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Kaltura - Live Streaming Events

Universities of Wisconsin (UWS) institutions can use Kaltura Live to stream events to large online audiences. This guide can help campus Kaltura administrators determine if Kaltura Live is the correct streaming platform for them. This guide also discusses how to set up events in Kaltura Live.

This guide focuses on setting up live streaming through Kaltura Live. Streaming should be one part of a larger video production plan. Consult with your campus video production staff, event planning staff, and network staff before undertaking a streaming video production of a live event.

The Universities of Wisconsin has licensed Kaltura Live. This does not include the additional features in Kaltura's Live+ or Webcasting modules.

Advantages of Kaltura Live stream:

Available to all UWS institutions under existing contract.
Privacy: Kaltura doesn’t use or sell user data.

Disadvantages of Kaltura Live stream:

Single source only; video mixing or switching must be done upstream through other hardware or software.
Streams the same bitrate (level of quality) for all users. It doesn’t scale up or down depending on user bandwidth.
Setup requires precise detail. See the Live Encoding Best Practices Guide for advice.

For an overview of basic setup and testing for Kaltura live streaming, read the Getting Started with Kaltura Live guide.

Requirements

See Live Encoding Best Practices Guide (Kaltura) for a technical overview Kaltura Live requirements and setup.

Encoding guidelines, from the Kaltura Live Stream Requirements Guide:

Video codec: H.264, main profile
Video frames per second (FPS): based on your capture device capabilities. Recommended values are 25 and 30
Key frame interval: 2 seconds
Audio Codec: AAC or MP3 (AAC recommended)
Audio Sample Rate: 44100 or higher
Audio Bitrate: 96Kbps and up
Strict CBR encoding recommended for optimum Adaptive bit-rate performance

System requirements for broadcasting hardware, from Live Encoding Best Practices Guide:

Recommended :

Quad Core CPU
4GB RAM
2Mbit/sec upload bandwidth
Dedicated video card, 512MB VRAM
Windows Vista / Windows 7 or Mac OS X 10.5 or higher (v20.0.89)

Optimal (for HD Streaming)

Quad Core i7-2600 series CPU or better
8GB RAM
5Mbit/sec or better upload bandwidth
Dedicated video card, 512MB VRAM
Windows Vista / Windows 7 or Mac OS X 10.6 or higher

KMC Setup

Setting up a Kaltura Live streaming event requires a campus Kaltura administrator to access the Kaltura Management Console (KMC > Create > Create Live Stream). See the Create a Live Stream entry in the KMC guide for more information.