NGINX RTMP video streaming server on e-m

[shanemorris]

Wow fantastic, Howard!
Looking forward to this!

[onewayness]

Some more (mostly) successful testing this morning with Tom Bruce & myself.

Would like to try and recruit a small handful of folks to try and do a quick ad-hoc simulation of a multi artist streaming event using this, those with interest and availability please let me know?

[shivasongster]

Compared notes with Adam and did some more testing.

I found my VLC monitor of the stream on my second wireless machine was not getting anything, but Adam and Howard were both able to see/hear my stream.

This makes sense because I am using a lot of bandwidth on my wired connection to broadcast, and there's probably not too much left on my wireless.

I could also verify the stream was good on my broadcast machine in VLC - but of course this is tricky because it can create an audio loop. OK for quick checks, but for performance I wouldn't recommend this.

As long as you are not seeing dropped frames in OBS, your counter is still running (showing stream length) and you are "live" then you are likely fine.

I am attaching my OBS settings video as of right now. These are very close to what I use for Twitch but I set up a separate profile for EM so that it is all set to go.

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[shivasongster]

I've had good luck with the generic x264 encoder and the Apple Software encoder (pictured below).

I have not had much luck on the EM server with the Apple Hardware encoder, even though that is what I typically use for all other platforms. During my initial exposure to all this, the hardware encoder was recommended.

In any case, I seem to have a working method.

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[onewayness]

I'm likewise using the generic x264 encoder on Linux, with stable results.

Hardware encoding does not seem to be an option available to me -- my choices are x264 or ffmpeg.

[mosc]

RTMP is a good protocol but it's obsolete. I'm going to be working on the streamer to make it more compatible by using mpeg/DASH and or HLS.

[onewayness]

Obsolete or not, RTMP is very straightforwardly compatible with OBS, which I think is what most folks are using to stream. I’d be hesitant to abandon it for that reason alone, unless it were for something that works just as easily.

[onewayness]

Only a cursory look, but what I’m reading about both DASH and HLS re: compatibility with OBS involves a lot of fake outs and work arounds and a lot of unhappy reports.

Replacing RTMP, which pretty much works out of the box, in favor of a technology where I have to kludge together a solution that MIGHT work, would not be a welcome change as far as I’m concerned.

[shivasongster]

[mosc]

Time for an update.

The Nginx RTMP video upstream to e-m described in this topic is working very reliably. We have tested it for days on end. It never hiccups. The load on the server is very low.

The only problem has been with people upstreaming at bit rates that are too high for their ISP upload capacity. That would affect any streaming on any service.

The need to run VLC is not necessary to view the upstreams from artists via RTMP. I've made a little web page viewer that at the moment is only streaming one stream from my PC. In the coming days I'll add support to show any stream to e-m via RTMP.

In this demo. I'm using the e-m Radio 1 station for audio and running an ancient visualizer on WINAMP running locally on my PC. I'm using the window capture feature in OBS to grab the audio and video from the WINAMP visualizer and send it up to e-m via the RTMP server. The new video stream viewer web page plays Radio 1 with some visuals. It's a start.

Try it here: http://electro-music.com/video

Other things are looking up. The RTMP server can automatically send the stream to Twitch, FB, YouTube and virtually any other streaming service. There are other ways to do this, like from restream.io, but I think it best to get as many commercial sites and points of failure out of the mix.

We need feedback. I'm already getting word that some people have really slow internet connections and can not view the stream page. I have to configure out how to send to lower bitrates automatically.

Stay tuned. Soon you will be able to stream and have it on an e-m web page. I'm more interested in seeing the community develop than in my own. Alway have been it seems.

Thanks to Phobos, Blue Hell, and Shivasongster. Onwayness provided some valuable testing as well.

[PHOBoS]

[shivasongster]

Thanks Howard. This will help us in a number of ways. Two in particular that I am excited about:

- ability for one person to stream their audio, while someone else captures that audio and then adds *live* visuals. We already have several successful tests.

- ability for an artist to send their video/audio stream to EM RTMP, but then programmatically re-route the audio to EM Radio. That gives the best of both worlds - if you want video, we have you covered. If you only want to listen, we have that too.

There are still a number of ways to approach the logistics of all this in terms of organizing events. Artists still need to do some pre-work on their own, but the EM RTMP server makes that a bit easier.

For the moment CSF is going to use Twitch, with an eye toward using the EM RTMP in future.

[mosc]

[mosc]

[shivasongster]

Yeah, I suspect each event is different depending on artistic intent. Speaking for myself as an artist, I get a lot more enjoyment out of having visuals to share and perform with. This wasn't always the case, but visuals are a key part of my "electro" music now, and I know others feel the same way.

In this particular case, the original in-person Cosmic Crossings-type event was going to be a visual spectacle with the likes of Ken Palmer's interactive graphic magic. So when Nick sought to reinvent Cosmic Stream Fest (CSF) virtually, visuals were still important and something he wanted to pull off. Around the same time, some of us EM'ers were doing some low-key (3-4 artist) events with ElectroZone, and worked out this process with Twitch. It's clunky, but it works.

I wasn't on the original bill for CSF because I was supposed to have a slot in May during one of their regular concerts. Of course, that was also canceled. So my contribution - instead of performing - has been to help get this off the group virtually for Nick. Ken has had limited availability, so he hasn't been able to take advantage of some of our recent advances. When he does (after CSF is long gone) it's going to be a whole new world for us.

I see a few different workflows forming...

- Existing audio only events ("traditional" EM radio)
- Video-only events (based on participant agreement on what they want to do when visuals are important or a major feature of the artistic nature of the material)
- Hybrid events where an audio feed is tapped off for "traditional" EM radio.

In any case, this has been a great opportunity to learn new skills and develop new ideas. What you can do with OBS (and programs like it) is an art form in itself. And it's all electronic, so still within the scope of what we do as a group.

[mosc]

Reading preceding comments by onewayness and shivasongster, the RTMP protocol is not going away. I added HLS so that the streams can be opened in web pages. People using OBS will still connect via RTMP. The server converts to HLS automatically. Sorry for the confusion.