Overview: Create and go live to an event

This feature requires an Advanced or Premium plan, or an Enterprise account with the Events feature added.

To stream live video in up to 1080p HD using Vimeo, you need a camera, microphone, and an Advanced or Enterprise plan on Vimeo. This article will take you through setting up an event and going live on Vimeo.

The Advanced plan allows you to stream up to two (2) events concurrently. If you need more than two concurrent streams, please contact our sales team.

In this article:

• Create your event on Vimeo
• How to reuse settings for a live event
• Event settings
• Player settings
• Stream with your browser
• Stream with RTMP
• Live features
• What is the expected latency?
• Ending your stream

Create your event on Vimeo

To go live, you will first need to create an event on Vimeo. To get started, follow the instructions below:

1. Go to your Library and select Host event from the New dropdown menu.
   
2. A modal window will open where you can choose your event type. Choose Live stream to get started.
3. You can then choose a setup option:
   • Set up from scratch allows you to configure settings on your own
   • Choose event type to start with recommended settings for common types of events.
   • If you have already created an event that has settings you like, you can choose to Reuse settings to save time; more on this below.
4. On the next page, you can configure your event’s streaming options:
   • Broadcast method: Stream with RTMP or Stream through your browser
     
   • Latency: Low, Standard, or Fail-safe streaming
   • Optional features: Registration, Chat, and Automatic closed captions
5. Select Next to move on to your event details. Enter a title, description, and event start and end times.
   💡Tip: A countdown will automatically appear on the player 60 minutes prior to the scheduled start time.
6. If your event will repeat in the future, toggle on Recurring event and select which days of the week if applicable.
   
7. Choose the privacy settings for your event link and embed privacy.
8. Select Create to save your event. From here you can get the stream key if needed. 

⚠️Note: Scheduling your live event for a specific date and time is optional and meant to be informational for your viewers; there is currently no way to automatically start your stream at a scheduled time. If you want to stream pre-recorded videos at a specific time, you can schedule it for a later date and time as explained in the Simulated live events article.

How to reuse settings for a live event

Instead of starting from scratch each time you make a new event, you have the option to Reuse settings from any existing event in your Library. 

1. Go to your Library, select Host event from the New dropdown menu in the upper right corner.
2. Select Live broadcast, then choose Reuse settings.
3. A modal will appear where you can choose from your existing events and review their settings.
4. Once you choose which event you would like to copy, edit the settings as desired.
5. Select Next and then Create to finish creating your event.

Event settings

After you have created your event, you can access all settings on the event page. See below if you are streaming with an encoder or visit How to navigate the web-based production tool to learn more about streaming from your browser.

Select the gear icon on the left of the screen to open the Settings panel. Within Settings, you will find the following:

Basics

• Edit the title of your event
• Edit the description of your event 

Privacy

• Select the overall privacy setting for your event
• Choose where your event can be embedded and add specific domains
• Select a content rating
• Indicate if your event includes an advertisement

Schedule 

• Edit event start and end dates and times
• Indicate whether your event is recurring and set dates for it to recur

Production

• Choose latency for your event
• Toggle on and off Automatic closed captions
  • Add keywords in advance to assist in automatic speech detection (i.e. products, names, and terms that will be mentioned during your event)
• Toggle on and off DVR

Destination

• Choose simulcasting destinations for your event

Player settings

Select the Player button from the lefthand panel and then Customize player to access player settings.

Stream with your browser

When you select Stream with your browser, your camera will be activated and automatically added to a scene, allowing you to begin streaming directly from your desktop browser provided it supports WebRTC protocol (we recommend Chrome 58+, but both Firefox 56+ and Safari 12+ support WebRTC as well). 

When streaming via this method, you can also invite guests to join with their webcams and share their screens, playback videos from your account in your stream, and create and switch to other scenes, among most other features available with RTMP with some exceptions:

• • While you can monitor your connection, more specific real-time stream metrics are currently only available when streaming via RTMP.
  • Live analytics are currently not shown while streaming.
  • Simulcast destinations can only be configured before your event goes live.
  • Learn more about navigating our web-based production tool.

When you’re ready to go live, click Go live in the upper right corner. Your stream will be live.

⚠️Note: When you go to a live event, go past the event's settings, and enter the events manage production side, an ingest streaming session is provisioned for you to stream to. You have 30 minutes to stream to the event before this provision of the streaming session expires.

If you sit on the event’s production management page and do not stream to the event, there will be a pop-up that asks if you are still there at the 30-minute mark. If you say yes, there will be a provision for another streaming session for the user to stream to for the event.

When your event is ready to start, begin streaming from your encoder (if you enabled preview, you will then need to click Go Live on the live preview page).

Your stream signal will be broadcast live to your viewers, regardless of the status of your webcam and the browser encoder. We recommend starting a local recording of your stream from within your encoder at this point as well, just in case of any problems with your internet connection.

Live features

Here’s an overview of what you’ll be able to manage before and during your stream, regardless of your streaming method.  

Chat

The Chat panel on the right is where you can enable, disable, and monitor your event's live chat. You can post messages and emojis during the stream from the Chat option. You can also disable it or export a transcript as a .txt file. Chat transcripts are available to download for 30 days.

If you are streaming via the browser to a recurring event or webinar, there is also a Speakers chat panel where you can interact with your guest speakers internally.

Auto CC

The Auto CC tab allows you to enable automatic closed captioning for your event, making it more accessible to a wider audience. You can also input custom words such as people's names or technical jargon to ensure they are captioned correctly.

Polls

You can create a poll for your viewers to vote on with the option of a correct answer. 

Q&A

In addition to Chat and Polls, you can host a Q&A on your event when viewers can post questions and vote for questions they like. Note that moderating questions–that is, approving which questions get displayed for your audience–are available with an Enterprise plan.

Graphics

Create basic graphics overlays for your stream directly from the live preview page including lower thirds, full screens, and logos.

Stream health

Once you’re broadcasting, you can monitor the stability of your stream.

What is the expected latency?

Stream latency varies greatly depending on network connection speed and stream health (bitrate, resolution, etc.).  Learn more about available latency options at About latency for live broadcasts.

Ending your stream

To end a stream, click End on the top right corner of the Live Preview or web-based production tool on Vimeo. Ending your stream will trigger the final stages of the video archiving process. You can then end the stream from your external encoder if you are using one.

When your stream ends, your live settings page also changes to the post-live version. The indicator at the top changes to Offline and your video preview will now link to your archived video’s settings page.

Once your video has gone through the archival process, it appears in your video manager like any other video.

Additional notes

• Ending stream via external encoder: If you’re streaming via an external encoder and you end the stream from your encoder first, this will trigger our 5-minute reconnection window which is meant to allow users to reconnect to the same event if the stream is interrupted. If you wish to start a new stream to the same recurring event, be sure to click that End event button before starting a new stream. Alternatively, wait 5 minutes before starting a new stream from your encoder.
• 4K video in archive: While we do not ingest 4K video, you can replace the Vimeo archive of your broadcast with your higher-resolution version (e.g. 2K or 4K) once it's been archived. You can replace the video anytime without impacting your analytics, so feel free to edit the video file before replacing it on Vimeo. 
• Ending recurring events: When you stream to a recurring event the first time, the next start date will automatically adjust to when the previous stream ended. Unfortunately, there is no way to manually change this at this time; consider editing your title to include your broadcast date instead.