Overview

With Social Streaming, stations can now deliver their content to where their viewers watch. Social Streaming allows stations to:

• Push Cablecast live streams to any service that supports RTMP with Network Stream Destinations.
• Connect with popular platforms like YouTube with Social Streaming Integrations.
• Create Scheduled Network Events to automate the entire process.

Glossary

• Social Streaming - Social Streaming refers to a suite of features that allows Cablecast to push RTMP streams to third party platforms and to automate live events on some platforms, such as YouTube.
• Social Streaming Services - Social Streaming services are third parties that can accept a network stream from Cablecast and re-distribute it on their platform. These services include Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch. As of Cablecast 7.8, Cablecast only supports YouTube with more providers planned in the near future.
• Network Stream Destinations - Network stream destinations are endpoints that Cablecast can push a signal to. The stream Cablecast pushes will originate from the same Cablecast hardware that encodes Live HLS for a Cablecast Channel.
• Scheduled Network Events - Scheduled Network Events are how Cablecast connects a run in the schedule to a Network Stream Destination. By attaching a Scheduled Network Event to a Schedule Run, Cablecast will automatically start pushing the channel's stream to the Network Stream Destination.
  
  When a Scheduled Network Event is created with a Social Streaming Service, Cablecast can manage the live broadcast on the third party service. This allows the event to be completely automated by Cablecast.
  
  Cablecast makes it easy to monitor and control Network Broadcast Events inside Control Rooms. Control Rooms allow operators to manually transition Network Broadcast Events. This can all be done within the Cablecast User Interface, even when the event is connected to a Social Streaming Service.

Adding YouTube as a Social Streaming Service

With YouTube set up as a Social Streaming Service, Cablecast can fully automate sending your live events to YouTube.

• Cablecast will automatically create YouTube persistent stream keys
• Cablecast will create YouTube scheduled Live Broadcasts using metadata from your Show and Schedule.
• Cablecast will automatically start and end YouTube Live Broadcasts based on the automation schedule.

• Login to your account's Cablecast Cloud Services account at http://cloud.cablecast.tv
• Click the + icon next to Social Streaming Services to add a new provider.

• Add a name and choose a provider.
  • At the time of publishing ,only YouTube is supported as a Social Streaming Provider

• After hitting save, you will be asked to allow Cablecast access to your YouTube Account
  • Click Allow to give Cablecast access

• If you would like to complete granting access to this service at a later time, simply choose Authenticate when viewing your integration

After creating and authenticating the YouTube Social Streaming Service, you are ready to create a new Network Stream Destination using the new integration.

Creating a Network Stream Destination

There are two types of Network Stream Destinations

• Generic RTMP - Generic RTMP Network Stream Destinations allow stations to integrate with any streaming service, even if Cablecast doesn't officially integrate with it.
  
  To create a Generic RTMP integration you will need the
  
  • Streaming Url
  • Stream Key
    
• Social Streaming Service - Creating Network Stream Destinations with a Social Streaming service allows Cablecast to remove much of the complexity and copy pasting normally required. Cablecast will automate creating stream keys with the service provider.
  
  When creating Scheduled Network Events with Network Stream Destinations through a Social Streaming Service, Cablecast will create the appropriate live events with the Social Streaming service automatically. This results in less manual work for the operator.

To create a Network Stream Destination

• Navigate to Settings -> Location Settings -> I/O (Tab) -> Network Stream Destinations

• Click New Network Stream Destination in the upper right to create a new stream destination.
• Choose the desired Stream Type
• Fill out the required details (depending on stream type).

• Click Create

Scheduling a Network Broadcast Event

To Schedule a Network Broadcast Event:

• Navigate to the Schedule
• Select a live stream show record and place it onto the timeline
• Click the satellite icon to bring up the Network Broadcast Settings
  • Or click the pencil icon to bring up the Run Details modal and select the Network Broadcast Settings tab
• Click Add Event
• Select a Social Streaming Service from the leftmost dropdown (Optional)
• Select a Network Stream Destination from the innermost dropdown

• Click Save

After an Autopilot send, Cablecast will automatically fire all necessary steps related to these Network Broadcast Events.

Manually Operating a Scheduled Network Event

Once your Network Broadcast Event has a status of Created in the Network Broadcast Settings modal, Cablecast provides you the option to manually operate your event.

• Navigate to Autopilot and click Control Rooms
  • You can also access Control Rooms from the Run Details modal
• The default Control Rooms interface shows you all the devices, control rooms, and events you can access

• Select you Network Broadcast Event from the No Event Selected dropdown
  • If correctly configured, your event bar will show a status of Ready
  • If this event is being streamed to YouTube, you can click Manage to adjust metadata and other stream settings from the YouTube Studio

• When you are ready to begin the event, click Start Stream
  • You can check the associated output device for a green signal icon to confirm the stream is sending data to your destination
• When you are ready to end the event, click Stop Stream

If your event is being streamed to YouTube, there are a few more intermediate steps required to start and stop your event.

• Click Start Stream
  • A Start Testing button will appear

• Click Start Testing
  • This places your YouTube event in a testing state, where you can confirm stream data is being sent before the event goes live on YouTube. You can check this by viewing the stream in the YouTube Studio (click Manage).
• Click Go Live
  • When the event status changes to Live, the event is being streamed to YouTube!
  • You can click the Watch button to view the stream on YouTube

• When you are ready to end the event, click End
  • This ends the YouTube live stream, but the output device will still be sending data
• Click Stop Stream

Frequently Asked Questions

• In FAQ we can call out how if you want to simulcast to more than 3 services, you could use Cablecast RTMP