Streaming to Social Networks
Once in the room, moving your mouse in the VideoCafe window will show the “bottom bar” buttons.
Open the Mirroring Controls Window by clicking on the “Mirror room to outside service” button:
In this window, you may stream a copy of your VideoCafe session simultaneously to one or more third party services like Facebook, YouTube, or Twitch. You may also stream to an unlisted third-party service by entering their “RTMP” URL and Key information. Lastly, you may record your session to VideoCafe’s servers, and even make that recording your Broadcast stream.
Stream to Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch
To stream to these services, you must first sign into the service. For example, to stream to YouTube, click on the YouTube button:
The “Sign in with Google” page will appear in a new window. Select your account and follow the prompts.
Once successful, the new window will show that the sign in is complete.
Close this new window and return to the Mirroring Controls Window. Note that the mirroring controls window shows that you are authenticated in YouTube, and an “Add” button has appeared on the right side of the YouTube row:
You may sign in to the other listed third-party services using the same steps.
Configure Custom RTMP Streaming
If you wish to stream to destinations other than Facebook, YouTube and Twitch, you will need to add that destination’s RTMP streaming URL and keys.
Start Streaming
Once you have signed in to all of the third-party services that you want to stream to, click on the Add button for each service. You may select as many as you like.
As you click on Add for each service, you will briefly see that the stream is being set up:
And then that it is waiting for you to start streaming to it:
To start streaming to the selected third-party services, click on the “Stream to All” button at the top of the mirroring controls window:
A specific Window:
Or a tab in your browser.
For most cases, you will want to select from the tabs in your browser. Choose the tab named for your room. The correct tab will just have the room name, and won’t have any additional text after the room name. Note, depending on how many browser tabs you have, you may need to scroll the list up and down to find it.
When you select the tab, you will see a thumbnail of the tab, allowing you to confirm your selection. Click on the “Share” button once you have the correct tab selected.
All of your browser tabs will show a reminder at the top that you are sharing one of the tabs. The VideoCafe page will also show a highlighted border around the VideoCafe room to show that this is the area being shared. The rest of the browser page, including the URL bar, shortcut bar, etc. is not shared.
The Mirroring Controls Window now shows a “Change Source” button, an “All Stop” button, and the name of the tab that you are sharing (in this case, @documentationroom). Additionally, there are buttons to show or hide the VideoCafe Navbar (the control bar at the top of the VideoCafe room) in case you want to stream to the third-party services without those controls being visible. Also, a Stop button appears to the right of any third third-party services that were started:
Change Source – Clicking on this button will reopen the window asking you to choose what to share to the third-party service, allowing you to change what you are sharing on-the-fly.
All Stop – Stops all recordings and live streams.
Hide UI – If you are sharing a browser tab of the VideoCafe session, clicking on the Hide Navbar button will hide the VideoCafe Navigation Bar (the bar at the top of the VideoCafe page). Clicking the Show Navbar button will unhide the Navigation Bar.
