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 Video Streaming, 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

To ensure optimal streaming performance, we recommend configuring the stream parameters you will send to our server. You can adjust these settings in the Output, Audio, and Video tabs within OBS.

Output parameters

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

2. Set the parameters as follows:

• Video Bitrate: The resolution of your stream determines the required bitrate: The higher the resolution, the higher the bitrate. To stream at 720p resolution, set the bitrate to 2000Kbps. If you’re broadcasting at 1080p, set the bitrate to 4000Kbps.
• Audio Bitrate: 128.
• Encoder: Software (x264), or any other H264 codec.

3. Click Advanced mode.

4. Set the parameters as follows:

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

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 44.1 kHz (default) or 48 kHz. Select Stereo for the best sound quality.

3. Click Apply.

Video parameters

If you need to reduce the original resolution (downscale), follow the instructions in this section. If no resolution change is required, you can skip this step.

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. You can see the stream's output parameters here. If you need to increase the FPS to 60, make sure to also increase the bitrate accordingly for optimal stream quality.