Welcome to Livepeer.com's first video tutorial. In the following video clips, you'll learn how to create an account on livepeer.com, create your first stream object, install and setup OBS, stream into Livepeer.com, and watch your Livepeer.com-transcoded video. We'll be following our 

. It is recommended you have that open as you go through the video clips below.

Step 1: Create an account on Livepeer.com


Step 2: Verify your Livepeer.com account


Step 5: Stream into Livepeer.com using OBS


Select RTMP ingest and playback URL pair on livepeer.com stream page:

Thanks for watching our streaming video tutorial! We'd love to hear from you. Feel free to reach out to us at 

 with thoughts, suggestions, and any questions you might have.


Imagine working with a client who is paying you to help them broadcast a concert online to an audience of thousands of viewers around the world. Some of your viewers are watching on their phones, some are watching on their laptop, some are in areas with a bad internet connection. You start seeing a lot of users drop off the live stream complaining that they have to wait several minutes to watch the first couple of seconds of the event, at which point the video stops to buffer again ... and again ... and again. Viewers are complaining that your video is practically unwatchable. The result - your client loses a significant number of viewers, they lose virtual event ticket and advertising income, and you lose their trust. They end up not working with you again. Others in the music industry hear about your company’s streaming performance and decide to not engage your services either.

Had the live stream been transcoded into several different qualities and formats, the viewing experience would have been a seamless one. This example illustrates the critical need for all live video companies to understand and make use of video transcoding.

## What is video transcoding?

Video transcoding or encoding, is a process that ensures that viewers can stream content without buffering at the highest possible quality. It is a process to convert a video from one format to another better-compressed format. The outcome of video transcoding is multiple versions of the same video in different sizes (resolutions) and qualities (bitrates, frame rates), each of which is optimized for viewers with different internet speeds and devices. This ensures that your video is, as we call it, "internet-ready" and viewable by anyone in the world regardless of location, viewing device and circumstances.

![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/dp4k3mpw/production/8cb89759cb54bb3512954a50bd4cf18d67f54486-4608x3072.jpg?h=500&fit=max)

## Why is video transcoding important?

Simply put, video transcoding will allow your content to reach more end users. Online public video content is viewed by users around the world with a range of devices like cellphones, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers, to name a few. Said devices support a range of different video formats, and in turn, are incompatible with a different set of formats.

Video transcoding helps ensure that viewers with devices that do not support certain formats, have reduced capacity, or are incompatible with obsolete file types, are able to access the video files. 

It also ensures that both those with access to fast, high-bandwidth internet connections and those with low-bandwidth, slow connections can have a seamless watching experience. Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data transmitted over an internet connection in a given amount of time. Without video transcoding, many in rural or remote areas around the world with low-bandwidth internet connections would have difficulty watching  large, high-quality videos streamed or uploaded online. People in various situations, like those driving a car on a cell connection, or in an office building sharing bandwidth with their coworkers, or even those connected to a high-quality wifi router that's behind a thick wall, would all also have degraded internet connections and would benefit from transcoded video. Like the initial streaming company client example, all these individuals would see their stream “buffer” often. In other words, they’d see the infamous spinning wheel icon linger on their screen for far too long, indicating that their video was loading.

In the end, it is preferable to stream or view a video with lower quality or size than to have to wait a long time or never be able to view one of higher quality.
![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/dp4k3mpw/production/0ab5835eba9bb44db4e762b89e8c87c1ecdade7a-693x523.png?h=500&fit=max)

## How can I control the quality and size of my videos through transcoding?

Three of the most important factors that affect the resulting quality and performance of video streams are frame rate, video resolution, and bitrate settings.

Frame rate or frames per second (fps) is the frequency at which images or frames appear in one second of your video. The higher the frame rate, the better quality of your video, the larger the file size you have to transmit over the internet to your users (hence the need for a faster internet connection), and the higher amount of storage you need to store the video. The movie and gaming industries typically use 24 fps and 30 fps respectively, while high definition or HD video use 60 fps, the maximum fps that most monitors and TV’s can display.

Video resolutions, the second important factor in controlling video quality and size, are measured in pixels (p) or single "points" or squares in a picture. Some of the most common video resolutions are:

- **720p**: 1280x720
- **480p**: 854x480
- **360p**: 640x360
- **240p**: 426x240

These numbers represent the number of horizontal lines a video has from top to bottom. The first resolution on the list, for example, is made up of 720 lines stacked on top of each other and 1280 lines from left to right. For comparison, the third resolution on the list is made up of half of that, meaning, it is half as sharp as the first resolution and should be viewed on a smaller screen to achieve the same perceived video quality.

Finally, video bitrate is the number of bits, the smallest unit of data in a computer that can be processed in a specific amount of time. A higher bitrate will generally mean a higher video quality and larger file size, though the quality will depend on what "codec" or decoding/encoding algorithm is used in the video transcoding process. Newer codecs have gotten much better at keeping bitrates low, and therefore making videos smaller and easier to transfer over the internet, while maintaining higher video quality. To get a better idea of what bitrates are typical, HD Blu-ray video hovers around 20 megabits per second (mbps), web video is typically about 2 mbps, and phone videos are typically less than 1 mbps.

