Larix Broadcaster mobile streaming from Android to Nimble Streamer

In this article we are going to show how to create video streaming from Android based mobile device via Larix Broadcaster. Larix Broadcaster is a free mobile application which can stream live video or/and audio to media server via RTSP, RTMP and SRT protocols. For our example, we will use Nimble Streamer because it is free and powerful media server with rich set of documentation.

Visit Larix documentation reference to see more articles about app setup.

Please also visit Larix Broadcaster web page for full feature set description.

To launch the live steaming from a mobile device via Larix Broadcaster you need to perform several steps:

1. Install Larix Broadcaster on your mobile device;
2. Install Nimble Streamer and make necessary settings;
3. Specify published URL in Larix Broadcaster;
4. Open output stream from the media server and check that everything works fine.

Install Larix Broadcaster application

Install  Larix Broadcaster from Google Play.

Run the app and allow access to your camera, microphone and file system by pressing the "Accept" button. Application will be installed in a few seconds.
When you launch Larix Broadcaster you will see preview window with settings gear button (marker with arrow blow), "Broadcast" big red button and a few others.
See the screenshots below.

Install Nimble Streamer

Nimble Streamer can be installed on all popular Linux distributions - Ubuntu, Debian, RedHat and CentOS. For rapid deployment and periodical updates the batch installation is used. There are separate installers for Windows and Mac OS X.

For more details about Nimble Streamer installation visit this page. You need to sign up WMSPanel account before starting the installation.

Now lets proceed to Nimble Streamer setup.

Setting up transmux RTSP stream to HLS and RTMP

Log in to wmspanel.com and go to "Nimble Streamer" -> "Live stream settings". Check the HLS and RTMP checkboxes in "General" tab and then press the "Save" button. You may specify Push login and Push password to protect you connection with mobile device. This login and password will be used in Larix Broadcaster settings.

Go to "Interfaces" tab and press "Add RTSP interface" button.

Secify the port number in appeared dialog (this port number will be used in Larix Broadcaster settings). Select your media server and press the "Save" button.

If you'd like to avoid publishing from un-authorized sources, you need to set up login and password which you may then use in this app. Go to Global tab to set up server-wide credentials or create application-specific credentials. Refer to this article for basic workflow setup.

So the basic Nimble Streamer configuration to work with Larix Broadcaster is completed. Proceed to configure mobile application.

Configure Larix Broadcaster application

Launch the Larix Broadcaster application on your mobile device and press settings gear button. You'll see setup screen.

Choose Connections then click on New connection to enter URL setup dialog.

Use the streaming URL which you got during the server setup

rtsp://192.168.5.5:554/live/stream

For RTMP it will be

rtmp://192.168.5.5:1935/live/stream

If you have username and password, enter then in Login and Password fields.

Press "Ok" button to save your settings.

You can check Larix documentation reference to see other options of creating streaming URL.

Now return to mobile application and press big red button button (make sure, that your mobile device has network connection, e,g, wi-fi).

Check the streaming

Log in to WMSPanel. Go to "Nimble Streamer" -> "Live streams" and click on the number under the "Outgoing streams" column.

Then click on the Question sign in the stream name row.

The video playback from mobile device starts automatically in the appeared dialog. By default the most popular streaming protocol (HLS) is used for video playback. HLS is supported by the most modern mobile devices. However it has a quite long latency (about 6 seconds). If you need to playback video with minimum possible latency, please use RTMP protocol. To configure minimum latency please read the "Nimble Streamer performance tuning" article.

Also you can play streaming URL with system player (e.g. VLC).

You can broadcast live video and/or audio from your mobile device via Larix Broadcaster to your web page, YouTube live or any other CDN.

Larix premium SDK

If you'd like to create similar Android app capable of media streaming, you can use our mobile broadcasting library and SDK which is the core of Larix Broadcaster. You will get Larix source code and a library for further UI customization.

Take a look at our instructions for streaming to YoutTube Live and streaming to Facebook Live.

Visit our documentation reference page for more Larix setup information.

Mobile delivery example

Take a look at our Mobile to mobile snapshot which shows the example of using Softvelum products for building mobile streaming and playback network.

Please contact us if you have any problems with installation.

Related documentation

Larix Broadcaster, Installing Nimble Streamer, Transmux RTSP to HLS, RTMP, DASH and more via Nimble Streamer