PeerTube Streaming Starter Guide

Want to stream on PeerTube? This guide will help you get started.

Requirements

High Spec VPS or FediHost Plan

Streaming requires a powerful VPS in order to handle the demands of live video serving and encoding. You can find these specifications in the PeerTube FAQs.

If you are with a managed host like FediHost check that your plan shows support for "Livestreaming" and upgrade if necessary.

PeerTube Streaming Enabled

Settings > Configuration > Live Streaming

If you are using FediHost these settings will be automatically set correctly for your plan.

• Allow live streaming: Check that is enabled for your instance
• Transcoding enabled for live streams: This does use a lot of resources. It's a good idea to disable it until everything is stable and then gradually introduce transcoded resolutions at lower framerates.

OBS installed

OBS is the free open source industry standard for streamers. Download and install it for your system.

Steps

Create Live Video

Publish > Go Live

On PeerTube you must create a "Container" for you streaming software to send your stream to. Click on "Publish" and select the "Go Live" from the tab.

Channel: Choose the channel you would like your stream to go on.

Privacy: Unlisted privacy to test the stream and easily share the stream with others to test.

Frequency: Permanent/recurring live is the easiest option to get started. This means that your streaming software retains the same settings and automatically creates and then ends a stream each time.

Keep this page open because you will need the settings in the next step.

Setup OBS

OBS is a very powerful piece of software so we can do the most basic setup possible to setup a stream which simply streams an image. Watch the video version at the top of this article for a more complex OBS setup.

Add Stream Settings

Settings > Stream

We now need to let OBS what container to connect to for the stream. Open the stream settings panels and choose "Custom" from the dropdown. You will see two settings boxes to fill.

You will find these on the PeerTube live video you created in the previous step. Choose the "Live settings" on the PeerTube video and copy these values.

Live RTMP Url: If you are using FediHost this value is incorrect and you will need to change the start to rtmps not rtmp. When you copy it to OBS add an "S" after the RTMP.

SSL Issue: FediHost or other services which encrypts traffic between servers and clients will need this change. You'll know that your site has encrypted traffic by clicking on the address bar at the top of your browser window. If the address starts with HTTP then it is not encrypted and you cam use RTMP, if the address starts with HTTPS then it is encrypted and you will probably need to use RTMPS

Live Stream Key: The string key is a long secret key which you should share with no-one as it would let anyone stream to your channel.

Create A Basic Scene

Sources Panel > +

In the sources panel click on the plus and add an image source so that you have something to see to test the stream works. You can add any JPEG or PNG image you like.

If you want to try something more complex afterwards you can add a "Audio Input Capture" and "Video Capture" to add your webcam and microphone.

Start Streaming

Controls Panel > Start Streaming

In OBS click "Start Streaming" and then open the video in PeerTube, usually it will be at the top of your list of videos. If it hasn't started after a minute refresh the page, it can take a moment for the streaming process to begin and depends on a few variables related to OBS, your internet connection and PeerTube.

Issues

Too Many Streams

Livestreaming is extremely heavy so most PeerTube instances can only handle a certain number of streams at once, often it's just one. You will want to check what your plan supports.

Choppy or Unreliable Playback

This often happens when either your internet connection or the PeerTube encoder is overwhelmed by too much data. Check the following:

Canvas Size

Controls Panel > Settings > Video

Check that your canvas size is no larger than 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels high. You can make it even smaller until you achieve a stable stream and then gradually increase the size.

Bitrate

Controls Panel > Settings > Output

Check that the bitrate is not too high. Similar to the canvas size, start with a low bitrate like 2,500kbs and then increase it once stability is achieved.