Secondary input for improved redundancy

Our platform allows two inputs for each live-stream: a primary and secondary.

The secondary input allows a second copy of the live-stream to be pushed into our platform. Should there be an outage on the primary input, we switch to the secondary input until the primary is restored. This can happen transparently without disconnecting current listeners, if the right setup is used.

Important notes

• The sample rates and formats of the two streams must be the same. If they are different it may cause clients to disconnect when switching between the streams.
• Bitrates between may be different without causing disconnects.
• It is not possible to precisely control the switch-over time, but ussually happens within a few seconds.
• Loudness levels between the two streams should be matched to improve the listener experience.

Setting up secondary input

• Customers can order additional stream capture hardware from us, pre-configured to push into the secondary input.
• Customers can configure their own hardware or software to push into the secondary input. Our support team can provide you with the specific details to set this up, but typically will use all the same details ass the primary input endpoint, with a different mount point name: /<id>_fallback.aac

Secondary input requirements

• In order for the secondary to work seamlessly during outages, it is required to match the encoding settings of the primary input.
• This include the same codec, sample rate and number of channels (stereo/mono).
• The bitrate may be different from primary, allowing for a lower quality stream to be used as a secondary.

Recommendations

• Having redundant hardware in place can eliminate outages should the capture hardware fail. However, a large source of outages are intermittent issues on the ISP layer. It is highly recommended to configure the secondary to use a secondary ISP.
• If the location and budget allows it, ideally a completely different physical connection should also be used to provide the highest level of reliability.