I’m planning to develop a video streaming platform similar to popular ones out there. I need help understanding the basic architecture and requirements.
What I want to achieve:
- Users should be able to broadcast using tools like OBS Studio
- Viewers need different video quality options to choose from
- Smooth playback experience for the audience
I’m confused about several technical aspects. What kind of server infrastructure do I need? Should I consider using a content delivery network? Is WebRTC a good option for this type of project? What about video encoding and storage solutions?
I’ve been looking around for current information but most resources I found are quite old and might not reflect modern approaches. Any guidance on the overall architecture or specific technologies would be really helpful!
When developing your streaming platform, prioritize scalability and budget. You’ll need RTMP ingestion servers to handle streams from OBS, along with transcoding services to offer various video quality options. Utilizing managed solutions like AWS MediaLive and MediaPackage can simplify the process significantly. Regarding protocol choice, while WebRTC is excellent for low-latency interactions, it may struggle with larger audiences. For that scenario, consider using HLS or DASH, which integrate more seamlessly with CDNs. Additionally, be mindful of storage costs: implementing retention policies early and utilizing object storage with lifecycle management will help manage older content efficiently. Finally, transcoding is resource-intensive, so it’s wise to budget for it or explore GPU acceleration to reduce costs.
Infrastructure gets messy quick. You’ve got RTMP servers handling incoming streams, transcoding pipelines, and distributed storage - all needing to play nice together. CDNs aren’t optional unless you want angry viewers dealing with constant buffering. I’ve built similar stuff, and honestly? The streaming protocols are the easy part. The real pain is managing everything else. You need monitoring to catch when streams die, automatic failover when servers crash, and load balancing so your transcoders don’t melt down. Storage strategy matters too - keep recent stuff on fast drives, dump old content to cheap cold storage. My advice? Start hybrid. Use existing streaming providers for the heavy backend work while you build the frontend features people actually see. Nobody successful tried to build everything from scratch on launch day.
webrtc’s overkill unless u need ultra-low latency. for regular streaming, stick with hls/dash and nail ur rtmp ingest first. bandwidth costs will bite u hard when u scale - dont ignore them.
Building a streaming platform? Focus on your ingestion pipeline and delivery setup first. You’ll need RTMP servers to grab streams from OBS, then run them through encoding to create multiple bitrates for adaptive streaming. The transcoding system is usually your biggest bottleneck - make sure it can handle the load.
HLS is pretty much the standard now since it works everywhere. Don’t skip CDNs unless you’re only targeting a tiny area - they’ll save you from latency headaches and server overload.
Honestly? Start with cloud services like AWS Elemental or Azure Media Services instead of building from scratch. You’ll spend way less time fighting streaming protocols and more time on what actually matters - your app and user experience. Just watch those storage costs - set up cleanup policies for archived content early or you’ll get hit with a nasty bill.