Quick start for an RTMP live stream in Wowza Video

Within a matter of minutes, you can set up and play your first stream on a customizable webpage hosted by Wowza Video™.

Wowza Video lets you easily stream live video to any device, scaling automatically to accommodate audiences of any size, anywhere. Wowza Video accepts video from nearly any encoder or IP camera, transcodes that video in the cloud, and delivers a high-quality stream in multiple bitrates that can be watched in a customizable player on virtually any device.

This tutorial walks you through using Wowza Video to deliver a stream from a video source to a player on a hosted page. You'll use a camera to capture a video stream that's pushed to the Wowza Video service for processing, and then the highest quality stream for each viewer's bandwidth is delivered to the player. Wowza Video handles the entire streaming and viewing experience.

Before you start

You should have access to the following items:

• A Wowza Video account or a free trial account.
• A video source (camera or encoder). This tutorial uses OBS Studio as an encoder to send an RTMP stream to Wowza Video. For more information about OBS Studio and to download the application, visit the OBS website.

1. Sign in to Wowza Video

You can sign in to Wowza Video using any modern web browser that supports HTML5 and Cascading Style Sheets level 3 (CSS 3). The Wowza Video user interface has been most extensively tested on Google Chrome, however, so for best results we recommend that you use the latest version of Google Chrome.

1. Access Wowza Video by navigating to app.wowza.com.
2. Sign in using your Wowza credentials and accept the Terms of Use if prompted.

2. Set up your stream

The quickest way to your first broadcast is with our Go live now option. We'll create a stream and viewing experience capable of reaching your global audience. All you have to do is connect your camera and share a viewing URL with your audience! 

1. In Wowza Video, navigate to the Live streams page and click Add new.
2. From the Type list, select Go live now.
3. Enter a title for your stream.
   You'll want it to describe the purpose of your streaming event, so it's easy to differentiate in your list of live streams. 
4. From Stream input type, select RTMP.
5. Leave the Stream profile field as the default of 1080p (HD).
   
   Selecting the input resolution matters when you stream high-definition video and want the highest resolution available in the adaptive bitrate (ABR) ladder Wowza Video creates. 
6. (Optional) Select Record this stream if you want a recording of your live event. Wowza Video will save an MP4 and video-on-demand asset in the Videos section for future use.

   Note: Recordings created from the live stream or transcoder workflow capture up to eight hours of content. If a live stream or transcoder runs for longer than eight hours, the most recent eight hours are recorded. To record more than eight hours of a single broadcast, stop the live stream or transcoder and start it again to create multiple recordings.

7. Keep the Autostart and Autostop fields enabled since they're enabled by default. This will cause the live stream to automatically start once the encoder starts and streams to the live stream and cause the live stream to automatically stop at the amount of time you specify for Autostop after the encoder stops streaming to the live stream. 

When you enable autostart, the Push and Pull options in the Go Live Now Setup page don't display anymore and the Region field uses Autoselect.

8. Select Create live stream.

Wowza Video creates the live stream and displays the Live Stream Details page. You'll see a green banner over the Preview Player. The banner indicates that your live stream is set to Autostart, but you can disable it during the live stream creation.  

Tip: After you create the live stream, it shows up in your Live streams list. If you click on the name of the live stream, the live stream details page opens where you can edit the settings you chose when you set up your stream or change any of the settings we defaulted for you.

3. Set up your viewing experience

Wowza Video generates several viewing formats for your stream, giving you flexibility in presentation. You can use one viewing format or combine them for a more robust viewing experience. For this tutorial, we'll use the hosted page, an HTML page that we generate and host for you, to view the stream.

1. After the stream is created, make sure you're on the live stream details page and click Share live stream to display the viewing formats we provide.  
   
2. Select the Hosted page tab.
   
   While you could change the Player configuration so the player is specifically branded for your event, we'll keep the default configuration for this tutorial.
3. Click the Open link button to open a browser tab with the hosted page. On the hosted page, you'll see your live stream title and a player that's embedded in the HTML. The player is already configured to use your live stream as the video source.

More resources:

• See Live stream details page in Wowza Video to learn more about the other viewing options, including ways to embed our player into your own site.
• See Create a player configuration in Wowza Video to learn more about branding your player for your event.

4. Connect your video source to the stream

When you create a live stream, Wowza Video generates some information that you use to send a video source to the live stream for processing. In this example, we're using OBS Studio.

1. In Wowza Video, on the Overview tab for your live stream, locate the Connection section.

   You use the information in this section to configure OBS Studio in the following steps.

2. Open OBS Studio.
3. Click Settings.
4. On the Stream tab, for Service, select Custom.
5. Enter the Primary Server for your live stream in the Server field.
6. Enter the Stream Name for your live stream in the Stream Key field.
7. Select Use authentication and enter the Username and Password for your live stream.
8. Click OK.

Note: For more information about configuring OBS Studio, see the OBS Studio documentation.

5. Start your video source and stream

Once your video source's stream is able to connect to your live stream in Wowza Video, your live stream will autostart.

1. Start your video source stream from your encoder. Wowza Video opens the stream and connects with the video source, then starts the live stream.
2. In Wowza Video, confirm that the live stream is playing by looking at the video preview on the Live Stream Details page.

6. Test your stream playback

On the browser window you opened in step 3 with the hosted page, verify you see the stream playback. 

If you sent the hosted page URL to your viewers, you're seeing their viewing experience. 

7. Stop your video source and stream

1. Stop the stream in OBS studio when you're done streaming in Wowza Video. 
2. The live stream will automatically stop based on the Idle Timeout number you added when you configured the live stream. 

Important: Charges accrue for live streams started in Wowza Video even if they aren't actively streaming content.