Owncast
Infrastructure
self-hosted live streaming server
SHOW HN2020
241points
59comments
#201of 3,028 in 2020
Top 7%of 2020 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
10 positive, 11 neutral or asking, 2 mixed, 3 critical, out of 26 comments about the project. Thread score +0.33.
Idea: 1 for, 1 againstExecution: 1 for, 1 againstPerformance: 1 for, 0 againstPricing: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Easier setup and better-looking than DIY ffmpeg/nginx approaches
From 1 comment
As a general comment on how you can do this sort of thing super minimally: You can use ffmpeg on the command line to transcode anything it can read (including streams) to an HLS…
boardwaalk on HN
Good to have a self-hosted streaming option
From 2 comments
Perfect :) I was searching for tutorials on how to set up my own OBS streaming proxy just 2 days ago. And Go is so very nice because I can compile all I need into one big…
fxtentacle on HNThis looks really good! I just set up Open Streaming Platform [0], but I wish I had found this sooner, as setting that up was slightly annoying (nothing against the platform -…
franga2000 on HN
Objections
Bandwidth makes home hosting impractical; needs a cloud server or S3 offload
From 3 comments
I think your last question highlights that you really wouldn’t run this locally. Probably on a VPS or something with a ton of bandwidth. I’m sure someone else will have better…
bronco21016 on HNYour best bet is to run this in a VM somewhere in the cloud. Each stream is going to consume bandwidth, and you'll quickly run out if you do this at home. About 10 years ago, I…
mikewarot on HNAs someone else mentioned, you'd likely want to run this on a "cloud" server with the necessary bandwidth available. Reminds me of running a Shoutcast station back in the…
soylentcola on HN
Lacks subscriber features like payments and notifications that Twitch offers
From 1 comment
This is super nice so congratulations - but I wouldn't it use self-hosted version of Twitch to sell it. I have a few friends who use Twitch and they don't use it beause it is…
101008 on HN
Requests
Discovery or directory of Owncast streams
From 1 comment
This is great! No worries about violating other streaming site's rules and getting banned. One thing that's missing is a discovery engine to find Owncast streamers.
Rinum on HN
Video player customization
From 2 comments
This is nice, I've tried to build a simple streaming server myself, so couple of questions if you don't mind: 1. What technology are you using for communication of chat text and…
suyash on HN1. Websockets 2. Depends on the size of chunks and amount of files in the HLS playlist. Both are configurable values. Anywhere between 3 and 20 seconds 3. Not yet, but it's planned
mueslix on HN
Questions
Latency of streams
From 2 comments
Very nice, I'll certainly try it out for courses with clients. What's the latency like?
tmikaeld on HNThis is nice, I've tried to build a simple streaming server myself, so couple of questions if you don't mind: 1. What technology are you using for communication of chat text and…
suyash on HN
How bandwidth scales with number of viewers
From 2 comments
Very cool! Sorry for the novice question but I checked the docs and FAQ and didn’t see an answer: Can you explain a bit the dynamics of streaming from your own server? How does…
nlh on HNNice docs. I had no idea you could do this locally. Out of the loop on video streaming, but looks like a webserver serving files(video segments - chopped up based on needs). Just…
op03 on HN
Alternatives named
AWS IVS
From 1 comment
BTW paid, fully managed offering for such a service is available courtesy of creators behind Twitch itself - AWS-IVS https://aws.amazon.com/ivs/ demo :…
suyash on HN
nginx-rtmp-module
From 1 comment
https://github.com/arut/nginx-rtmp-module is also great for anyone that wants to setup just a streaming server. However, it doesn't seem to be maintained anymore, but there are…
alfg on HN
Open Streaming Platform
From 1 comment
This looks really good! I just set up Open Streaming Platform [0], but I wish I had found this sooner, as setting that up was slightly annoying (nothing against the platform -…
franga2000 on HN
PeerTube
From 2 comments
How does this relate to PeerTube?
jsilence on HNPeerTube has live streaming: https://joinpeertube.org/news#release-3.0rc.
fsflover on HN
Boltstream
From 1 comment
Indeed, I am certainly watching this space. Another “contender” is Boltstream [1] that was posted only a few weeks back. I am itching to take them all for a spin and kick tires!…
ninjin on HN