Creating an RTMP Push With a Scorpion Encoder

Creating an RTMP Push With a Scorpion Encoder

The Discover Video Scorpion encoder has a number of settings to control how its live stream is set up. Once the user logs in to the encoder with the username and password (default is admin/admin), navigate to the HDMI Main section of the settings. The Scorpion has two encoders that can be set with different settings, although only one needs to be set up in order to send a live stream. The primary encoder is under HDMI Main, and the second encoder is under HDMI 2nd.
Scorpion Settings
Scorpion settings

There are three primary settings that affect how the live stream will be encoded that directly affect the quality of the video. These are as follows:
Key Interval - How often in the group of pictures (GOP) is a keyframe created with all the pixels in the frame. This setting is in the number of frames, so a key interval of 10 as shown above would be a full keyframe every 10 frames of video. The more often a keyframe is created, the less the video will be compressed and a clearer picture will be produced. Keep in mind, however, that the more often keyframes are created, the higher the bitrate needs to be to allow for enough data to create the keyframes.
Bitrate - How many bits per second in kilobits are encoded in the stream. The higher this number is, the better quality the video will be. The trade off, however, is that it will also require more bandwidth to deliver and for the user to watch the video. Bandwidth is often purchased as a commodity, so a higher bitrate may also cost more money to deliver. The rule of thumb is to set this setting to the lowest setting possible to produce a video quality that is acceptable.
FPS (Frames Per Second)  - How many frames of video are encoded per second. Again, the higher this number is, the better quality the video will be, but again it will require a higher bitrate to allow for the increased amount of data and higher frame rates per second.

Scorpion RTMP Delivery
The most common way to deliver a live stream with a Scorpion encoder is to create an RTMP push to a server. The Scorpion encoder has two ways to set up the RTMP push. They are as follows:
URL Mode - When using this setting, the entire RTMP address is entered in one line using the following convention: rtmp://[server address]/[app name]/[stream name]. When using a DEVOS server with the url sales.devosvideo.com, for example, the server name would be the URL, the app name would be the word "live", and the stream name can be anything you choose so long as there is only one stream with that stream name being pushed to the server at any given moment. Using the stream name "stream", for example, would mean the setting would be as follows: rtmp://sales.devosvideo.com/live/stream.


When using URL mode, you must select Enable next to the RTMP setting in order to turn the stream on. Once the settings have been entered and the stream enabled, click Apply to apply the settings and turn on the live stream encoding.
IP Mode -  When using this mode, enter the IP address, app name, and stream name each separately into the appropriate fields as shown below.


Once again, you must select Enable and hit apply to turn on the stream once the settings have been set.

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