Problem
When streaming out RTMP from a Videon encoder, the stream is not appearing at the expected quality
Solution
There are a couple factors that determine stream quality. Most importantly are bitrate, profile, and bandwidth.
Bitrate and Profile
To gauge the quality of video that should be seen from the RTMP stream, set up a unicast stream from the encoder to the decoder of the same Videon device. This keeps the data stream internal to the device and shows the best quality possible at the current settings.
- If the unicast quality is the same as the RTMP stream quality, but you want a higher quality stream, increase the encoder bitrate and/or the profile (baseline is the lowest, high is the highest) until the desired quality is reached.
- If the unicast quality is higher than the RTMP stream quality, check the network's bandwidth
Bandwidth
It is sometimes the case that, even though the bitrate, profile, and all other settings point to a good quality stream, an RTMP stream does not play at the expected quality. The limiting factor in these situations is usually bandwidth.
To check the upload bandwidth of the network, use a diagnostics tool such as speedtest.net (it's free and widely used!). The encoder bitrate must be equal to or less than the reported upload speed. It is recommended to encode at about 2/3 the upload speed of the network so that other traffic can also pass to and from the network.
WebRTC
Some RTMP ingest points utilize WebRTC protocol which does not handle B-frames (e.g. Red5Pro, Millicast, Phenix, Ant Media, etc.). Please be sure to set the Quality/Latency setting of the associated video profile(s) to Lowest when using H.264 to avoid video playback/quality issues.
If all else fails, contact your streaming provider before reaching out to us for support