Live Streaming

Video SDK sessions can be live streamed to an unlimited audience using Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP). This is helpful if you need to scale Video SDK attendees beyond the 1,000 real-time session user limit. For example, you can live stream to YouTube Live, Facebook Live, Twitch, AWS IVS, and other services.

See the following for how to set up a streaming event in a third-party platform and implement a feature to start and stop live streaming of a session using the Video SDK.

Retrieve credentials

Live streaming with SDKs requires the following information from third-party streaming platforms: Stream URL, Stream Key, Broadcast URL. See Live stream to YouTube for an example.

Start live streaming

To start live streaming a session from your app, obtain an instance of IZoomVideoSDKLiveStreamHelper and verify that the current user can start streaming. Then call startLiveStream within IZoomVideoSDKLiveStreamHelper to begin live streaming.

// Get the IZoomVideoSDKLiveStreamHelper to perform live stream actions.
IZoomVideoSDKLiveStreamHelper* pLiveStreamHelper = m_pVideoSDK->getLiveStreamHelper();
// Check if live stream can start.
if (pLiveStreamHelper->canStartLiveStream() == ZoomVideoSDKErrors_Success) {
    // Call startLiveStream to begin live streaming.
    int err = pLiveStreamHelper->startLiveStream(strStreamUrl, strKey, strBroadcastUrl);
    if (err == ZoomVideoSDKErrors_Success)
    {
            // Live stream successfully began.
    }
    else
    {
            // Live stream could not start.
    }
}

Stop live streaming

To stop the stream with the SDK, call stopLiveStream.

// Get the IZoomVideoSDKLiveStreamHelper to perform live stream actions.
IZoomVideoSDKLiveStreamHelper* pLiveStreamHelper = m_pVideoSDK->getLiveStreamHelper();
// Call stopLiveStream to stop the live stream.
pLiveStreamHelper->stopLiveStream();

Listen for updates

After calling the startLiveStream function, you can listen for updates through your IZoomVideoSDKDelegate implementation's onLiveStreamStatusChanged callback.

Name	Description
`ZoomVideoSDKLiveStreamStatus_None`	No live stream is active.
`ZoomVideoSDKLiveStreamStatus_InProgress`	Live streaming is in progress.
`ZoomVideoSDKLiveStreamStatus_Ended`	Live streaming has ended.
`ZoomVideoSDKLiveStreamStatus_Connecting`	Live streaming is connecting.
`ZoomVideoSDKLiveStreamStatus_FailedTimeout`	Live stream failed due to timeout.
`ZoomVideoSDKLiveStreamStatus_StartFailed`	Live stream could not start.

Live stream to YouTube

For instance, if you want to live stream a session to YouTube, you must enable live streaming on your Google account.

Step 1:

Go Live option on YouTube

Step 2:

Click the Stream button in the top panel. Note: YouTube Webcam services are not compatible with Zoom SDK.

YouTube Stream button

Step 3:

Fill out the required information and toggle "Schedule for later". If this is not selected, the live stream will start immediately and will not provide setting info.

YouTube settings for Schedule for Later

Step 4:

After creating the stream, the Steam URL and Stream Key will be available.

YouTube Stream URL and Key setup

Step 5:

Click the share button beside your account icon to get the broadcast URL.

YouTube broadcast URL

Use the YouTube Live Streaming API to automate these steps and get stream information programmatically.