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Test Your Network

Two things are essential to a successful broadcast: verifying you are live and broadcasting the highest quality video. Follow these steps to confirm you are ready to go live and stay live throughout your broadcast.

Table of Contents

Pre-Production Checks

The most important thing you can do is verify your setup significantly ahead of the event. Check these things when you first arrive on location:

  1. Run a network test through Production Truck. (Production Truck will automatically run a network test when opened.)

    Production Truck will automatically run a network test when opened.

  2. View your test results in the Network tab of Production Truck preferences.

    Run multiple tests to ensure results are consistent.

  3. These are the necessary speeds for quality streaming:

    • 1080p with transcoding – 4.0 Mbps (upload speed should be 8.0 Mbps or higher)
    • 720p with transcoding - 2.5 Mbps (upload speed should be 5.0 Mbps or higher)
    • 720p with transcoding - 2.0 Mbps (upload speed should be 4.0 Mbps or higher)
    • 720p without transcoding – 1.8 Mbps (upload speed should be 3.6 Mbps or higher)
    • 360p without transcoding - 1.0 Mbps (upload speed should be 2.0 Mbps or higher)

    A test within Production Truck may yield different results from a standard browser test due to Production Truck's test sending actual data to our servers.

  4. Create and run a 10-20 minute test broadcast while on the network you’ll use during the event. If you're streaming through BlueFrame, you can set the broadcast section to Test, and that will prevent the broadcast from publicly broadcasting.

Troubleshooting

What if a Network Test fails?

  • Ensure your device's operating system and Production truck version are up-to-date.
  • Enable the RTMP Port 80 setting (if BlueFrame is streaming service being used) and run the test again.
  • Try a different network connection.
  • Ensure the network doesn’t have any blockages.

Refer to Network QOS Settings and Port Openings for network blockages.

Common Failure Points:

  • If your broadcast fails to start you may be blocked by the network. Talk with someone from the IT department at the location. If you’re streaming through the BlueFrame streaming service, you can also try enabling RTMP Tunneling under the Network section in the A/V Settings.
  • If you start to see the yellow or red warning message, your network may not be fast enough to handle the current quality that your plan is set to. This could also be caused by the network throttling your speed down due to the network being suspicious of your connection.

Production Truck has a built-in feature called Test Mode. With every broadcast, you're first required to go into Test Mode to ensure that everything is working ahead of going live. Being in Test mimics the live experience (sending your video to the BlueFrame servers) but it is not public yet. You’ll see a “Pre-Broadcast Test” watermark across the center of the video to remind you that this is only a test, not live. There is no minimum amount of time that you need to be in Test Mode, but we recommend at least 5-10 minutes. When you're ready, click on the Live button to transition to live.

Production Truck Messaging

Production Truck offers messaging to help you be aware of the current status of your broadcast:

Broadcast Status

The current Production Truck status is indicated at the bottom of Production Truck. Messages will progress through these stages: Pre-Broadcast Streaming Started -> Stream Count Down -> Transitioning to Live -> Verifying Live -> Streaming Started

Your broadcast will go live while Production Truck is in the Transitioning to Live stage.

The timer above the video will start over at 0:00 and begin counting up once you are live.

The timer will remain yellow from test mode and turn green when Production Truck has verified the broadcast is live; however, you should consider yourself live as soon as it restarts.

Timer

The timer is the best way to verify your broadcast has started. If the timer is not ticking up, you are not live.

Warning

A yellow or red triangle will appear to the left of the Overlay button when a network issue is encountered. Hover your mouse over the triangle to view more detailed information about the issue.

  • If it’s a network issue, you'll be told how many seconds behind live you are. Production Truck is capable of recovering from small network issues, so don't worry if you are 20 or 30 seconds behind live. If your network connection recovers, Production Truck will as well.
  • If you're at 150 seconds or more behind live, your internet speed may have dropped significantly or completely. Run a speed test to check your speed.
  • Production Truck will try to stay live for as long as it can. However, if you reach ~300 seconds behind live, Production Truck may kill the stream as it isn’t able to keep up. Again, run a speed test to check your speed.
vCloud Verification

Before the broadcast: Another way to confirm your broadcast's status and quality is to check it yourself. This is an especially important step when you’re running a test broadcast or in Test Mode before your broadcast. If you’re in test mode, you can log in to vCloud, click on the broadcast grid and go to the ( i ) button next to your broadcast. This will allow you to watch and listen to the broadcast.

During the broadcast: Once you go live, check the broadcast by clicking on the “View in normal player” link. This will let you watch the broadcast as a normal viewer with the Network ID and any ads that accompany your video.

Checking your broadcast by watching as a normal viewer will give you confidence that the broadcast is available and working for the public.