Recommended network configuration for streaming a live broadcast

Your stream is only as good as your internet connection. Here are our recommendations and best practices for configuring your network for livestreaming to a live broadcast.

⚠️Note: If you are streaming to a venue, see our recommended network configuration specific to venues.

• Upload Speed
• Firewall configuration
• Whitelist Domains

Upload Speed

You should ideally be streaming over an Ethernet connection on a dedicated (unshared) network. Network speeds fluctuate constantly depending on numerous factors, so be sure to test your upload speed frequently.

Generally speaking, you should set your encoder's outgoing bitrate to much lower than your available upload speed to allow for network fluctuations. Keep in mind other factors can come into play when producing a stable stream such as firewalls and network congestion.

When setting up your encoder settings, we suggest the following based on the results of an upload speed test based on this site: 

If you are streaming with a bitrate significantly less than 2000kbps, your stream may appear pixelated or experience lag. 

Regardless of your network strength, you should make sure to always record your stream locally. Many software encoders offer this feature, or you can record directly onto a camera.

A note regarding bonded streaming: We often get asked if it's possible to stream over a bonded network (i.e. two or more different networks carrying the same stream). This workflow requires the ingest server to accept a signal from both networks in the bonded group. Vimeo is not currently configured this way and so at this time, all streams must be sent over a single network. 

Firewall configuration

If you are having issues starting a stream to Vimeo via RTMP, you or your IT team may need to check to see if Firewall ports are blocked. This is common especially if you are on a corporate network (office, convention center, hotel, school. etc.)

Note: If you are attempting to stream to a recurring event or webinar via Vimeo (i.e. the

web-based production tool), see this article for Firewall requirements.

For example, if you are using an external encoder and you see an error message immediately upon trying to start the stream, or a blank preview player and a grey "Go Live" button when the stream preview is enabled, this could indicate a Firewall issue.

All encoders use various internet ports to communicate with Vimeo, all of which need to be made open to both incoming and outgoing communication. 

These ports are:

• TCP 1935
• TCP 80
• TCP 443
• UDP 53
• UDP 1024-2048

In addition, if you have stream preview enabled for an external encoder, you will need to allow the following ports to communicate via WebRTC between your computer and our servers.

• TCP/UDP 3478
• TCP/UDP 19305-19307
• TCP/UDP 19307 50000 - 64000

Ports 1935, 80, and 443 represent RTMP, HTTP, and HTTPS respectively. Many corporate and academic networks’ security policies will block UDP 53, as it provides DNS.

UDP 2088 should be open when broadcasting from Mevo (iOS and Android). If any of these are blocked, you may want to get in touch with your network administrator or IT prior to proceeding further with setup.

Whitelist Domains

If your corporate network restricts access to certain websites or domains, ensure the following domains are whitelisted in order to communicate with Vimeo and its CDN.

• *.vimeo.com
• *.vimeocdn.com
• *.google.com
• 
*.pndsn.com
• *.googleapis.com
• *.firebaseio.com

Note: If you are attempting to stream to a recurring event or webinar via Vimeo (i.e. the

web-based production tool), see this article for domain requirements.

We often get asked if it's possible to stream over a bonded network (i.e. two or more different networks carrying the same stream). This workflow requires the ingest server to accept a signal from both networks in the bonded group. Vimeo is not currently configured this way and so at this time, all streams must be sent over a single network.