5 Tips to Help You Get the Most Out of Play Pro, the Definitive SRT Player
Are you looking for an easy way to use the SRT protocol in your video streaming workflows? Haivision Play Pro is a free mobile app for iOS and Android that allows you to watch live SRT feeds and even contribute live SRT streams directly from your mobile device.
Haivision Play Pro – The Definitive, FREE, Mobile SRT Player
The SRT Protocol protects against jitter, packet loss, and bandwidth fluctuations, ensuring the best possible viewing experience – even over unpredictable networks like the public internet. With Play Pro, experience the reliability and resiliency of SRT on your mobile device, no matter where you are!
In this blog, we’ll guide you through key features of the app and what you need to know in order to make the most out of Play Pro, including:
- How to watch low latency SRT streams on your mobile device with QuickPlay
- How to set up local channel lineups to save multiple feeds
- How to create live SRT streams using your mobile phone’s camera
- How to export custom lineups to share groups of streams across your organization
- How to easily configure and share Play Pro app settings using Playmaker
1. Getting Started: How to Watch an SRT Stream Using QuickPlay
Play Pro’s QuickPlay feature gives you a way to securely watch SRT streams. This allows Play Pro to be used in a variety of broadcast workflows, including to monitor return program feeds on location by journalists, or by remote team members to see live feeds (including multiviewers) in decentralized collaborative workflows.
The QuickPlay feature helps key production personnel and other members of your production team to collaborate remotely in real-time. Play Pro and the SRT protocol gives remote talent, directors, and producers a reliable way to see live feeds during broadcasts at very low latency.
To play an SRT stream using the QuickPlay feature, you’ll need to know some information about where your SRT stream is coming from: IP address, port number, the SRT mode (Caller, Listener or Rendezvous) and if encryption is enabled.
Once you have this information, follow these steps:
- From the Home screen, tap Play an SRT Stream
- Select the appropriate SRT Mode (Caller, Listener, Rendezvous)
- Enter the URL or IP Address and then the Port
- Set the SRT Latency in milliseconds
- Once you’ve entered all the information, tap Play
If necessary, the SRT latency can be adjusted, which is useful if you’re streaming over a very congested network or one with unpredictable performance. The default latency value is 50 milliseconds. If your stream is experiencing jitter or packet loss when you first try to play it, return to the settings and try increasing the latency to 200 milliseconds or more.
You can now quickly watch low latency SRT streams directly on your phone!
2. How to Set Up Local Channel Lineups to Save Multiple Feeds
Play Pro’s Local Channel Lineup feature is useful for grouping multiple feeds into custom lists, giving you the ability to save and recall feeds later with ease. Think of Channel Lineups as a personal playlist in Play Pro for the live feeds you need to which you need to have access. You can group feeds from multiple productions or locations with different Local Channel Lineups to easily organize and differentiate between live multi-viewers, on-air program feeds and more.
To set up a Local Channel Lineup, here’s what you need to do:
- From the Home screen, tap Configure your Services
- Select Add Services
- Tap the + icon above Set up a Local Lineup Channel List
- Select an Icon and then click Next
- Tap Add to begin adding channels to the lineup by setting each channel function to either Play or Stream
- When you’re done, tap Save to finish
You now have access to entire Local Channel Lineups directly on your mobile device!
Share Lineups Across Your Organization
Channel Lineups can also be created by an admin and shared with team members across your organization, so they don’t have to configure all the parameters themselves. This gives your staff an easy way to monitor multiple feeds all in one place, for convenient on-the-go access to streams right from their phones. And non-technical users don’t have to worry about configuration settings. We’ll cover this topic in another blog post.
3. Create Live SRT Streams Using Your Mobile Phone’s Camera
With Play Pro’s Stream feature, your mobile phone is instantly transformed into a low latency contribution source. It’s the easiest way of getting an SRT stream into a live video workflow when using live production software like OBS or vMix for producing live streaming content. This makes Play Pro a cost-effective alternative to deploying equipment and resources at remote event locations.
To stream live using your mobile device’s camera, here’s what you need to do:
- From the Home screen, tap Configure your Services
- Select Add Services
- Tap the + icon above Set up a Local Lineup Channel List
- Give it a name and then click Next
- Click Add to create a channel
- Fill in the Channel Nickname and Description
- Set the function to Stream
- From here, you can set the Video Bitrate, Audio Bitrate, Resolution, and Frame Rate
- Choose your codec, either 264 or HEVC
- Set the protocol to SRT and choose your SRT Mode: Caller, Listener or Rendezvous
- Now, you need to enter information about where you are streaming to: IP Address or URL and Local Port
- You can also enable Encryption, and adjust the SRT Latency
- Once you’ve finished setting up the channel, tap Save
You can now stream live by swiping right and clicking on your new channel in the Browser menu on the left!
4. Export Lineups to Share Groups of Stream with Your Organization
To make it easier for your team to use Play Pro, you can also export lineups to other devices with Play Pro installed. Typically, users share lineups with talent, production personnel and decision makers so they can always monitor live SRT feeds, no matter where they are. Once lineups are created, the lineup file can be exported and sent by email or text message to your team members. You can also host a channel list on a web server and distribute it via URL. If you update this centralized list, the changes are picked up by everybody who has imported it!
To export a channel lineup, here’s what you need to do:
- From the Home screen, tap Go to the Browser
- Swipe right to reveal the Browser menu
- Tap Add or Modify, then tap Export on the bottom left
- Select the lineup that you want to export and tap Export again on the bottom right
- (If you choose to Add Passphrase, users will be prompted to sign in with the passphrase when importing the lineup for additional security)
- Tap Yes and then choose a way to distribute the file (email, SMS, etc.)
When the recipient clicks on the attached lineup, they will be presented with the option to import it into their Play Pro app!
5. Configure and Share Play Pro App Settings Using Playmaker
Playmaker is an online tool designed to help easily configure and share Play Pro app settings. Playmaker can configure SRT Caller Mode settings in the form of a URL or QR code. Imagine a news anchor is on their day off and sees breaking news unfolding in real-time in front of them. With Playmaker, an engineer at the studio can quickly generate streaming configurations to send out to the remote anchor and play configurations to collaborators so that everyone can be up and running with a single click.
Stream settings can be sent to the anchor so that they can stream what’s unfolding back to an SRT-enabled production suite or decoder at the studio. At the same time, Play settings can be sent out from the production suite or a Makito X4 video encoder to an SRT Gateway for distribution to at-home directors, remote artists and editors, as well as to any producers or reviewers. Playmaker facilitates collaborative workflows while eliminating the guesswork so that users don’t need to configure Play Pro themselves.
To generate SRT Caller Mode settings in the form of a URL or QR code using Playmaker, here’s what you need to do:
- Go to haivision.com
- Under Resources, click on Play Pro Settings Tool
- Click on Stream or Play to choose which action you will generate settings for
- Enter the URL or IP Address and then the Port
- (If you are generating Stream settings, set the Video Bitrate, Audio Bitrate, Resolution, and Frame Rate, and then choose your codec – either 264 or HEVC)
- Click on Share Your Settings and either copy the URL or right click on the QR code and choose Save Image As… to save the QR code to your computer.
When the recipient clicks on the attached lineup, they will be presented with the option to import it into their Play Pro app!
