Red5 Cloud Quick Start: Stream via WHIP, RTMP, or SRT

Red5 Cloud supports four ingest protocols. Pick the tab that matches your encoder or workflow and follow the steps to publish your first live stream. All four paths share the same starting point: a configured Red5 Cloud account with an active deployment.

If you have not yet created your account, complete account setup first. Deployment provisioning takes up to 20 minutes, so start that process before returning here.

WebRTC (WHIP)
RTMP
SRT
Zixi

WebRTC via WHIP gives you the lowest possible latency — under 500 ms end-to-end. OBS Studio 30+ supports WHIP natively, making it the simplest path to get started.Prerequisites

An active Red5 Cloud deployment
OBS Studio installed and configured with a video source

Get your WHIP publishing endpoint

In the Red5 Cloud console, open your deployment and go to the Pub/Sub Details page. Copy the WHIP Publishing Endpoint URL. It will look similar to:

https://rc-userid-abcdefg1234.cloud.red5.net/whip/endpoint/live/mystream

Configure OBS Studio — Stream settings

Open OBS Studio and go to File → Settings → Stream.

Service: WHIP
Server: paste your WHIP Publishing Endpoint URL
Bearer Token: leave blank

Configure OBS Studio — Output settings

Go to Settings → Output, set Output Mode to Advanced, and select the Streaming tab.

Setting	Value
Audio Encoder	FFmpeg Opus
Video Encoder	x264 (or NVENC if you have a GPU)
Rescale Output	Disabled
Rate Control	VBR
Keyframe Interval	2s
CPU Usage Preset	veryfast
Profile	baseline
Tune	zerolatency

Setting Tune to zerolatency prevents x264 from adding an internal buffer, which keeps your end-to-end latency as low as possible.

Click OK to save.

Start streaming

Click Start Streaming in OBS. Check the status bar at the bottom right — a green indicator means you are connected and broadcasting.

Embed a player

Copy the Embedded Player code from the Pub/Sub Details page of your deployment and paste it into an HTML file on your web server:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
    <title>Red5 Player Embed</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <iframe
      frameBorder="0"
      allow="camera https://red5pro.github.io; microphone https://red5pro.github.io;"
      src="https://red5pro.github.io/red5pro-webrtc-sdk?host=rc-userid-abcdefg1234.cloud.red5.net&app=live&stream_name=mystream&api_version=v1&node_group=default&mode=sub">
    </iframe>
  </body>
</html>

Open the file in a browser. You should see your live stream playing back with sub-500ms latency.

RTMP is the most widely supported ingest protocol and works with virtually every encoder, hardware device, and streaming platform. Use it when you need broad compatibility or when WebRTC is not an option.Prerequisites

An active Red5 Cloud deployment
OBS Studio installed and configured with a video source

Get your RTMP publishing endpoint

In the Red5 Cloud console, open your deployment and go to the Pub/Sub Details page. Copy the RTMP Publish Endpoint URL. It will look similar to:

rtmp://rc-userid-abcdefg1234.cloud.red5.net/live/mystream

Note the stream name at the end of the URL — you will need to separate it in the next step.

Configure OBS Studio — Stream settings

Open OBS Studio and go to File → Settings → Stream.

Service: Custom…
Server: the RTMP endpoint URL up to (but not including) the stream name, e.g. rtmp://rc-userid-abcdefg1234.cloud.red5.net/live
Stream Key: the stream name from the end of the endpoint, e.g. mystream

OBS requires the stream name to be in the Stream Key field separately from the server URL. Cut everything after the last / from the endpoint and paste it into Stream Key.

Configure OBS Studio — Output settings

Go to Settings → Output, set Output Mode to Advanced, and select the Streaming tab.

Setting	Value
Audio Encoder	FFmpeg AAC
Video Encoder	x264
Rescale Output	Disabled
Rate Control	VBR
Keyframe Interval	2s
CPU Usage Preset	veryfast
Profile	baseline
Tune	zerolatency

Click OK to save.

Start streaming

Click Start Streaming in OBS. A green status indicator at the bottom right confirms a successful connection.

Embed a player

Copy the Embedded Player code from the Pub/Sub Details page and paste it into an HTML file on your web server:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
    <title>Red5 Player Embed</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <iframe
      frameBorder="0"
      allow="camera https://red5pro.github.io; microphone https://red5pro.github.io;"
      src="https://red5pro.github.io/red5pro-webrtc-sdk?host=rc-userid-abcdefg1234.cloud.red5.net&app=live&stream_name=mystream&api_version=v1&node_group=default&mode=sub">
    </iframe>
  </body>
</html>

Open the file in a browser to confirm playback.

SRT (Secure Reliable Transport) is designed for reliable, low-latency streaming over unpredictable or lossy networks such as the public internet or satellite links. It provides better resilience than RTMP without the overhead of Zixi licensing.Prerequisites

An active Red5 Cloud deployment
OBS Studio installed and configured with a video source

Create an SRT stream in Red5 Cloud

In the Red5 Cloud console, navigate to the Streams page and click New Stream.

Protocol: SRT
Click Add Stream.

On the stream properties panel that opens:

Click the link icon to copy the base SRT URL.
Copy the stream name shown on the panel.
Append /live/ and the stream name to the base URL to form the full SRT URL, for example:

srt://rc-userid-abcdefg1234.cloud.red5.net:10100?streamid=../live/streamlistener10100

Click Close.

