Skip to content
webcam.io

How to stream your IP camera to Twitch

Twitch is popular for video game live streaming, but can also host other kinds of streams, i.e. "in real life" streams have become popular in the recent years.

Set up your IP camera with webcam.io and send the your live stream to Twitch, embed it into your website or simply use the community features on Twitch to share it.

Sign up for our free 7-day trial to try out live streaming for your IP camera.

1.) Get the camera stream URL

The video stream URL is usually visible in your camera settings in streaming/video/h.264/RTSP sections. If you cannot find it there, a short google search of you camera model/vendor and ‘RTSP’ or ‘video stream’ should help.

H.264 encoding is recommended. MJPEG, MxPEG (Mobotix) also work if transcoding is activated in step 3 later.

The URL needs to be accessible from our servers and this probably requires setup of port forwarding and dynamic dns (or a static IP) on your side.

2.) Set up Twitch

Sign up to Twitch, get the stream key and make some basic settings:

  • click on the profile icon in the upper right, go to Settings then Channel and Videos

twitch.tv - connect ip camera via webcam.io

  • copy the Primary Stream key from there for later

this is optional:

  • enable Disconnect Protection (recommended)
  • Latency Normal should be ok
  • And on the bottom of the page Raids -> Block all raids is recommended, so no random users are sent to your channel on twitch

3.) Set up webcam.io

Create a webcam entry in webcam.io of type Live stream:

Fill in the URL from step 1 into the Input section. Twitch requires an H.264 encoded video stream for input.

Depending on your camera stream, you might need to activate the Transcode options. For H.264 transcoding can stay turned off (default).

Then enter the Stream key URL in Output section, in this example:

rtmp://live-fra02.twitch.tv/app/THE-TWITCH-STREAMKEY-FROM-STEP-2

(We use Frankfurt, Germany ingest server here (also see ingest servers), as our datacenter is located near there. We fetch from your camera and then send to twitch, so the delay on this connection leg is kept low.)

4.) Start streaming

By saving the webcam entry (webcam.io), streaming will start within the next 30-60 seconds. The stream status text is shown in the status box in your webcam.io dashboard.

To the stream in Twitch, go to the Creator Dashboard in the profile menu in upper right.

The Stream Health box shows the bitrate coming in and the Twitch Inspector is very helpful to show connect/disconnect times and more.

twitch.tv - connect ip camera via webcam.io

You stream should be broadcasting to the public now! \o/

(Go to profile menu -> channel for the public link to your channel)

5.) Embed into your website

Embedding the twitch player is done by inserting a HTML snippet using your channel name. Here is an example:

<div id="twitch-embed"></div>
<script src="https://embed.twitch.tv/embed/v1.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
  new Twitch.Embed("twitch-embed", {
    width: 854,
    height: 480,
    channel: "CHANNEL-NAME-HERE",
    layout: "video",
    theme: "dark"
  });
</script>

See Embedding Twitch for more details.

Troubleshooting

Please contact us if you need help with a not starting stream or finding the video stream URL of your camera. Also see FAQ.

To use a second stream, you need another Twitch account, using the the other Stream Key and Channelname in another Live stream entry in webcam.io