In this article, you will learn how to set up a live clip. A live clip is the Blue Billywig media object that represents your livestream: it holds the stream configuration, settings, and metadata. This article covers creating a live clip, setting up a stream (hosted by Blue Billywig or a third party), publishing the live clip, and using additional features: pausing and recording a live stream.
1.0 | Create a live clip
In the Media Library:
- In Media clips, click the “arrow” button next to “Upload”
- Click “Create livestream”
1.1 | Livestream options
- Blue Billywig live stream
Set up a Blue Billywig live stream if you want Blue Billywig to handle the reception, processing and distribution of the live stream. - Third party stream
Set up a Third party stream if your stream is already hosted by a third party and merely needs to be rendered in the Blue Billywig Player.
2.0 | Set up a Blue Billywig live stream
Set up a Blue Billywig live stream if you want Blue Billywig to handle the reception, processing and distribution of the live stream.
A third-party application is needed to make a connection between the video/audio source and the Blue Billywig live platform. If you currently don’t have a source application, we recommend using OBS Studio (free).
2.1 | Configure stream type
- Title
Enter a title for the live clip. - Stream name
Stream names must be unique and may contain alphanumeric characters, dashes and underscores. The maximum allowed length is 24 characters. - Stream type: Video or Audio
Select “video” when streaming video and audio. Select “audio” when streaming only audio. - Ingest type: RTMP or WebDAV (video streams); Icecast (audio streams)
For video streams, select RTMP or WebDAV; select RTMP if you are unfamiliar with the terms. Audio streams use Icecast.
Click “Create Live stream” to automatically open the “Streams” tab in the newly created livestream clip. The “Streams” tab displays both the Stream details as well as the Ingest details:
To go live, enter the Ingest URL and Stream key from the Ingest details (see section 2.3) into your source application, then start broadcasting from there. The stream details below let you control and configure the stream before or while it is active.
2.2 | Stream details
- Paused
Pause a livestream that is currently ingesting. To resume your livestream, simply disable the Paused checkbox.
It’s not possible to pause a live stream when the content is recorded.
- Recording
Record your livestream to make the content of your stream available as an on-demand item in the media library. The live stream will be recorded as it’s ingesting content. After ingesting has stopped, the recording will appear in the Media Library as an on-demand item. Metadata applied to the live clip will be copied to the on-demand recording. - DVR
The Blue Billywig live platform supports DVR, allowing viewers to seek back to content that has been streamed as the livestream is being broadcast. This feature is useful for viewers who might have missed a specific part of the live stream or want to rewatch certain parts. Viewers are able to rewind up to 3 hours.
DVR is currently not supported in players initiated by our Native SDK.
The Recording and DVR options are not available when using Icecast as the ingest type.
2.3 | Ingest details: Connect to source application
The Ingest URL and Stream key are generated automatically when you create the live clip. They act as credentials that authenticate your source application to the Blue Billywig live stream server. Both must be entered in your source application to start ingesting:
- Ingest URL: the address of the live stream server your source application connects to.
- Stream key: a unique key that identifies and authorises your stream on that server.
Both values are displayed in the Streams tab of your live clip:
Although it’s possible to pause a live stream in the Blue Billywig OVP (Online Video Platform), it’s recommended to use the source application to start or stop a livestream.
3.0 | Set up a Third Party live stream
Set up a Third party stream if your stream is already hosted by a third party and merely needs to be rendered in the Blue Billywig Player.
3.1 | Configure Third Party Stream
- Title (required)
Enter a clip title. - Source URL (required)
The source URL to be ingested by the player. - Stream type:
Select Video or Audio. - Type, Bandwidth (kbps), Width (px) and Height (px) (optional)
Provide additional optional information about the type, bandwidth, width and height. Width and Height are only shown for video streams. You can edit or add these properties later. - Click “Create Live stream”.
DVR for streams hosted and maintained by a third party service is not presented as a configurable option, but is supported when the source URL allows DVR.
4.0 | Publish and embed your live stream
Before embedding a live clip on your website, make sure to:
- Publish the live clip. The clip must have a status of “Published” for the embedded player to be publicly accessible (learn more about publishing a media clip).
- Enter relevant metadata, such as a title, description and deep link. These fields can be found under the tab “Metadata” of the live clip (learn more about adding metadata).
- Upload a thumbnail for the live clip (learn more about thumbnails).
Read more about embedding a media clip.