Facebook Live / RTMPS support on Teradek products and services

Last Updated: November 10th, 2019

 As of November 1st, 2019 Facebook no longer supports streaming to a Facebook Page with the RTMP protocol.

RTMPS is now required for Pages, as well as Groups and personal Timeline.

If you have an older encoder that is unable to support RTMPS, and you are unable to use any of the Workarounds listed in this article, please contact our Sales team for upgrade paths to a newer encoder with support for the RTMPS protocol.

Table of Contents

Overview

Timeline

RTMPS Support

Full RTMPS Support

Limited RTMPS Support

No RTMPS Support

Workarounds

Cloud Services

Live:Air Solo / Live:Air Action

Upgrade Paths to Current Teradek Encoders

Overview

Facebook Live was supposed to only accept RTMPS connections (RTMP over a TLS/SSL connection) as of May 1st, 2019 and indicated it would no longer accept the original RTMP streaming method.

Since that date, Facebook has made several changes to that stance, see the Timeline for additional details.

To help make the switch as seamless as possible for you, this article indicates which products have native RTMPS support, and provides options for products which are unable to support the RTMPS protocol.

Timeline

• April 30th, 2019 and earlier : Facebook states that as of May 1st, 2019, no RTMP streams would be allowed on their platform and only RTMPS streams would be accepted for streaming to a personal Timeline, Pages, or Groups.
• May 1st, 2019 : Facebook makes a last minute, unannounced change and officially provides support for RTMP streams to Pages and Workplace until November 1st, 2019 per their developer documentation. Streaming with RTMP to a Page is confirmed as working using both the built-in API integration as well as manual RTMP configuration.
• May 1st through May 3rd, 2019 : despite documentation saying that RTMP streams are not permitted, Facebook continues to allow RTMP streams (both integration / API-based and manual RTMP configuration) to personal Timeline and to Groups. On the afternoon of May 3rd (Pacific Time), RTMP streams to Timeline and Groups are finally shut off and only RTMPS is allowed to those destinations.
• May 16th, 2019 : Facebook makes another unannounced change and stops returning RTMP streaming destinations through its API.
  • Prior to this change, Facebook's streaming platform returned both an RTMP and an RTMPS streaming destination when a device tried to stream to a Page, allowing older products like the Cube and the original VidiU to continue streaming with the RTMP protocol using the built-in API integration.
  • Facebook's developer documentation states that their servers should be returning both an RTMP and an RTMPS destination through their API until November 1st, 2019.
  • This sudden change appears to either be a bug on Facebook's side, or it could be another rapid change to their streaming platform.
  • As a result of this change by Facebook, customers can no longer use the API integration and must now use manual RTMP to stream to a Page.
  • Teradek has reached out to Facebook for clarification on this sudden change. This article will be updated when we have additional details.

• May 21st, 2019 : Facebook has confirmed that the behavior starting May 16th is a bug. RTMP streaming destinations for Pages or Workplace should still be available through the API until the November 1st, 2019 deadline. Facebook is working on a fix for their platform.
• May 22nd, 2019 : Facebook has fixed the issue with RTMP streaming destinations not being properly returned through their API for Pages or Workplace. Streaming should now be possible on devices which only support RTMP to either of those types of Facebook assets.
• November 1st, 2019 : Facebook no longer allows streaming to a Page with the RTMP protocol. All Facebook destinations -- Pages, Groups and personal Timeline -- now require the use of the RTMPS protocol.

RTMPS Support

Full RTMPS support

The following devices and apps support streaming with the RTMPS protocol directly -- no workarounds are required.

• 600 series : supported as of firmware version 8.2.5
  • includes Cube 605 and Cube 655 encoder; Slice 656 encoder; Bond 657 and Bond Backpack 659
• 700 series : supported as of firmware version 8.2.5
  • includes Cube 705 and Cube 755 encoder; Slice 756 encoder; Bond 757 and Bond Backpack 759; 2nd generation T-RAX HEVC encoder card (serial number starting with 786)
• VidiU Go : supported as of firmware version 3.1.2
• Vidiu X
• Airmix / Live:Air Action : supported as of version 2.1.3
• Sputnik : supported as of version 2.13.0
• Prism
• Airmix Solo (formerly Live:Air Solo) : supported as of version 2.2.0

Sharelink : supported as of April 18, 2019

• NOTE: if you are unable to stream to manual RTMPS destinations, you can do either of the following:
  • power off the VidiU Pro / VidiU Go for at least 25 minutes, then power on and reconnect to Sharelink on the same Sharelink region. This does not require a settings change on the VidiU Pro / Go unit.
  • change the VidiU Pro / VidiU Go to use a different Sharelink region to broadcast immediately. You must wait at least 25 minutes before switching back to the original Sharelink region.

Core : supported as of April 18, 2019

• NOTE: this requires an update to most recent Sputnik version for Cloud-hosted and Self-hosted Sputnik servers
• if you are using On Demand Sputnik servers and are having trouble streaming RTMPS, you can do either of the following:
  • power off the encoder for at least 25 minutes, then power on and reconnect to the same On Demand Sputnik region. This does not require a settings change on the encoder.
  • change the encoder to use a different On Demand Sputnik region to broadcast immediately. You must wait at least 25 minutes before switching back to the original On Demand Sputnik region.

Limited RTMPS support

• VidiU Pro (serial number starting with 219)
  • The VidiU Pro has limited RTMPS support -- due to hardware limitations, the device is not able to encode RTMPS smoothly under all conditions.
  • Firmware version 3.1.6 incorporates changes to help improve performance while streaming RTMPS, but RTMPS is still disabled by default. Please see this article for full details.

No RTMPS support

Due to hardware limitations, the following products are unable to have RTMPS support added directly into the device firmware:

• 1st and 2nd generation Cube encoders (serial number starting with 1xx, 2xx, and 5xx)
• 1st generation Slice encoders (serial number starting with 166)
• 1st generation T-RAX encoders (serial number starting with 107)
• Bond II (serial number starting with 118, 218)
• Bond Pro (serial number starting with 058 or 059)
• Sphere : the current Sphere app does not have RTMPS support and no updates are planned at this time; if you currently own a Sphere, please contact sales@teradek.com regarding possible app updates to include RTMPS.
• VidiU (original model from 2013, serial number starting with 245)
• VidiU Mini (serial number starting with 247)

If you have a legacy product, workarounds are listed below. 

Workarounds

Click the heading to expand that section.

Upgrade Paths to Current Teradek Encoders

Upgrading to a current Teradek encoder will ensure support of RTMPS as well as many newer protocols such as SRT.

Please email the Sales Team at sales@teradek.com or call +1 (888) 941-2111, ext. 1 to discuss upgrading your current encoder.