The Technical Setup for Live Streaming

In the past, the ability to send a video file over the internet in real-time seemed impossible. However, live streaming technology has made leaps and bounds over the past decade. Today, broadcasters can capture a video and have it appear on their viewers’ screens in seconds.

Streaming uses a series of protocols, projects, and live streaming equipment to transmit high-quality videos to viewers. Still not sure what that means. No worries! Let’s dive into what the most common technical  setup for live streaming is:

1. First, you use a video camera or webcam to capture video. 
2. Second, the video is sent to an encoder. This encoder may be located inside of a hardware encoder or through a software encoder. 
3. The encoder takes the RAW files from your camera and converts them into smaller files that can be streamed online. 
4. The encoder ingests the now streamable video into an online video platform via RTMP.
5. The online video platform uses a content delivery network (CDN) to deliver the video to viewers via an HTML5 video player via HLS.

These terms may be confusing at first glance, which is understandable since this process is highly technical. Let’s take some time to explore what exactly HTML5 video players, encoding, transcoding,CDNs, and the various protocols are and why they are important in the live streaming process.

To fully understand what live streaming means, you need to understand the technical setup and technology required to live stream.

We will explain them in more details click !