How to use OBS for Low Latency Live Encoding to nanoStream Cloud

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OBS, or Open Broadcaster Software, is a free open-source live encoder software for Windows, MacOS and Linux platforms.

For interactive live streaming use cases, you can easily connect OBS to nanoStream Cloud. This combination will ensure your streams are delivered with sub-second latency on all browsers worldwide.

nanoStream Cloud is an ultra-low latency live streaming platform for applications where every second counts. Powered by a global CDN, a browser-based player and driven by rich data insights, nanoStream Cloud is for businesses who want to enable interactivity and boost audience engagement.

To learn more about live video streaming with your own RTMP encoder to nanoStream Cloud, check our developer documentation.

You can also check out our video tutorials here.

(Update 2021: nanocosmos is proudly sponsoring the OBS project to be a reliable software for live streaming. Also nanoStream Cloud is now available as a streaming destination for better automatic setup in OBS!).

How to setup the live stream broadcast to nanoStream Cloud with OBS

Automatic Configuration

(New 2021: nanoStream Cloud available as stream configuration in OBS)

  • Open OBS
  • Output Stream Configuration: Select “Settings, Stream, Service”
    • Select “Other… / nanoStream Cloud”
    • Enter the Stream Key (from nanoStream Cloud / bintu stream name, e.g ABCDE-XYZ12

nanoStream Cloud

Manual Configuration

  • Manual Configuration
  • Stream output: “Settings/Stream/Service/Custom Streaming Server”
    • As “server” enter the RTMP Ingest URL to the URL from nanoStream Cloud / bintu
    • As “stream key” enter the stream name from nanoStream Cloud / bintu, e.g ABCDE-XYZ12
OBS

Video Configuration for Low Latency

  • Select “Output”
    • Select Output Mode: Advanced
    • Select Encoder: x264
    • Select Rate Control: CBR (Background: “Constant Bitrate” is better for low latency live streaming)
    • Select Bitrate: between 500 kBits/s – 800 kbits/s – 2000 – 4000 kBits/s or more
      (See the quality recommendations below)
    • Select Tune: ZeroLatency
    • Optional: CPU Usage: veryfast (the faster, the fewer CPU resources but lower quality)
    • Optional: Profile: Baseline and B-Pyramid=0 (see below)
      Background: Baseline is a H264-standard based profile optimized for lower complexity and latency. It may have a slight impact on quality compared to latency (latency impact max. 100 ms). Other profiles like “Main” and “High” work well with nanoStream Cloud.
      (b-pyramid is optional now – it may improve compatibility with some playback options like older Chrome browsers)

obs advanced

Live Stream Quality

nanoStream supports highest video quality for delivery and distribution to all browsers. However, there are physical limits by your network connection and encoder performance. Generally, there are no limits for frame size and resolution. If your hardware and network supports it, you can go up to Full HD or 4K resolutions for live streaming. To deliver to all networks and devices, you may need to add Adaptive Bitrate Live Transcoding options to your streaming setup.

Video quality is primarily decided by

  • video resolution and bitrate of the encoder configuration

  • CPU and system performance of your camera and PC / Laptop

  • Network capacity

    • All factors have an impact on quality. If you try to turn bitrate and resolution very high, but your system and the whole network does not support it, you will get bad results.

    Recommendation

    Start with the lowest acceptable quality, like medium resolution and bitrate, like 640×480 1000 kBits/s or 1280×720 2000 kBits/s.

    Test the whole setup end-to-end, including playback on several devices

    You find more information on our documentation pages.