP
• Container: FLV
• Video-Streams:
  • H.264**, 1920×1080, 25 fps
  • For detailed recommendations see “Recommended encoder settings” at the bottom of the page
• Audio-Streams:
  • AAC LC, Stereo, 48KHz, 192kbit/s

• Hosts:
  • ingest.c3voc.de
  • ingest2.c3voc.de
• Publish/Play:
  • rtmp://{host}/stream/{your_endpoint}?auth={key}
  • Note: Play is currently always possible without auth

ffmpeg -y -re -nostdin -hide_banner \
	-thread_queue_size 512 -i … \
	-c:v libx264 -preset:v veryfast -profile:v main -pix_fmt yuv420p -flags +cgop \
	-threads:v 0 -aspect 16:9 \
	\
	-r:v:0 25 -g:v:0 75 -crf:v:0 23 -maxrate:v:0 4M -bufsize:v:0 12M \
	-map 0:v:0 \
	\
	-c:a aac -b:a 192k -ar 48000 -ac 2 \
	-map 0:a:0 \
	\
	-f flv \
	rtmp://ingest.c3voc.de:1935/stream/{your_endpoint}?auth={key}

• Settings
  • Stream
    • Service: Custom
    • Server: rtmp://ingest.c3voc.de/stream/
    • Stream Key: {your_endpoint}?auth={key}
  • Output
    • Output Mode: Advanced
    • Streaming
      • Encoder: Your choice (x264, vaapi, nvenc)
      • Encoder Settings:
        • Rate-Control: VBR (if selectable)
        • Bitrate: 4000 Kbps
        • Keyframe Interval: 1 seconds
  • Video
    • Base (Canvas) Resolution: 1920×1080
    • Output (Scaled) Resolution: 1920×1080
    • Integer FPS Value: 25

You can play back your stream at the same endpoint you pushed to, e.g.:

mpv rtmp://ingest.c3voc.de/stream/{your_endpoint}

If you have agreed with us on directly uploading muxed stream to our CDN-master we will provide you with HTTP-credentials and a base-URL to upload to. You will have to provide the following formats:

• A HLS master playlist at http://baseurl/hls/native_hd.m3u8
  • Segments must be in MPEG-TS format with .ts file ending
  • Segments must be inside http://baseurl/hls/
• A MPEG-DASH manifest at http://baseurl/dash/manifest.mpd
  • Segments must be in WebM format with .webm file endings
  • Segments must be inside http://baseurl/dash/
• A 1920×1080 (or full-res) JPEG poster image at http://baseurl/thumbnail/poster.jpeg
  • Poster images should ideally not exceed 150k in size
  • The poster image will be shown in the stopped player
• A 213×120 JPEG thumbnail at http://baseurl/thumbnail/thumb.jpeg
  • The thumbnail will be shown in the stream list

The upload path supports GET/PUT/DELETE aswell as directory listing. The baseurl is currently assembled as follows:

host/upload/yourname/

Per default we transcode uploaded streams into an SD and a HD stream (+ potentially a slide only stream).

They are served over different protocols as documented here: stream-urls

• H.264:
  • GOP-Size (Keyframe Interval): 3s
  • Encoding-Mode: VBR (Variable Bitrate)
  • Max-Bitrate 6Mbit/s (more is possible if your uplink allows it, but please stay below 20Mbit/s. If you want to push even more please ask.)