Together, video bitrate, resolution, and frame rate all contribute to how good your video will look and how much bandwidth it'll consume while being streaming online.

## How can I transcode my video?

Originally, video transcoding software was supposed to be purchased and installed in one’s machine before being used. However, the cloud and distributed computing networks have changed the world of video transcoding.

Though anyone could transcode video locally on their machines using open source software like ffmpeg, the process is a computationally intensive one. This means that depending on the number and length of video streams to be transcoded, desired number of formats to transcode the video in, and desired platforms to send video to, more powerful hardware and processing capacity will be needed than you might have available.

## How can Livepeer help?

Luckily, juggling the many decisions involved in transcoding video can be simplified by using transcoding providers like Livepeer.

Livepeer provides live video transcoding services in an affordable, scalable, secure, and reliable fashion. Our network of transcoders, massively distributed throughout the world, can provide reliable transcoding for companies looking to stream live video over the internet. Given our distributed nature, we are able to offer prices over 10x cheaper than comparable public cloud transcoding providers.

Livepeer is currently looking for potential partners to test our platform. Get in touch at hello@livepeer.com or by joining our [Discord server] (https://discord.gg/mEQz5A) - we'd love to hear more about what you're building and see how we could be of help.

For instructions on how to try Livepeer for free, get an [API key](http://www.livepeer.com/register) and check out our [documentation] (https://livepeer.com/docs).

Imagine working with a client who is paying you to help them broadcast a concert online to an audience of thousands of viewers around the world. Some of your viewers are watching on their phones, some are watching on their laptop, some are in areas with a bad internet connection. You start seeing a lot of users drop off the live stream complaining that they have to wait several minutes to watch the first couple of seconds of the event, at which point the video stops to buffer again ... and again ... and again. Viewers are complaining that your video is practically unwatchable. The result - your client loses a significant number of viewers, they lose virtual event ticket and advertising income, and you lose their trust. They end up not working with you again. Others in the music industry hear about your company’s streaming performance and decide to not engage your services either.

Had the live stream been transcoded into several different qualities and formats, the viewing experience would have been a seamless one. This example illustrates the critical need for all live video companies to understand and make use of video transcoding.

Video transcoding or encoding, is a process that ensures that viewers can stream content without buffering at the highest possible quality. It is a process to convert a video from one format to another better-compressed format. The outcome of video transcoding is multiple versions of the same video in different sizes (resolutions) and qualities (bitrates, frame rates), each of which is optimized for viewers with different internet speeds and devices. This ensures that your video is, as we call it, "internet-ready" and viewable by anyone in the world regardless of location, viewing device and circumstances.

Simply put, video transcoding will allow your content to reach more end users. Online public video content is viewed by users around the world with a range of devices like cellphones, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers, to name a few. Said devices support a range of different video formats, and in turn, are incompatible with a different set of formats.

Video transcoding helps ensure that viewers with devices that do not support certain formats, have reduced capacity, or are incompatible with obsolete file types, are able to access the video files.

It also ensures that both those with access to fast, high-bandwidth internet connections and those with low-bandwidth, slow connections can have a seamless watching experience. Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data transmitted over an internet connection in a given amount of time. Without video transcoding, many in rural or remote areas around the world with low-bandwidth internet connections would have difficulty watching large, high-quality videos streamed or uploaded online. People in various situations, like those driving a car on a cell connection, or in an office building sharing bandwidth with their coworkers, or even those connected to a high-quality wifi router that's behind a thick wall, would all also have degraded internet connections and would benefit from transcoded video. Like the initial streaming company client example, all these individuals would see their stream “buffer” often. In other words, they’d see the infamous spinning wheel icon linger on their screen for far too long, indicating that their video was loading.

In the end, it is preferable to stream or view a video with lower quality or size than to have to wait a long time or never be able to view one of higher quality.

How can I control the quality and size of my videos through transcoding?

Three of the most important factors that affect the resulting quality and performance of video streams are frame rate, video resolution, and bitrate settings.

Frame rate or frames per second (fps) is the frequency at which images or frames appear in one second of your video. The higher the frame rate, the better quality of your video, the larger the file size you have to transmit over the internet to your users (hence the need for a faster internet connection), and the higher amount of storage you need to store the video. The movie and gaming industries typically use 24 fps and 30 fps respectively, while high definition or HD video use 60 fps, the maximum fps that most monitors and TV’s can display.

Video resolutions, the second important factor in controlling video quality and size, are measured in pixels (p) or single "points" or squares in a picture. Some of the most common video resolutions are:

These numbers represent the number of horizontal lines a video has from top to bottom. The first resolution on the list, for example, is made up of 720 lines stacked on top of each other and 1280 lines from left to right. For comparison, the third resolution on the list is made up of half of that, meaning, it is half as sharp as the first resolution and should be viewed on a smaller screen to achieve the same perceived video quality.

