Your stream is only as good as your internet connection. Here are our recommendations and best practices for configuring your network for livestreaming.
Upload Speed
You should ideally be streaming over an Ethernet connection on a dedicated (unshared) network. Network speeds fluctuate constantly depending on numerous factors, so be sure to test your upload speed frequently.
In terms of your encoder's outgoing bitrate, you should set it to much lower than your available upload speed in order to allow for network fluctuations. Keep in mind there are other factors that come into play when producing a stable stream such as firewalls and network congestion.
2000kbps can produce a 720p stream whereas 5000kbps is the maximum bitrate we recommend for a 1080p stream. If you are streaming with a bitrate significantly less than 2000kbps, your stream may appear pixelated or experience lag.
Regardless of your network strength, you should make sure to always record your stream locally. Many software encoders offer this feature, or you can record directly onto a camera.
A note regarding bonded streaming: We often get asked if it's possible to stream over a bonded network (i.e. two or more different networks carrying the same stream). This workflow requires the ingest server to accept a signal from both networks in the bonded group. Vimeo is not currently configured this way and so at this time, all streams must be sent over a single network.
Firewall configuration
If you are having issues starting a stream to Vimeo, especially if you are on a corporate network (office, convention center, hotel, school. etc.), you or your IT team may need to check to see if Firewall ports are blocked.
For example, if you attempt to stream to a one-time event via the browser and notice that the preview player is blank and the Go live button is grayed out, this is often related to Firewalls. On external encoders, an error message immediately upon trying to start the stream, or a blank preview player and gray "Go Live" button when the stream preview is enabled could indicate a Firewall issue as well.
All encoders use various internet ports to communicate with Vimeo Live, all of which need to be made open to both incoming and outgoing communication.
These ports are:
- TCP 1935
- TCP 80
- TCP 443
- UDP 53
In addition, if you are using your browser to connect your webcam on a one-time event or have stream preview enabled for an external encoder, you will need to allow the following ports to communicate via WebRTC between your computer and our servers.
- TCP/UDP 3478
- TCP/UDP 19305-19307
- TCP/UDP 19307 50000 - 64000
Ports 1935, 80, and 443 represent RTMP, HTTP, and HTTPS respectively. Many corporate and academic networks’ security policies will block UDP 53, as it provides DNS.
UDP 2088 should be open when broadcasting from Mevo (iOS and Android). If any of these are blocked, you may want to get in touch with your network administrator or IT prior to proceeding further with setup.
Whitelist Domains
If your corporate network restricts access to certain websites or domains, ensure the following domains are whitelisted in order to communicate with Vimeo and its CDN.
- *.vimeo.com
- *.vimeocdn.com
- *.google.com
- *.pndsn.com
- *.googleapis.com
- *.firebaseio.com