Castr offers powerful streaming solutions that are easy to use for different types of content and needs. Castr’s products include livestreaming, multistreaming, IP camera streaming, and video hosting.
This article will walk you through the key features of Castr’s livestreaming features and how to set up a new project within minutes.
Livestream and Multistream in Castr — What Are the Differences?
Castr’s terms for our livestream and multistream plans can be confusing at first. No worries, we are here to help.
Multistream, or simulcast, is streaming to multiple platforms at once, via stream keys and custom RTMP servers. With Castr, you have Facebook Pages and Groups, YouTube, Twitch, Periscope, and more than 30 other social media choices to livestream simultaneously.
To read more about multistreaming using Castr, you can visit our docs.
Livestream, on the other hand, offers you with an embed player URL / iFrame code for putting the stream on your website and to OTT players. That means Castr’s Livestream expands your reach and flexibility to a wider audience with embedding the video player to any website of your choice. If you need to multistream and embed videos on your own website, our livestream plan is your go-to.
To see all the features and details of livestreaming and multicasting with Castr, please visit our pricing page.
What You Need to Know About Castr’s Livestreaming Features
Embedded player
Who said you could stream to social sites only? Castr’s Embed Player allows you to stream on your website — without any ads and watermarks. The Embed Player feature gives you full control of your stream and its quality in one single control dashboard from Castr.
Cloud recording
Record your stream and store it effortlessly. All Castr’s Livestream plans come with automatic and secured Cloud storage.
HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) URL
Expand your stream to other OTT platforms with HLS URLs. This feature allows you to stream content in adaptive bitrates. Therefore, all of your viewers can watch the highest quality stream based on their location, with zero buffering and maximized flexibility.
Multiple ingest
Pick the video streaming protocols that best fit your needs, rest assured that Castr has them covered. From RTMP, RTSP, HLS, to MPEG-TS, you have control over your stream to deliver the best quality content.
Multistreaming
Stream to your website using an embedded player and to multiple social sites at the same time from one single dashboard.
Stream protection
Stream your video content to the right audience using Castr’s inbuilt GEO blocking and password protection features.
To learn more about Castr’s Livestream plans and available features, visit our Pricing page.
Getting Started with Livestreaming Using Castr
This step-by-step guide will help you get your stream started in no time, with full access to Castr’s feature package.
You need a Castr account to access the dashboard and connect your stream. First, create a new account, or log in to your existing account.
If you are a new user, create your first stream by clicking Add Stream > New Live Stream. Click Activate Trial if you’re on the 7-day trial period.
Fill in your Stream Name and choose a Hosting Region. Tip: Choose the closest ingest region to your location to host your stream.
For example, if your current location is Brazil, choose South America; and US East if your location is Chicago.
Once finished, click Save to access the livestream dashboard.
Understanding Castr’s Livestream Dashboard
The dashboard gives you an overview of your livestream, including your stream key, software, encoder configuration, embed URL, and more.
Preview player
The preview player shows your livestream in Castr’s dashboard when it is started.
Publish and Pull modes
- Publish: This mode is for direct streams from your hardware/software encoder to Castr’s RTMP entry points. Start by pasting the RTMP URL and Streaming Key to your encoder.
- Pull: This mode is for HLS, RTMP, RTSP, MPEG-TS streams from other sources. Start by pasting the URL to add your stream to Castr.
iFrame and Embed URL
Castr generates iframe code and embed code for you to embed the livestream player on any webpage of your choice.
Analytics
You can view all data for viewer traffic of the livestream in the Analytics tab.
Video settings
In the Video settings tab, you can enable password protection, manage the autoplay embed player and the multi-bitrate transcoding, integrate with Google Analytics, and more.
It also offers the embed snippet for chats, a custom embed poster, and embed watermark options to customize your stream.
Security
Use this tab to control your stream. You can choose to enable password protection, geo/country-blocking, geo-country whitelisting, and domain whitelisting or not for more protection.
Stay tuned on the Castr Blog to get the latest feature updates and best practices for livestreaming that successfully deliver content to your audiences.
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