LIVESTREAMING to Substack via Desktop is FINALLY HERE!

I've been waiting YEARS for this capability. How Did We Miss That livestreamed to Substack for the first time Sunday night

A LONG Time Coming!

I’ve been sharing livestreams here for “How Did We Miss That” since August 28, 2021 - before the show even had a name, we were livestreaming it and sharing it here.

Livestreaming was introduced to Substack last year, but they were pushing people to use the Substack Mobile App. Since the day it was announced, I was asking the co-founders and tech team via Notes if they would allow for RTMP capabilities, so I could livestream How Did We Miss That and all the

IndieNews Network (INN)

shows directly to Substack, in addition to uploading clips and linking to them everywhere else. I wanted to simply add it as a destination to the multiple platforms we already stream to.

Works With Restream, OBS and Streamyard

Livestreaming had not expanded to allow people to use 3rd party apps to stream, like Streamyard, Restream and OBS - UNTIL NOW!!

Here’s how it works: you set up the stream in Substack first (details on how below with screen shots), then go to your software and plug in the RTMP address and Unique Stream Key provided by Substack.

There are lots of helpful features so far:

• the live chat is great in that it tells the streamer when someone joins and who it is - very much like an Instagram live experience

• choose to go live in vertical (portrait) or horizontal (landscape)

• the completed stream becomes a “draft” post, so it can be edited before publishing and/or emailing to the subscriber list

• Substack’s AI transcripts the entire livestream

• Substack’s AI automatically makes clips, and you can make custom clips up to 5 minutes long directly from selecting text within the transcript

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Still In Beta, But I Guess I Have Enough Followers to Qualify!

Here’s the long story behind it, with screen caps of setting it up. The other night, I got an alert that someone I follow who works as a product manager at Substack was going live to test something, so I jumped in to say hi and ask when livestreaming was coming to desktop via RTMP. Much to my pleasant surprise, he said he thought it was already available! And he was right!

I immediately hopped over to the support site and searched RTMP, and found a webpage:

It Was Easy to Set Up

• I went to my user dashboard, clicked the arrow next to “New Post” in the top right corner, and “New Live Video” was available at the bottom.

• Clicking that, a box popped up asking me if I want to use my camera, or to Connect Via RTMP, which I clicked on.

• I then had to enter a Title, got the ability to schedule or go live right now, and decide which user that has access to the publication was going live. I could choose with a pre-checked box to notify subscribers via email.

• Once I chose to schedule the stream, I was given another date/time box to select, the bottom changed to add a 2nd option, notifying subscribers both to add it to their schedules and/or when the stream goes live.

Options Available to Go Live right now, or schedule in the future

What Happens Post-Livestream?

After the livestream was over, it:

• created a video post as a draft with the full video of the stream,

• the video post draft had the livestream title, a pre-written subtitle & a pre-written body that thanked a few of the people who attended in chat

• you could then add a thumbnail, edit the body of the post, update the post settings and everything else you could do as a video post, with the option to publish the full stream…

  • or not, if you don’t want to let people watch the replay

  • there’s also the option to make the stream replay available to paid subscribers only, in the post settings

• in the clip menu, there was also a full stream transcript, like it does with all video posts

• There were even a few rudimentary options to edit the video prior to publishing:

  

  • Aspect Ratio as Portrait (vertical) or Landscape (horizontal)

  • Automatically Trim video, (removing dead space at the beginning)

  • Enhance audio (Noise reduction & clarity for a balanced sound)

As I mentioned above, Substack also generated several short video clips using AI off the transcript, with the ability to create your own clips of up to 5 minutes, highlighting the transcript text to clip - just like every other video post.

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How Can Substack Improve the Experience Further for RTMP Livestreamers?

I expect things will only get better as Substack adds the few things currently missing:

• Integration of chat and direct video/audio with livestreaming platforms like Streamyard, Restream, StreamLabs & evMux.

• It would also be cool to be able to pop chat out to a separate tab or window.

• There are also improvements that can be made for stream moderation if trolls happen to pop into chat and you want to block or mute them.

• The ability to make a one-time tip/contribution during the stream (like a SuperChat)

• Analytics about the stream - a list of viewers, watch time, chat flow, stream quality

  • The Livestream Viewers seemed to be more of an aggregate total of views, with the number never going down.

    • It would be nice to see how many were actually watching the stream live at a given time

• Have an AI summary of the livestream written by Deepseek R1, using the transcript and limiting to 1000 characters, for example.

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Watch the replay of the livestream here! (starts at 12:16)

Moving forward, How Did We Miss That and American Tradition on

INN Newsletter by Indie News Network

will now be streaming live to:

• 🟠 SUBSTACK *new*

• 🔴 YouTube

• 🟢 Rumble

• ⚫ X

• 🟠 Odysee

• ⚪ Bitchute

• 🟢 Kick

• 🟣 Twitch

• 🟡 IndieNewsNow.com, our news aggregator website that has a “Watch INN Live” page

Kudos to the team at Substack for FINALLY listening to the users on this one and making it a reality!

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Hi! I’m Indie. I champion corporate-free independent media which challenges the narratives that cable & broadcast media push on behalf of advertisers.

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