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Live Stream Rooms

A Live Stream Room is a room for one-to-many broadcasts. A presenter goes live from the broadcast manager, a page that runs in the browser, and viewers watch in a player that Metered hosts for the room. You can link to the player or embed it in your own site.

You manage Live Stream Rooms in the dashboard under Video API & SDK → Live Streaming.

Not the same as live streaming a meeting

Live streaming a meeting is a setting on an ordinary video-call room that gives you an HLS URL for its meetings. Live Stream Rooms are separate broadcast rooms with their own page, broadcast manager and hosted player.

Turn on live streaming​

Live Stream Rooms need the Real-Time Live Streaming add-on. Open Video API & SDK → Live Streaming and the workspace owner can start a free 5-day trial, with no credit card needed. Once the trial has been used, the page offers the paid plan instead. See the pricing page for current prices.

When a trial ends, your rooms stop working until you purchase the plan.

Create a room​

  1. On the Live Streaming page, click Create live-stream room.
  2. Choose the options you need. Every field is optional:
    • Room name: leave it blank to get a generated name. Names can use letters, numbers, hyphens and underscores, up to 63 characters, and must start and end with a letter or number.
    • Display message: what viewers see while you're not live.
    • Custom CSS: restyles the viewer player.
    • Record individual streams or Record composition: recordings appear under Video API & SDK → Cloud Recordings.
    • HLS live streaming: also publishes the broadcast as an HLS stream.
    • Push to external RTMP destination: forwards the broadcast to a service such as YouTube, Twitch or Facebook. Enter the full ingest URL, including the stream key, in RTMP out URL.
  3. Click Create room.

HLS live streaming, RTMP push and composition recording all turn on composition. Composition and RTMP out are billed by the minute, separately from live streaming.

Go live​

  1. Open the room and click Launch broadcast manager. It opens in a new tab.
  2. Add a source: your camera and microphone, your screen, or a video file.
  3. Click Start Stream on the source to go live. To switch what viewers see, click Start Stream on another source.
  4. When you're done, click STOP BROADCAST. Viewers see the display message again.
Closing the tab doesn't stop the broadcast

Always end the broadcast with STOP BROADCAST, or with Stop broadcast on the room's page in the dashboard.

To let someone else present, click Invite Presenter and send them the link. They don't need a dashboard login, and their stream replaces yours when they start. Share the link only with your presenters: anyone who has it can broadcast in the room, and stop the broadcast. The room's page also shows a Broadcast token with the same power, so keep that secret too.

Share with viewers​

The room's page has everything viewers need:

  • Viewer URL: https://<app-name>.metered.live/<room-id>/player. The player starts muted, so viewers click the mute button to turn on sound.

  • Embed code: Copy snippet gives you an iframe for your site:

    <iframe
      src="https://<app-name>.metered.live/<room-id>/player"
      width="100%"
      height="600"
      allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture"
      style="border: 0"
    ></iframe>

  • HLS URL, when HLS live streaming is on: https://live.metered.ca/hls/<stream-id>.m3u8. Play it in any HLS player; see Playing the live stream.

Manage rooms​

  • Edit a room to change its options. Changes apply from the next broadcast.
  • Delete archives a room. Archiving blocks new broadcasts and viewers but keeps past sessions and recordings, and it can't be undone. Stop a live broadcast before archiving the room.
  • Archiving a room, or stopping a broadcast from the room's page, needs a workspace owner or admin. Only the owner can start the trial or purchase the plan.

REST API​

You can also create and read Live Stream Rooms with the REST API, using your secret key. Creating a room through the API also needs the add-on.

Archiving a room and stopping a broadcast are done in the dashboard.