Wowza Community

How many people can watch my live stream at once?

Hello, I had some questions about how many people can watch my stream. Basically if I have a good enough server to stream live webcam, how many people can watch it at once?

Does it depend on the size of the server? hardware? software? and what else does this depends on? and how much bandwidth plays part in it. I have a 10TB bandwidth server.

looking forward to the replies.

Thanks,

Khan

Hi,

Yes it will depend on the on the server hardware performance, how much bandwidth is available and then the bitrate of your actual stream.

The specifications page here mentions two servers, one for minimum and one for high load production use:

The best way to know the possible number of viewers/streams that spec’d hardware will support is to load test.

There’s a load test tool available here upon request:

Daren

Hello, actually it depends on how many different live streams will be broadcasted?

If your stream count over 100 , then your server needs to have a good hardware .

If you only broadcast your webcam then no need to have intel e5 quad etc, vps can handle your request,

cause webcam like a4tech (classical webcam , bitrate is about 200kb to 400kb with the 1.3mp) can be watched over 400 clients on the server that has the upload speed around 100Mbit . It can be evaluated with the basic ratio and proportion.

client_count = your server upload speed / your stream bitrate . For a single live stream , I want to tell you about one of my work ,

with the vps ( very very cheap vps about max 30$ per m and has 100mbit) 450 clients watch .

This page will be help to you .

http://letheasoftware.com/wowza-media-server-load-balance-and-client-count/

Hi,

You would also need to account for IP overhead as well.

Just to be on the safe side, you can use this formula:

Total bandwidth needed = number of clients * stream bitrate + 20% IP overhead

Zoran