RTMP Streaming

This article intends to teach you how to select RTMP Streaming as your room video mode, where to find the necessary information to live stream using external software, and how to operate its endpoints.

Choosing RTMP as the room video mode

Once you have created activities for your event's agenda, you need to set up its details and configurations, such as the room video mode.

To set RTMP Streaming as the room video mode, follow the steps below:

  1. First, go to Agenda > Activities > Select an activity on the left-hand side and press Edit in the upper right corner of the screen.
  2. Then, scroll down until you see Room video mode and choose RTMP Streaming from the dropdown bar.
  3. Click on End in the upper right corner of the screen, to save the changes made.
Choosing RTMP stream as room video mode

Live stream using external software

You can choose RTMP streaming as your room video mode to live stream a session using external software such as OBS, Wirecast, vMix, or any other live streaming platform. See below how to set this up:

  1. After you choose RTMP as your room video mode, scroll down to the checkbox that is marked with Live stream using external software.
  2. Click on the blue button titled 'View information' on the right side.
View information button
  1. A pop-up window will open with the STREAM URL and STREAM KEY codes. Simply copy these codes and insert them into the external software of your choice.
STREAM URL and STREAM KEY codes

InEvent provides endpoints as a failsafe. All endpoints do not need to be enabled.

If you are facing buffering issues when using the first two endpoints, you can Enable the Low latency (AWS) as your endpoint.
If you switch the room video mode from RTMP to a different one and then switch it back to RTMP, the streaming will not resume automatically because a new Stream Key will be generated.

RTMP Alternate Tracks

If you have Hive Streaming enabled you will not see the option to add Alternate tracks.

If you need to create multiple RTMP endpoints within a single activity, you can do so by following the steps below:

  1. Now that you have set up your external software, you can add alternative tracks to your activity. To do this, first, click on Edit in the upper right corner.
  2. Then scroll down to RTMP Alternate tracks and in track name, type the name of the track you would like to add and press Add.
  3. Once you have added the track name, click on the blue information button under details. A pop-up window with the STREAM URL and STREAM KEY will open. Copy and paste these codes into your external software.
  4. Click on End in the upper right corner of the screen, to save the changes made.
RTMP Alternate track
This feature is very useful for multi-language event sessions
Inside the activity

Below we can see how the previously set activity will function.

In order to change the track, simply click on the Settings icon below the video and choose the desired track.

Alternate Track on Session

If room recording is enabled, the session will be available on the platform as a Live stream recording under the Recordings tab of the activity to play, set as pre-recorded or download in mp4 format. Click here to learn more about room recordings.

Using closed captions and subtitles for your RTMP streaming

The platform provides two options for you to add captions and subtitles to your Live streams:

  • Automatic closed captions (auto generated)
  • Embedded with CEA-608
Automatic closed captions (auto generated)

The Automatic closed captions provides accurate auto-generated closed captions of your video stream.

To enable the automatic closed caption for your RTMP stream, complete the following steps:

  1. Click on the RTMP activity and click on the Edit button at the top right corner of the page.
  2. Scroll down and tick the Closed captions & Subtitles checkbox.
Make sure to first enable the Speech to text transcription checkbox located directly below Closed captions.
  1. Choose Automatic closed captions (auto-generated) from the Select an option menu dropdown.
  2. Select the desired speech language from the drop-down menu labeled Select the desired speech language.
  3. In the Select a translation field, choose the desired language(s) for translating the speech.
English is selected by default. To remove a language, simply click on the x button beside it.
  1. Scroll down till you see Transcription service offline and click on the green Start button.
  2. Select the Endpoint you are streaming to from the new window that appears and the transcription will start running.
Ensure to have your stream running for a couple of seconds before starting the transcription service. To stop the transcription service, simply click on the red stop button.
  1. Click on End to save your changes.
Automatic closed captions

Once the closed caption and subtitle has been configured on the platform, attendees can enable the captions in the RTMP stream session. To do this, click on the CC icon in the lower right corner of the activity screen, and choose the desired language for speech translation (if more than one language has been added).

In addition to activating captions/subtitles, you can customize the text's appearance in the captions settings. To disable captions, simply click on captions off.

configure the aesthetics of the text in captions settings

Embedded with CEA- 608

To use the Embeded CEA-608 option, you will need to have a closed caption provider. You will input the session's stream key into the closed caption provider and then input the stream keys provided by the closed caption provider into your OBS, vMix or Encoder software to stream your video content with the captions in the Virtual Lobby.

To use this option, ensure that you already have a subscription to a closed captions provider with CEA - 608 support.
CEA-608
CEA-608, also known as Line 21 captions, is a standard for closed captioning used in analog television broadcasting in the United States. It defines a method for displaying captions on television screens. CEA-608 captions are encoded as data within the vertical blanking interval of an analog video signal.

To enable the Embedded with CEA-608 option, complete the following steps:

  1. Click on the RTMP activity and click on the Edit button at the top right corner of the page.
  2. Scroll down and tick the Closed captions & Subtitles checkbox.
  3. Choose Embedded with CEA- 608 from the Select an option menu dropdown.
  4. Select the desired language from the drop-down box - English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portugese, Japanese, Korean and Chinese.
  5. Click on End to save your changes.
Selecting the CEA-608

Session replica

You can simplify the your RTMP streaming management by replicating one activity that has your desired settings. By doing so, you will be able to stream the same video across multiple replicated sessions using a single stream key. The replicated settings include:

  • Room status label
  • Room video mode
  • Hive Streaming
  • Room recording
  • Closed Captions & Subtitles
  • Speech to text transcription
  • Audio interpretation
  • Live stream using external software

To replicate an RTMP session, follow the steps below.

  1. Make sure you have created two activities: the activity you wish to make into a replica and the main session (the activity the settings will be copied from)
  2. Click on the activity you want to make into a replica, press Edit, and click Enable replica.
Click Enable replica.
  1. A window will pop up asking you to select the session you wish to copy the settings from. Once you have selected the activity, press Enable replica.
A pop up asking you to select the session
  1. Once the settings have been replicated, you will see a note explaining that the activity is a replica and the option to Disable replica.
Option to Disable replica
To change the content settings, you will need to edit the main session and the changes will be automatically reflected on the replica too.

Downloading RTMP details in bulk

To easily download and copy your RTMP details, including keys and URLs associated with your activity (such as streamingKey, streamingFailoverKey, streamingLowLatencyKey, and rtmpAlternateTracks), follow these steps:

  1. Go to Agenda > Activities.
  2. Click on Edit.
  3. Press the Report button located at the top left corner of the page, and a spreadsheet will be sent to your email containing reports on your activities.
By clicking on the Download button in the blue notification banner, you will be redirected to the All Reports > Activities page where you can preview or download the report.

Locate your RTMP activity and scroll to the streamingKey, streamingFailoverKey, streamingLowLatencyKey, and rtmpAlternateTracks fields to see the information.

What can each permission level do in RTMP Streaming?

Choosing the level of access your attendees will have on the platform means they will have different permission levels throughout your event.

Here is what each permission level can do in the RTMP Streaming room video mode:

Each permission level do in RTMP
RTMP has better support in terms of the video player and cloud vendor integration. On the other hand, WebRTC offers a faster streaming experience with near real-time latency. Since each technology has its own strengths and limitations, they can be selected interchangeably based on the use case, dev efforts/timeline, and people’s skills.


How Did We Do?