Finally, video bitrate is the number of bits, the smallest unit of data in a computer that can be processed in a specific amount of time. A higher bitrate will generally mean a higher video quality and larger file size, though the quality will depend on what "codec" or decoding/encoding algorithm is used in the video transcoding process. Newer codecs have gotten much better at keeping bitrates low, and therefore making videos smaller and easier to transfer over the internet, while maintaining higher video quality. To get a better idea of what bitrates are typical, HD Blu-ray video hovers around 20 megabits per second (mbps), web video is typically about 2 mbps, and phone videos are typically less than 1 mbps.

Together, video bitrate, resolution, and frame rate all contribute to how good your video will look and how much bandwidth it'll consume while being streaming online.

Originally, video transcoding software was supposed to be purchased and installed in one’s machine before being used. However, the cloud and distributed computing networks have changed the world of video transcoding.

Though anyone could transcode video locally on their machines using open source software like ffmpeg, the process is a computationally intensive one. This means that depending on the number and length of video streams to be transcoded, desired number of formats to transcode the video in, and desired platforms to send video to, more powerful hardware and processing capacity will be needed than you might have available.

Luckily, juggling the many decisions involved in transcoding video can be simplified by using transcoding providers like Livepeer.

Livepeer provides live video transcoding services in an affordable, scalable, secure, and reliable fashion. Our network of transcoders, massively distributed throughout the world, can provide reliable transcoding for companies looking to stream live video over the internet. Given our distributed nature, we are able to offer prices over 10x cheaper than comparable public cloud transcoding providers.

Livepeer is currently looking for potential partners to test our platform. Get in touch at hello@livepeer.com or by joining our 

 - we'd love to hear more about what you're building and see how we could be of help.

For instructions on how to try Livepeer for free, get an 

Video Transcoding - What is it, why is it important, and how can I do it?

There is a large opportunity to disrupt more established e-commerce businesses in Europe and North America by being a fast follower of a rising trend in China - retail or e-commerce focused live streaming.

Retail focused live streaming blends entertainment and e-commerce to engage audiences in shopping-focused content, resulting in great conversion metrics and ultimately a significant increase in revenue.  Alibaba’s Taobao Marketplace, for example, pulled in around $15.1B USD in revenue from live streaming in 2018. With over 

60% of Chinese based internet users expected to be livestreamers

 before the end of 2020 , a trend that not surprisingly has been accelerated by the global COVID-19 pandemic, revenues for the livestream ecommerce market across China are 

Though numbers clearly show promise, the lack of traction this trend has seen outside of China is surprising. While there have been a few startups in western markets experimenting with blending live streaming and ecommerce, we have not seen established brands or retailers making serious attempts to replicate this trend outside of China.

At Livepeer.com, we see this as a great opportunity for disruptors in the industry to become early adopters of a new blend of entertainment, ecommerce, and live streaming. Underlying market enablers like high engagement in social media, online video, and influencer marketing for success in the West appear similar to those in China. Combined with good home internet and mobile connectivity, as well as ongoing challenges faced by retailers and shoppers due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems like an auspicious moment to challenge established practices of e-commerce brands and platforms in Western countries.

E-commerce live streaming would allow retailers to engage with shoppers live, bringing products into the home and allowing shoppers to participate in a new type of shopping experience that would fill the void left by global lockdowns. A traditional website with static images or prerecorded video just doesn’t deliver the same experience as does in-person or live streaming shopping. While Amazon and YouTube have some limited capabilities to help enable e-commerce focused live streaming, we at Livepeer.com believe the winners will be players that combine a highly capable ecommerce platform with an excellent live streaming service to deliver a cohesive brand-first experience for their shoppers.

One of the biggest challenges those looking to build a platform in this sector face is the cost of building out and running reliable live streaming video infrastructure. Individuals entering the sector will need to ensure a high-quality live video experience for content creators that will attract viewers excited about this new way of shopping.

Livepeer.com is thrilled about supporting growth and innovation in the e-commerce and retail live streaming space. We’ve created a video infrastructure service that uniquely addresses the costs associated with standing up and operating this type of infrastructure, whilst delivering a high quality transcoding and streaming service. If you’re looking to quickly build and are interested in learning more about how we can help, drop us a note at 

Video Tutorial : Stream into Livepeer for the First Time

Step 1: Create an account on Livepeer.com

Step 2: Verify your Livepeer.com account

Step 3: Create your first stream

Step 4: Install and setup OBS

Step 5: Stream into Livepeer.com using OBS

Step 6: Watch your transcoded video

Articles you may be interested in

Video Transcoding - What is it, why is it important, and how can I do it?

Live streaming and E-commerce, an Untapped Opportunity Outside of China

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