Push live streams via OBS

What is an OBS?

Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) is a free and open-source encoder for video recording, screencasting, and live streaming. It’s suitable for video game streaming, blogging, educational content, and more.

OBS links your device (a laptop or a PC) and different streaming platforms (Gcore Streaming Platform, YouTube, Twitch, etc.). It takes an image captured by a camera, converts it into a video stream, and then sends it to the streaming platform.

Configure the OBS encoder for Gcore Streaming

1. Download Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) from the official website and install it.

2. Open the Settings section and go to the Stream tab. Complete the remaining steps in it.

3. Select Custom from the dropdown list.

4. Enter the Server URL into the Server field and the unique key into the Stream Key field. To get the Server URL and key, go to the Streaming list, open the Live stream settings you need, and copy the relevant value from the URLs for the encoder section.

For example, if you see these values on the Live stream settings page:

paste them to the OBS Settings as follows:

• rtmp://vp-push-ix1.gvideo.co/in/ is the Server;
• 400448?cdf2a7ccf990e464c2b… is the Stream Key.

5. Click the Apply button to save the new configuration.

6. Go to the main OBS menu, select the source of the stream (video capture device, display capture, etc.), and click Start Streaming.

7. Once the streaming has started, go to the Streaming list, open the Live Stream settings, and copy the link to embed the broadcast to your website.

That’s it. The stream from OBS will be broadcast to your website.

Manage the stream parameters

It’s recommended to configure the stream parameters you’ll send to our server. You can do this in the Output, Audio, and Video OBS tabs.

Output parameters

1. Open OBS Settings and go to the Output tab. Select ‘Simple’ mode.

2. Set the parameters:

• Video Bitrate: The higher the resolution is, the higher the bitrate should be set. If you’re going to stream at 720p resolution, set it at 2000—2500 Kbps. If you’re broadcasting at 1080p, set it to 6000 Kbps
• Audio Bitrate: 128
• Encoder: Software (x264)

3. Select ‘Advanced’ mode.

4. Set the parameters:

• Rate control: CRF (the default value is 23)
• Keyframe Interval (0=auto): 2 s
• CPU Usage Preset: veryfast
• Profile: high

5. Click Apply to save the configuration.

Audio parameters

1. Open OBS Settings and go to the Audio tab.

2. Set the Sample Rate to 48 kHz and Stereo.

3. Click Apply.

Video parameters

1. Open OBS Settings and go to the Video tab.

2. Set the following parameters:

• Output (Scaled) Resolution: 1280×720
• Downscale Filter: Bicubic
• Common FPS Values: 30

3. Click Apply.

Hints. If you want to use 1920×1080 resolution, it’s better to set the Video Bitrate parameter at 4000 Kbps (instead of 2000 Kbps) in the Output tab. If you need to increase FPS to 60, set the Video Bitrate to 8000 Kbps.

For Base (Canvas) Resolution, 1920×1080 stream will be transcoded in 3 qualities: 720p, 480p, and 240p.