CREATOR SETUP

Go live in ten minutes.

Everything you need to send a stream to CP Elora with OBS, check it works, and fix the usual problems.

Before you start

A free CP Elora account — signing up creates your channel automatically.
OBS Studio (or any RTMP broadcaster such as Streamlabs Desktop).
An upload speed of at least 8 Mbps for 1080p, or 5 Mbps for 720p.

Choose how you want to broadcast

There are two supported routes. Both put you live on the same channel, with the same chat, Channel Points and viewer count.

In your browser — open Creator Studio → Browser studio and broadcast your camera, microphone or screen from a tab. Nothing to install, set up in under a minute, and good for talking streams, quick check-ins and testing. Keep the tab open: closing it ends the stream, and the platform's WebRTC publish address has to be reachable from your network (the studio says so plainly when it is not).
With OBS — recommended for anything beyond a camera and a microphone: scenes, overlays, several sources, separate audio tracks and precise bitrate control. Everything below applies to this route.

A browser is not an encoder. There are no scenes or overlays, and one quality setting instead of full control. If your show depends on layout, use OBS; use the browser when speed matters more than polish.

Portrait, for phones. The browser studio's Format → Portrait sends one 9:16 picture: a camera fills the tall frame, and a shared screen is fitted whole over a blurred copy so nothing on it is cut off. OBS users can do the same by setting the canvas to 1080 × 1920. Either way the channel page reshapes its player to the stream, so viewers see a phone-shaped video rather than a wide one with black bars.

1. Copy your server URL and stream key

Open Creator Studio → Stream Manager.
Press Load stream settings. The server URL and a long stream key appear.
Use Copy server URL, then Show key and Copy key.

Treat the stream key like a password. Anyone with it can broadcast to your channel. If it leaks, use Reset stream key — the old key stops working immediately and you must paste the new one into OBS.

2. Configure OBS

Open Settings → Stream.
Service: Custom…
Server: paste the server URL from Stream Manager (it starts with rtmp://).
Stream Key: paste your key. Leave the key field blank in screenshots and never share it.
Apply, then Start Streaming.

In Settings → Output, set the encoder to x264 or your GPU encoder (NVENC, AMF, QuickSync). Recommended starting points: 1080p60 at 6000 kbps, 1080p30 at 4500 kbps, or 720p60 at 3500 kbps. Use a 2-second keyframe interval and set the audio bitrate to 160 kbps.

3. Check you are live

OBS shows a green bitrate in the status bar and Stop Streaming is highlighted.
Your channel page shows the LIVE badge and a player. Live status can take up to 30 seconds to appear.
Your channel appears under Discover and Browse while live. A viewer count appears once playback starts.
Open your own channel in a private browser window to see what viewers see.

4. Make the channel yours

Channel details — title, category and about text.
Branding — avatar and offline image (PNG, JPG, WebP or GIF).
Emotes — upload chat emotes.
Channel points — rewards viewers can redeem.
Moderation — reports, bans and timeouts.

Troubleshooting

OBS connects, but the channel stays offline: Confirm the stream key matches the one in Stream Manager (reset it if unsure), check the server URL has no trailing spaces, and wait 30 seconds. If it still fails, check that you are publishing video, not only audio.
Viewers see "Playback unavailable": Playback is served by the HLS endpoint configured by the site operator. Tell support with the time you went live; this usually means the media server is not publishing the HLS path yet.
The stream stutters or drops: Lower the bitrate by 25–30%, switch to hardware encoding, and use a wired connection. Dropped frames in OBS mean the upload cannot keep up.
Chat says "Log in to chat": Chat requires a signed-in account. Log in, then reload the channel page.
Browser studio says browser publishing is switched off: This deployment has no WebRTC (WHIP) publish address, so no browser can send video to it yet. It is enabled by turning WebRTC on in MediaMTX and setting WHIP_PUBLIC_URL on the runtime; until that is done, stream with OBS — nothing else is affected.
Browser studio shows Live, but your channel stays offline: The browser reached the signalling port but not the media path itself, which MediaMTX receives over UDP (or TCP). That is a network or firewall matter rather than an account one. OBS over RTMP is the fallback while it is sorted out, and the stream check on Stream Manager will show what the media server can see.
The browser will not use my camera or microphone: Capture needs a secure page (https, or localhost) and your permission. Allow access in the address bar and try again; on a plain http page browsers block capture entirely. If another application is holding the camera, close it first.
Your key was posted somewhere public: Reset the stream key immediately, then review recent chat and reports. Tell support if you think someone else streamed to your channel.

Housekeeping

Streams are not recorded, and clips and scheduled streams are not available yet. Back up anything you want to keep locally while you broadcast. Read the community rules before your first stream.