Streaming a conference to YouTube

This guide explains how to stream a conference being held in a Pexip Virtual Meeting Room or Virtual Auditorium to YouTube.

For general information on streaming from Pexip Infinity, see Streaming and recording a conference.

YouTube prerequisites

Before you can obtain an RTMP streaming URL from YouTube, you must ensure that you have a verified YouTube account, and that the account is enabled for live events.

  1. From your YouTube account settings page, select Channel status and features (www.youtube.com/features).
  2. If your Account status is not verified, select Verify and follow the YouTube instructions.
  3. Ensure that your account is enabled for Live streaming.

Note that enabling your first live stream may take up to 24 hours.

Setting up streaming

To stream a conference to YouTube, you must first obtain a live streaming URL via YouTube. You then initiate a call from the VMR to YouTube, by adding the YouTube URL as a conference participant. There are two ways in which you can obtain an RTMP streaming URL from YouTube:

Note that the live stream will have a 20-30 second delay. This is because YouTube buffers the stream so that it can tolerate brief connection losses and to ensure a good consistent experience. This is standard streaming behavior.

The appropriate procedures for obtaining your streaming URL, starting streaming, and streaming at Full HD (1080p) are described below.

Using Pexip's own utility to obtain a YouTube streaming URL

This procedure explains how to use Pexip's own utility to request a URL for a YouTube RTMP stream on your behalf.

  1. Go to https://yt.pexip.com.
  2. Enter a Video Name — this is the name that will appear in YouTube.
  3. Select a Privacy level:

    • Unlisted: viewers must know the streaming URL to see the stream.
    • Public: anybody can find the stream on YouTube. This is not recommended unless you are streaming very public content.
    • Private: restricts access to only people that you have explicitly allowed to view the stream.

    Default: Unlisted.

  4. Select Get url.

  5. If you are not already signed in to a Google Account, you must either sign in or select an account.
  6. At the prompt, Allow pexip.com to access your Google account:

  7. The streaming URL will be generated and displayed.

    If you receive a "The user is not enabled for live streaming" error message, this means that you either do not have a verified YouTube account, or that the account is not enabled for live events.

  8. Copy the rtmp:// address. Note that the Copy button does not always work; you must select the address and copy it manually. Leave this browser window open.
  9. You can now go to Adding the participant URL and enabling streaming, which includes instructions for modifying the supplied rtmp URL to support media encryption.

Manually generating your own streaming URL within YouTube Studio

This procedure explains how to use YouTube to generate a streaming URL.

Note that the YouTube Privacy setting is Public by default, so we recommend that you change this to Unlisted.

  1. In your YouTube account go to your Studio channel dashboard https://studio.youtube.com/channel/.
  2. Select Go live.
  3. Select Schedule Stream (at the top right of the page).
  4. If this is your first event, select Create New, or, if appropriate, you can use the settings from a previous event.
  5. Enter the event Details:

    Title The title of the video.
    Description An optional description of the event.
    Broadcast type Select Streaming software.
    Category, Thumbnail, Playlists, Audience Select the options as appropriate for your event.
  6. Select Next.
  7. Select the Customisation options as appropriate for your event, and select Next.
  8. Enter the Visibility settings:

    Privacy We recommend Unlisted, which means that viewers must know the streaming URL to see the stream.
    Schedule Leave the default values (the current date/time) if you are going live "now" or amend them as appropriate.
  9. Select Done.
  10. YouTube generates the stream and takes you to a page showing the stream settings and displaying a stream preview window (which is waiting for your connection from the conference).
  11. You can now go to Adding the participant URL and enabling streaming.

Adding the participant URL and enabling streaming

Now that you have set up your stream, you can initiate a call from the Virtual Meeting Room to YouTube, and then begin streaming.

Creating the participant URL

Regardless of whether you used Pexip's utility or manually generated your own streaming URL, you may need to do some manipulation to it before you add it as a participant URL to your conference:

  • Pexip utility: you should have copied an address in the style rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2/dau4-k4z1-5cf3-gg89-0c6x from the utility webpage.
  • Manual generation: from within the YouTube studio stream settings, use the Copy buttons to produce the participant URL for your video stream as Stream URL/Stream Key:

    1. Take the Stream URL, for example rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2
    2. Append a / (slash).
    3. Append the Stream key, for example dau4-k4z1-5cf3-gg89-0c6x
    4. In this example, the final RTMP URL is rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2/dau4-k4z1-5cf3-gg89-0c6x

Modifying the rtmp URL for media encryption

If your VMR does not require media encryption then you can use the participant URL without any further modification (although you may still want to change it to a secure connection, as described below).

If your VMR requires encryption then you need to modify the participant URL:

  • Change the 2 "rtmp" references to "rtmps" and append ":443" to youtube.com.
  • In our example URL this would become rtmps://a.rtmps.youtube.com:443/live2/dau4-k4z1-5cf3-gg89-0c6x

You can now start streaming.

Start streaming

  1. Initiate a call from the Virtual Meeting Room to the streaming address. This is done by adding the participant URL you have generated as a conference participant. You can do this either from the Pexip Infinity Administrator interface or from a Connect app connected to the VMR.

    When using the Administrator interface, use the following settings:

    • Participant alias: the YouTube participant URL.
    • Protocol: RTMP
    • Role: we recommend selecting Guest (so that the streaming participant is not shown to other Guests in a Virtual Auditorium layout, and so that it does not keep a conference alive when all other Hosts have left).
    • Streaming: select this option.

    When using a Connect app, use the following settings:

    • Participant details: enter your YouTube participant URL e.g. rtmps://a.rtmps.youtube.com:443/live2/dau4-k4z1-5cf3-gg89-0c6x

      RTMP authentication is supported; in this case credentials are included in the URI using the syntax rtmps://username:password@host/....

      Note that a suitable Call Routing Rule is required when dialing out to a streaming service via Connect apps.

    • Role: we recommend selecting Guest.

    When Pexip Infinity has placed the call to the streaming service, the Streaming enabled icon is displayed, and for Connect app users the streaming participant appears in the participant list.

  2. Go to YouTube Studio (if you used Pexip's URL generator you can select the green link below the rtmp:// address that you copied) and wait for the stream to appear (this can take up to 1 minute) in the Preview window.

    Note that this is your preview only — at this stage the stream is not being broadcast. The stream has a 20-30 second delay.

  3. When you are ready, select Go Live to start broadcasting.
  4. You are now streaming to anyone who is allowed to access or find your streams (according to your Privacy settings).
  5. When you have finished streaming you can select End Stream in YouTube Studio, and disconnect the RTMP participant from the conference.

Streaming at Full HD (1080p)

If you want to stream at Full HD (1080p) resolution you must:

  1. Ensure that the VMR you want to stream is configured with a Maximum call rate of Full HD (or uses a global default of Full HD).
  2. Configure the outbound bandwidth on the VMR you want to stream to be 4096 kbps (Maximum outbound call bandwidth in the Advanced options of the VMR settings).
  3. Ensure that the stream is capable of receiving 1080p. Within YouTube you must manually configure a suitable Stream key (in the stream settings) with a resolution of 1080p (with a bit rate of 3000 Kbps - 6000 Kbps).