Stream Tools Docs

Setup and guides for broadcast and live rooms.

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Broadcast

Stream tools

Set up creator live rooms, stream keys, replay defaults, and broadcast handoffs without digging through settings.

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Overview

Stream tools are the in-browser broadcast workspace for creators on Aethera. There’s nothing to install — you broadcast from OBS (or any RTMP encoder) into Aethera, and manage everything from the website. They’re spread across three connected surfaces:

  • Stream Tools (/stream-tools.html) — your credentials, the go-live wizard, the OBS profile, ingest health, and a chat pop-out.
  • Live control room (/live-control-room.html) — live health monitoring, chat moderation, overlay design, and the post-stream handoff.
  • Studio → Live (/dashboard?panel=live) — your stream key, replay defaults, and quick links into the tools above.

Stream tools require you to be signed in. The only thing you download is an OBS profile to skip manual setup.

Getting started

The Go live wizard on the Stream Tools page walks you through setup before you broadcast. Its four steps:

  1. Confirm your ingest URL and stream key (in the Stream credentials section).
  2. Import the OBS profile and choose your scene.
  3. Run an ingest health check to confirm the edge is ready.
  4. Open the chat pop-out for moderation on a second screen.

Import the OBS profile

  1. Click Download profile to get aethera-obs-profile.zip.
  2. Unzip it into your OBS profiles directory (on Windows: %APPDATA%\obs-studio\basic\profiles).
  3. In OBS, select the Aethera-RTMP profile and paste your current stream key. Video and encoder settings already match the ingest defaults.

Suggested encoder settings are shown on the page: a 720p30 starter (3000–4500 kbps video, 2-second keyframes, 160 kbps AAC) and a 1080p60 high-motion profile (6000–9000 kbps, 2-second keyframes, 192 kbps AAC).

Stream credentials & keys

Your RTMP server and stream key appear in the Stream credentials section (and in Studio → Live). Copy them into OBS.

  • Your stream key is shown only once. Copy it into OBS right away — it isn’t displayed again after you leave the page, and existing keys can’t be recovered.
  • Rotate to replace it. Use Rotate key to generate a fresh one-time key. Rotation requires step-up security: you’ll be asked for your 6-digit authenticator code, so set up an authenticator app first if you haven’t.
  • Rotate if a key leaks. Rotating immediately invalidates the previous key; reconnect OBS with the new one.
  • Keys are stored hashed on the server — never in plain text.

Going live & ingest health

  • Check ingest first. In the Ingest health section, click Run check to confirm the RTMP edge is reachable before you start OBS. It reports online/offline, uptime, total bytes in/out, and how many live sessions are active.
  • Start streaming from OBS once ingest is healthy and your key is in place.
  • Monitor the broadcast in the Live control room, where Stream health polls ingest, playback, bitrate, viewers, and last-segment age every 15 seconds.
  • Track your setup with the Setup status tiles (Credentials, OBS, Ingest, Diagnostics, Chat), which show how many of the go-live steps are complete.

Replays & handoffs

When a stream ends, Aethera automatically archives the broadcast as a replay (an MP4 named with your channel and the stream’s date and time).

  • Set the default visibility in Studio → Live under New replay visibility — Public, Unpublished, or Private — then Save replay default. It decides where auto-saved replays land after each stream; new replays fall back to Public if you don’t change it.
  • Finish up in the handoff. The Live control room’s Post-stream handoff lets you set the replay title and visibility, upload a thumbnail, review your stream markers, and cut highlight clips.
  • Turn markers into clips. Use stream markers as starting points and Create replay clip with a start time and duration (5–900 seconds).

“Handoff” here means the post-stream wrap-up — finalizing the replay and cutting highlights — not passing the broadcast to another host.

Moderation & overlays

  • Chat pop-out. From Stream Tools, Open pop-out launches a compact chat-only window (420×720) for a second screen.
  • Chat moderation. In the Live control room, set slow mode (0–120s), blocked words, and toggles for emote-only, members-only, followers-only, and auto-block-links. Time out or ban users from the same panel.
  • Overlay preview. Design a lower-third (title, subtitle, accent color) for your OBS browser source and preview it live.

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