Introduction
A CDN HTTP Live service is the delivery part of your live streaming workflow. It takes a live stream that has already entered CDNsun through a Publishing Point and makes it available to viewers through CDNsun over HTTP or HTTPS.
This means the Publishing Point and the CDN HTTP Live service have different roles. The Publishing Point is where the source stream is received, whether that source is pulled from your side or pushed to ours. The CDN HTTP Live service then takes that ingested stream and delivers it to your audience through your CDN service domain. Keeping those roles separate makes the setup easier to understand and easier to reuse.
How the service works
The workflow usually has two simple steps. First, you create a Publishing Point and use it to define how the live source enters CDNsun. Second, you create a CDN HTTP Live service and select that Publishing Point as the Origin Publishing Point. After that, viewers no longer connect to the origin directly. Instead, they use the CDN service domain, and CDNsun handles delivery through its network.
In practice, you can think about the setup like this: the Publishing Point handles ingest, and the CDN HTTP Live service handles playback delivery. Because those two layers are separate, you can reuse one Publishing Point for more than one delivery service when needed, for example if you want different delivery domains or different delivery configurations for the same source stream.
- Publishing Point - the ingest layer where CDNsun receives the source stream.
- CDN HTTP Live service - the delivery layer that distributes the ingested stream to viewers.
- CDN Service Domain - the domain name used by the player or audience for playback.
Create a Publishing Point
Before you create the CDN HTTP Live service, create a Publishing Point.
If you are still deciding which input method to use, start with the Publishing Point documentation. That page explains the difference between pull and push, and between HLS and RTMP. In short, pull means CDNsun fetches the source from your side, while push means your encoder or origin sends the source stream to CDNsun.
Before you create the service
It helps to have a few things clear before you begin. You should already know which Publishing Point will feed the service, and you should already have the domain name you want to use for playback. If you work with multiple live inputs, take a moment to verify that you are attaching the correct source to the correct delivery service.
- Make sure your Publishing Point already exists and uses the input method that matches your workflow.
- Prepare the CDN Service Domain you want to use for playback.
- Decide which Publishing Point should act as the Origin Publishing Point for this service.
If you need background on service domains and service identifiers, refer to this explanation.
Create a CDN HTTP Live service
Once the Publishing Point is ready, creating the delivery service is straightforward. You define the playback domain, connect the service to the correct Publishing Point, and then follow the generated integration instructions.
- Go to Services/New Service/HTTP Live.
- Enter your CDN Service Domain. This is the domain name that will be used for stream delivery.
- Select the Origin Publishing Point that should feed the service.
- Click the Create Service button.
- After the service is created, open the generated integration how-to page and follow the provided DNS and playback instructions.
How to choose the Origin Publishing Point
In most cases, the correct Origin Publishing Point is simply the one already receiving the live source that you want to distribute. If your source enters CDNsun through a specific Publishing Point, select that same Publishing Point here. The CDN HTTP Live service does not ingest the stream by itself, it relies on the Publishing Point you attach to it.
The choice mainly depends on the kind of source workflow you already have:
- Use an HLS Pull or HLS Push Publishing Point when the source already exists as HLS or DASH files.
- Use an RTMP Push Publishing Point when your live encoder publishes directly to CDNsun.
- Use an RTMP Pull Publishing Point when your RTMP source stays on your side and CDNsun should pull it.
If you are ever unsure, start by asking a simpler question: where does the live stream currently live, and who starts the connection? The answer usually tells you which Publishing Point should be attached.
Operational notes
The following points are useful when planning how the service will behave in production:
- You can use the same Publishing Point for multiple CDN HTTP Live services.
- You can stream multiple streams, determined by different stream names, through a single CDN HTTP Live service.
- The CDN HTTP Live service delivers content via all our CDN locations, providing broader global coverage than the CDN Live service, which uses only our streaming CDN locations.
- Except for RTMP Push, the CDN HTTP Live service does not transcode a single-bitrate origin stream into a multi-bitrate CDN stream. In those cases, the CDN stream is delivered at the same bitrate as the origin stream.
- For RTMP Push, the CDN HTTP Live service can transcode a single-bitrate RTMP origin stream into a multi-bitrate HLS CDN stream.
- If you want adaptive or multi-bitrate delivery without RTMP Push transcoding, publish multiple origin streams and build the multi-bitrate stream from those inputs. Read more about multi-bitrate streaming.
- The CDN HTTP Live service does not support live stream recording (DVR).
What next?
Read about the following topics.