If you’re looking to create an endless video stream using YouTube or Twitch, this guide will walk you through the process. While I can’t guarantee it will work for everyone, I’ll share the code and steps that worked for me when I tested it.

Setting Up the Stream

  1. Begin by starting a live stream on YouTube or Twitch and obtain the stream key provided by the platform.

Running the Shell Script

  1. Create a new shell script and add the following code:
#!/bin/bash

KEY="your stream key" # replace with your stream key

ffmpeg -stream\_loop -1 -i "video.mp4" -vcodec libx264 -pix\_fmt yuv420p -preset medium -r 30-g $((30 \* 2)) -b:v 2500k -acodec libmp3lame -ar 44100 -threads 6 -qscale 3 -b:a 712000 -bufsize 512k -f flv "rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2/$KEY"

Note: Make sure to replace "your stream key" with the stream key you obtained in step 1.

Understanding the Script

  1. Let’s break down the script and understand what each component does:
  • KEY: This variable holds your stream key and should be replaced with the actual key.
  • ffmpeg: This command-line tool is used to manipulate multimedia files and stream them to platforms like YouTube and Twitch.
  • -stream\_loop -1: This flag instructs ffmpeg to loop the input video indefinitely.
  • -i "video.mp4": Replace "video.mp4" with the path to your video file.
  • -vcodec libx264 -pix\_fmt yuv420p -preset medium -r 30: These settings define the video codec, pixel format, preset, and frame rate.
  • -g $((30 \* 2)) -b:v 2500k: These options set the GOP size (twice the frame rate) and video bitrate.
  • -acodec libmp3lame -ar 44100 -threads 6 -qscale 3 -b:a 712000 -bufsize 512k -f flv: These settings control the audio codec, audio sample rate, number of threads, audio quality, audio bitrate, and buffer size.
  • "rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2/$KEY": Replace $KEY with the stream key you obtained earlier.

Running the Stream

  1. Save the shell script and make it executable using the command chmod +x script.sh.

  2. Execute the script by running ./script.sh in the terminal.

Conclusion

By following these steps and running the provided shell script, you should be able to create an endless video stream on platforms like YouTube or Twitch. Remember to replace the necessary values, such as the stream key and video file, to suit your specific setup.

Note: Please ensure that you have the ffmpeg command-line tool installed on your system before running the script.

Tags: streaming, video, YouTube, Twitch