Table of content

Live Streaming

Our API allows you to create and manage live events on the Dailymotion platform as well as run advertisements and recordings on the content you are broadcasting.

Please note that you need to be a Dailymotion Partner to access this feature.

Publish a live stream

On Dailymotion, a video is considered as a live stream when its mode is set to live.

For all operations regarding live streaming (and in general, video) management, you need to request an access token with the manage_videos scope. Check out the authentication guide for details on how you can request an access token with this scope from your user during the authentication step.

The following steps will get you started with streaming live content.

1. Create a live stream

Since a live stream is based on a video, you can either create a new video with mode set to live, or use an existing one.

To create a new video, make a POST HTTP request on https://api.dailymotion.com/videos containing at least the following three mandatory parameters:


						


			curl --request POST \
     --header "Authorization: Bearer ${ACCESS_TOKEN}" \
     --form 'mode=live' \
     --form 'published=true' \
     --form 'channel=<CHANNEL>' \
     "https://api.dailymotion.com/videos"

Note that you can fill in the title, description and any other field just as you would do for any kind of video.

Otherwise, you can use an existing video as a placeholder and transform this video into a live stream by setting the mode field to live.


						


			curl --request POST \
     --header "Authorization: Bearer ${ACCESS_TOKEN}" \
     --form 'mode=live' \
     "https://api.dailymotion.com/video/${VIDEO_ID}"

2. Schedule your live event

Schedule your live event by using either the start_time and end_time fields, or start_time combined with duration. You can also plan to stream your live event on a regular basis by using the recurrence field. Note that a recurrence can only be applied if the live stream has both a start date and a duration.


						


			curl --request POST \
     --header "Authorization: Bearer ${ACCESS_TOKEN}" \
     --form 'start_time=${START_TIME}' \
     --form 'end_time=${END_TIME}' \
     "https://api.dailymotion.com/video/${VIDEO_ID}"

Note: this step can be performed together with step 2, in a single HTTP request.

3. Start streaming

Everything is now ready, you can start streaming your content to our servers. Perform a GET HTTP request on your video asking for the live_publish_url field to retrieve the RTMP URL to feed your encoder.


						


			curl --header "Authorization: Bearer ${ACCESS_TOKEN}" \
     --form 'fields=live_publish_url' \
     "https://api.dailymotion.com/video/${VIDEO_ID}"

This field returns an RTMP url containing both stream url and stream key divided as below:

RTMP URL example	rtmp://publish.dailymotion.com/publish-dm/x1a2b3c?auth=x1cg_588354a7718b9bc1eccfbf9ce62a675714149291
Stream URL part	rtmp://publish.dailymotion.com/publish-dm
Stream Key part	x1a2b3c?auth=x1cg_588354a7718b9bc1eccfbf9ce62a675714149291

Useful fields and filters for managing a live stream

The following list details some fields and filters of the video object that you may want to use when broadcasting your event and managing your live stream. For more information about those fields, filters and others, please check the API Reference or click on any of these fields.

Fields:

Filters:

Launch a commercial break

During a live event, a broadcaster can launch a commercial break with up to 10 commercials. When the commercial break is triggered, all viewers will simultaneously receive mid-roll advertising in their player, composed of one or several ads depending on the input number.

To launch a commercial break, you need to authenticate and request an access token with the manage_videos scope. Then, issue a POST HTTP request to https://api.dailymotion.com/video/<VIDEO_ID> with the live_ad_break_launch field set to the number of advertisments you want to display.


						


			curl --request POST \
    --header "Authorization: Bearer ${ACCESS_TOKEN}" \
    --form 'live_ad_break_launch=1' \
    "https://api.dailymotion.com/video/${VIDEO_ID}"

You may be interested in the live_ad_break_end_time field that lets you know the estimated time of the end of the commercial break.)

Recordings

Dailymotion also enables you to record a live stream and create a video out of it. The recorded video will be available at the end of the live event as a VoD on Dailymotion.

You can set up a manual record (start/stop record) or activate an auto-record option. The recorded video inherits metadata from the live event it is recorded from.

Start/Stop a manual recording

To set up or stop a recording, you have to use the record_status field on the video object. Make a POST HTTP request on https://api.dailymotion.com/video/<LIVE_VIDEO_ID> using record_status=started or record_status=stopped depending on if you what to start or stop recording this live event.


						


			curl --request POST  \
     --header "Authorization: Bearer <ACCESS_TOKEN>" \
     --form 'record_status=started' \
     "https://api.dailymotion.com/video/<LIVE_VIDEO_ID>?fields=id,record_status"

This call returns:


						


			{
     "id": <LIVE_VIDEO_ID>,
     "record_status": "starting"
}

Activate the auto-record feature

If you want your live event to be automatically recorded, you can toggle the live_auto_record field to true. Make a POST HTTP request on https://api.dailymotion.com/video/<LIVE_VIDEO_ID> setting live_auto_record=true (or to false if you want to unset the auto-recording feature).


						


			curl --request POST \
     --header "Authorization: Bearer <ACCESS_TOKEN>" \
     --form 'live_auto_record=true' \
     "https://api.dailymotion.com/video/<LIVE_VIDEO_ID>?fields=id,live_auto_record"