Stream setup
The settings for a rock-solid
church stream.
PealCast is your streaming home. Send us one feed over SRT or RTMP with the settings below, hit go live, and every viewer becomes a named person for your weekly follow-up.
SRT or RTMP — both work
We give you both an SRT and an RTMP address. Use whichever your encoder supports — we recommend SRT for reliability.
SRT
PreferredSRT recovers from dropped packets and network jitter, so it holds a steady stream even on congested Wi-Fi or a stretched church uplink — the usual cause of freezes and dropouts. It also carries newer features like captions and multiple audio tracks. If your encoder supports SRT, use it.
RTMP
Fully supportedRTMP (RTMPS) is supported everywhere and is the simplest way to go live — a great choice on a solid wired connection. Every viewer gets the exact same watch experience as SRT. If your encoder or software only does RTMP, you’re in good shape.
Recommended encoder settings
Dial these in once and your stream stays smooth. They’re the same whether you use OBS, a hardware encoder, or another streaming provider.
Smoothness comes from bitrate, not resolution. Bitrate is your bandwidth budget; resolution and frame rate just spend it — more pixels or frames need more bitrate to stay clean. Set the bitrate your upload can reliably sustain first, then match resolution and frame rate to it.
- Video codec
H.264 (AVC)
Required. Do NOT use HEVC/H.265 — it isn’t a supported input and won’t play.
- Audio codec
AAC
Required. 48 kHz sample rate, stereo.
- Rate control
CBR (constant bitrate)
Keeps the stream steady and prevents buffering. Avoid VBR.
- Video bitrate
4,500–6,000 Kbps at 1080p · 2,500–4,000 at 720p
This is the lever that makes a stream smooth and clear — set it to what your upload can reliably sustain. Higher for high-motion worship, lower for a talking head or slides. Keep it well under 12 Mbps.
- Resolution
1920×1080 (1080p) or 1280×720 (720p)
Resolution sets detail, not smoothness. Match it to your bitrate: on a tight upload, 720p at a solid bitrate looks far better than a starved 1080p, which turns blocky.
- Frame rate
30 fps
Match your camera if it’s 25/50/60. Note: 60 fps needs roughly double the bitrate to stay clean, so only raise it if your bitrate has room.
- Keyframe interval (GOP)
2 seconds
The sweet spot for a responsive stream. 2–4s is ideal.
- SRT latency (buffer)
90 seconds or more — set it to the maximum your encoder allows
This is the single biggest reliability lever on a real church network. A large SRT buffer lets the stream ride out Wi-Fi congestion, packet loss, and brief internet drops without ever freezing. PealCast is not a low-latency stream — a little delay is perfectly fine for worship — so max this out. If your encoder caps it below 90s, use its highest setting.
- Auto-reconnect
On · shortest retry delay · unlimited (or highest) retries
If the connection blips, your encoder should reconnect instantly and keep retrying indefinitely, so a dropped uplink never ends your service. Set the reconnect delay to the lowest value and the maximum retries to the highest available (or unlimited).
- B-frames
0 (off)
Off gives the smoothest low-latency playback and avoids sporadic jitter.
- Profile / GOP
High profile, closed GOP
The default in OBS and most hardware — no change needed.
- Audio bitrate
160 Kbps
Clean music and voice. 128 Kbps is fine on a tight connection.
The one that trips people up: use H.264, never HEVC/H.265 — it won’t play.
Set it up in your encoder
OBS Studio
The free software encoder with the most control — we lay out every setting and exactly where to find it.
OBS setup guideHardware encoders
Any RTMP/SRT hardware encoder (Blackmagic, Teradek, LiveU, AJA and more) — paste your PealCast SRT or RTMP URL and key and go live.
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