RTMP live stream
What is RTMP live streaming?
The Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) is a TCP-based protocol that enables high-quality and efficient delivery of audio and video data over the Internet. While it was initially a proprietary protocol developed by Macromedia for streaming audio and video, Adobe acquired Macromedia and opened up the protocol for public use.
Since then, RTMP has found widespread use in various live streaming technologies, thanks to its low-latency capabilities and robustness. Many platforms with live content use RTMP to deliver countless live streams to millions of users.
RTMP live streaming is commonly used because it can maintain a stable connection and allows large transfers of data without overwhelming the network. This can be a legitimate concern for high-traffic streaming sites like Twitch and YouTube, which is why RTMP streaming is the go-to choice for many services.
How RTMP live streaming works
While you’re live streaming, your system’s camera and microphone capture your video and audio. This is the data that will ultimately be sent to your viewers on a streaming platform. A software or hardware encoder you use to live stream helps to compress the file size of video and audio data so it can be sent easily. RTMP can’t function properly without an encoder, which is why it’s important to have one for live streaming.
RTMP then divides the data stream into chunks, each of which carries a payload of audio, video, or data. These chunks are interleaved and multiplexed over a single connection. With the ability to adjust the chunk size dynamically, RTMP can handle fluctuating network conditions while maintaining a stable stream of data.
The packets are then sent to a streaming server via RTMP. After being encoded, they’re a small enough size for the server to handle quickly with ease. When the data packets are received, the servers belonging to streaming platforms receive the encoded data and prepare it for viewers. After the packets are decoded, the data is presented to viewers in the form of video and audio on a live stream.
Benefits of RTMP live streaming
RTMP live streaming offers several benefits that make it a popular choice for broadcasters. The most significant advantage is its low-latency feature, which allows for almost real-time communication. In live streaming scenarios, two-way interactions between viewers and streamers are much easier with lower latency connections. This way, creators can respond immediately to questions and comments in the chat as they arise.
Another benefit of RTMP is its support for a variety of content types, including audio, video, and other data. This makes it an ideal medium for various data streaming needs. Additionally, its stability under harsh network conditions makes it great for delivering quality streams to users all over the world.
RTMP in the live streaming landscape
Despite the emergence of newer protocols and streaming technology, RTMP remains a core utility in the live streaming sphere. RTMP is also used as an ingest protocol in live streaming workflows. This means that it’s used to deliver the stream from the encoding source to the streaming server or platform. From there, the stream is typically transcoded into other formats for delivery to the end viewers.