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Live streaming overview

Paradarum Live lets you publish a live signal over RTMP, RTMPS, or SRT to a geo-routed live point of presence (PoP) and deliver it to viewers as adaptive HLS (.m3u8) and DASH (.mpd) through the same CDN that serves your normal properties. This page explains the end-to-end model so you know which hostname to publish to, which one to play from, and how a live stream moves through its lifecycle.

The two hostnames: ingest vs. playback​

Every live stream gets a random 10-character emission point (its stream key). That single key is used in both the ingest URL and the playback URL — but the two live on deliberately separate hostnames and PoP fleets:

RoleHostRouted toUsed for
Ingest<key>.live.prdrm.netLive PoPs (SRS)Publishing from your encoder
Playback<key>.prdrm.netCDN PoPsViewers playing HLS/DASH

Replace <key> with your stream's 10-character emission point, shown on the stream's Endpoints tab in your dashboard.

:::warning Never play from the ingest host <key>.live.prdrm.net is for publishing only. Viewers must always play from the CDN playback host <key>.prdrm.net. Sending viewers to the ingest host bypasses the CDN and points them at the live PoP directly. See Playback URLs & manifest caching. :::

Playback rides a managed CDN property​

When a stream is provisioned, the API auto-creates a backing CDN property for playback. Its origin points at the assigned live PoP's internal IP (port 8088), and it ships with system-defined HLS/DASH cache rules plus a CORS rule, so playback flows through the CDN exactly like any other property.

This backing property is created managed and its rules are system rules — your dashboard shows it read-only. You can open it from the stream's Endpoints tab (the Open CDN property button) to inspect the rules and hostnames, but you should not hand-edit the system HLS/DASH/CORS rules. See Playback URLs & manifest caching for what those rules do.

:::info Failover follows the stream If a publisher lands on a PoP other than its assigned home (for example, during failover), the publish hook repoints the backing property's origin to the real publishing PoP, so playback always follows the stream. :::

End-to-end flow​

  1. Your encoder publishes to the ingest URL. The live PoP authorizes the publisher (stream key, plus optional IP whitelist and user/password). See Publishing.
  2. The signal is delivered as-is (passthrough) or transcoded into an adaptive bitrate ladder of up to 3 renditions. See Transcode profiles & ABR.
  3. The PoP packages the output as HLS and DASH.
  4. Viewers pull master.m3u8 (HLS) or index.mpd (DASH) from the CDN playback host, where manifests and segments are cached. See Playback & caching.

Stream lifecycle​

A live stream moves through a small set of states. The numeric values come from the LiveStreamStatus enum returned by the API.

StatusValueMeaning
Disabled0The stream is administratively disabled and cannot publish.
Provisioned1Provisioned and ready to receive a publisher ("Ready").
Publishing2A publisher is connected and broadcasting ("Live").
Stopped3The publisher disconnected; the stream is idle.
Suspended4The stream is suspended and cannot publish.

The typical happy path is Provisioned → Publishing → Stopped, cycling between the last two as encoders connect and disconnect. When your encoder connects, the status moves to Publishing and your dashboard shows a green "Broadcasting" indicator with live input kbps, a sparkline, and the input resolution and codec.

Billing model​

Live is a monthly subscription: the price is the input price + the sum of the rendition prices for the renditions you attach. The first month is charged immediately from your account balance when you create the stream.

:::note What can stop creation Creating a stream fails with 422 if your balance is below the price, 403 if you have hit the per-account live-stream cap, or 503 if no live PoP currently has capacity. :::

Next steps​