Configure OBS Studio — Stream settings

Open OBS Studio and go to File → Settings → Stream.

Service: Custom…
Server: paste the full SRT URL you assembled above
Bearer Token: leave blank

Configure OBS Studio — Output settings

Go to Settings → Output, set Output Mode to Advanced, and select the Streaming tab.

Setting	Value
Audio Encoder	FFmpeg AAC
Video Encoder	x264
Rescale Output	Disabled
Rate Control	VBR
Keyframe Interval	2s
CPU Usage Preset	veryfast
Profile	baseline
Tune	zerolatency

Click OK to save.

Start streaming

Click Start Streaming in OBS. Confirm the green status indicator in the OBS status bar. Back in the Red5 Cloud console, the stream status on the Streams page will update to LIVE.

Embed a player

Copy the Embedded Player code from the Pub/Sub Details page. Update the stream_name parameter to match your SRT stream name (e.g. streamlistener10100), then add it to an HTML file on your web server:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
    <title>Red5 Player Embed</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <iframe
      frameBorder="0"
      allow="camera https://red5pro.github.io; microphone https://red5pro.github.io;"
      src="https://red5pro.github.io/red5pro-webrtc-sdk?host=rc-userid-abcdefg1234.cloud.red5.net&app=live&stream_name=streamlistener10100&api_version=v1&node_group=default&mode=sub">
    </iframe>
  </body>
</html>

The default Embedded Player example uses stream_name=mystream. For SRT streams, replace that value with the actual SRT stream name shown in your Red5 Cloud console.

Open the file in a browser to confirm playback.

Zixi provides broadcast-grade reliability and error correction for contribution workflows. Use it when you need to ingest from a Zixi Broadcaster encoder over untrusted networks.Prerequisites

An active Red5 Cloud deployment
Zixi Broadcaster installed and running (register for an evaluation at portal.zixi.com)
OBS Studio installed and configured with a video source
Your Zixi Broadcaster machine must have a publicly reachable IP address (configure port forwarding if behind a firewall)

Create an RTMP input in Zixi Broadcaster

Open the Zixi Broadcaster web UI and go to the INPUTS page.

Click + New Input.
Select RTMP as the input type.
Enter a Stream ID (for example, stream1).
Click OK.

Configure OBS Studio to push to Zixi Broadcaster

Open OBS Studio and go to File → Settings → Stream.

Service: Custom…
Server: rtmp://127.0.0.1:1935/live
Stream Key: stream1 (the Stream ID you set in Zixi Broadcaster)

Go to Settings → Output, set Output Mode to Advanced, and configure the Streaming tab:

Setting	Value
Audio Encoder	FFmpeg AAC
Video Encoder	x264
Rescale Output	Disabled
Rate Control	VBR
Keyframe Interval	2s
CPU Usage Preset	veryfast
Profile	baseline
Tune	zerolatency

Click OK, then click Start Streaming. Confirm the green status in OBS and verify that Zixi Broadcaster shows a green Connected indicator on its INPUTS page.

Configure a Zixi stream in Red5 Cloud

You need the external (public) IP address of your Zixi Broadcaster machine for this step.In the Red5 Cloud console, go to the Streams page and click New Stream.

Protocol: ZIXI
Zixi URI: zixi://<YourZixiBroadcasterPublicIP>:2077/stream1
Click Add Stream.

Red5 Cloud connects to your Zixi Broadcaster from the internet. If your Zixi Broadcaster is behind a NAT or firewall, you must configure port forwarding for port 2077 before this step will succeed.

After a few seconds, the Streams page shows a green indicator and LIVE status. Zixi Broadcaster also shows a green Connected indicator on its OUTPUT tab.

Embed a player

Copy the Embedded Player code from the Pub/Sub Details page of your deployment. Update stream_name to match your Zixi stream name (e.g. stream1), then add the code to an HTML file on your web server:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
    <title>Red5 Player Embed</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <iframe
      frameBorder="0"
      allow="camera https://red5pro.github.io; microphone https://red5pro.github.io;"
      src="https://red5pro.github.io/red5pro-webrtc-sdk?host=rc-userid-abcdefg1234.cloud.red5.net&app=live&stream_name=stream1&api_version=v1&node_group=default&mode=sub">
    </iframe>
  </body>
</html>

Open the file in a browser to confirm playback.

Protocol comparison

Not sure which protocol to use? Use this table to choose.

Protocol	Latency	Best for	Encoder requirement
WebRTC (WHIP)	< 500 ms	Interactive, real-time use cases	OBS 30+ or any WHIP-compatible encoder
RTMP	2–5 s	Broadest device and platform compatibility	Any RTMP encoder (OBS, hardware encoders, etc.)
SRT	1–3 s	Reliable ingest over lossy or high-latency networks	OBS, FFmpeg, or any SRT-capable encoder
Zixi	1–3 s	Broadcast contribution workflows requiring error correction	Zixi Broadcaster (license required)

Next steps

Deployments & configuration

Add regions, tune publisher and subscriber limits, and configure transcoding for your deployment.

Encoding settings

Find the right video bitrate, resolution, and framerate for your stream quality requirements.

​Protocol comparison

​Next steps

Deployments & configuration

Encoding settings

Protocol comparison

Next steps