Does anyone LiveStream their camera on youtube?
- Thread starter area651
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78suited
Young grasshopper
@area651 is your livestream working fine at the moment? I am using Synology's Live Broadcast too, and I think I have the right settings now for YouTube. My stream is live for more than 24 hours now, and I keep my fingers crossed it will stay on 24/7.
I am pretty sure it is a combination of camera settings (mainly FPS, bit rate type, bit rate and I frame interval) and the way YouTube receives those settings while using Live Broadcast with your Synology NAS.
The cam I use for livestreaming the nest box is a Dahua DH-SD1A203T-GN by the way.
I am pretty sure it is a combination of camera settings (mainly FPS, bit rate type, bit rate and I frame interval) and the way YouTube receives those settings while using Live Broadcast with your Synology NAS.
The cam I use for livestreaming the nest box is a Dahua DH-SD1A203T-GN by the way.
78suited
Young grasshopper
Not an exact duration, it varied every time but mostly after a couple of hours. I never succeeded for more than 10 hours until now. At first I thought it had something to do with my ISP, but that wasn't the case.
I have many livestreams running for myself and for customers. Several have been running continuously for over a year with no intervention by me. The only way I have found to do this is to monitor the stream and streaming server constantly by using Linux for the server, FFmpeg for the encoding and python scripting to monitor the stream every few seconds. I check the outgoing bps, ping the camera IP address, ping a known good internet address, monitor the power, CPU temperature and housing temperature continuously . Depending on what goes wrong the system will automatically restart FFmpeg, reboot the router or cycle power to the camera. If it can't correct itself quickly then a "We'll be right back" image is streamed to YouTube Live to preserve the live stream so it won't be dropped by YouTube. Then, the system keeps trying to fix itself. If it can't and there is still an internet connection, the python script sends me a text message. In almost all of the live streams this is all done with a cheap raspberry pi 3. My current project is the figure out the YouTube API. I'm hoping this will give me a better way to monitor and control the stream after it leaves the server.
Mike A.
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I can understand why you need/want to do all of that in your case given where yours tend to be. In my case I was just trying to stream one of the cams that I have running at my home and most of the monitoring/recovery is kind of built into that. i.e., I have a cam that I'm streaming to BI otherwise and could see that it's running fine there, I know that my Internet is good and have plenty of upload capacity, etc. I could see that everything seemed to be running fine. But my stream still would be dropped after a while.
I think I looked on the YouTube side but didn't see any settings beyond just that required to make the connection. Are there particular settings that you use for the stream itself that work better/worse?
I think I looked on the YouTube side but didn't see any settings beyond just that required to make the connection. Are there particular settings that you use for the stream itself that work better/worse?
YouTube pretty much spells out what it wants to see from the remote RTMP encoder. Choose live encoder settings, bitrates, and resolutions - YouTube Help I set the camera parameters and write the FFmpeg script around their recommendations. And then watch the "STREAM HEALTH" in YouTube studio. It will tell you if there is something it doesn't like.
I guess my point was, all that is needed to have a reliable YouTube Live Stream is a cheap Raspberry Pi, some free software that is included with the Raspberry Pi OS and a single line script. No need for an NVR, BI or any other peripherals.
Oleglevsha
Getting the hang of it
the broadcast started more than a year ago
looney2ns
IPCT Contributor
Now if PI's were actually in stock at a reasonable prices.
Yeah, they say it might be a few more months till supplies are available again at a decent price.Now if PI's were actually in stock at a reasonable prices.
78suited
Young grasshopper
True that, but I already use a Synology NAS and with Surveillance Station there's a tool called Live Broadcast for sending your livestream to YouTube, and that works pretty well if you use the right settings. Because of the limitations I will experiment with OBS Studio in the near future. With OBS I can use nice widgets and lower thirds for example.
OK, got the bluebird box live streaming on YouTube about 90 minutes ago @ 1415 hr CT; the birds began bringing in some straw this morning so just in time, I reckon.
I used vMix to stream with a VLC plug-in to stream from BI; used BI so I could have a decent date/time overlay (the cam's overlay is teensy, practically invisible). Besides, I might add the temp overlay later.
vMix is a 60 day trial and if I don't get the audio working OK I may go back to the free OBS....IOW, it's a work in progress.
I used vMix to stream with a VLC plug-in to stream from BI; used BI so I could have a decent date/time overlay (the cam's overlay is teensy, practically invisible). Besides, I might add the temp overlay later.
vMix is a 60 day trial and if I don't get the audio working OK I may go back to the free OBS....IOW, it's a work in progress.
Last edited:
looney2ns
IPCT Contributor
Your birds need to get with it. 
For sure....this couple has been checking the house inside 2-3 times a day, every day for 2 weeks now and finally decided just this morning to make a down payment on it with a few straws, etc.
So @looney2ns has his cam up and running; I wonder about some other guys that jumped on the wagon about then and bought one or more also: @micoinde , @th182 and @IReallyLikePizza2 . 
The cam in question was a Sercomm RC4551 that I found in Nov. of 2020 and discussed here ==>> Very small PoE Cam for bird feeder?
The cam in question was a Sercomm RC4551 that I found in Nov. of 2020 and discussed here ==>> Very small PoE Cam for bird feeder?
IReallyLikePizza2
Known around here
I posted that thread a long time ago, and would you believe its still on my list of things to do 
I ended up putting the Sercomm RC4551 in the garage where its been working well, now I need a second for the bird feeder...
I ended up putting the Sercomm RC4551 in the garage where its been working well, now I need a second for the bird feeder...