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WHIP Ingest Guide

What is WHIP?​

The WebRTC-HTTP Ingest Protocol (WHIP) is a simple HTTP-based protocol that allows ingestion of media content into a broadcasting ingestion endpoint.

It defines how to use standard HTTP mechanisms like POST requests, authentication headers, and response codes for establishing a WebRTC connection to ingest audio/video.

WHIP Overview

How WHIP Works​

  • The client (encoder/camera) sends an HTTP POST request to the WHIP endpoint with the SDP offer in the body.
  • The WHIP endpoint responds with a 201 Created status and the SDP answer in the body.
  • This establishes the WebRTC connection for media ingestion.
  • The WHIP endpoint can provide ICE server configuration via Link headers in responses.

Benefits of WHIP​

  • Uses widely adopted HTTP protocol rather than proprietary protocols.
  • Leverages standard HTTP security, load balancing, and so on.
  • Simplifies integration of encoders/cameras with WebRTC platforms.

WHIP Ingest on nanoStream Cloud​

Features​

Our WebRTC-HTTP servers support the following features:

  • Create broadcast streams via WebRTC
  • Push broadcast to nanoStream Cloud upstream via RTMP protocol
  • Toggle/switch client side video tracks (inputs) at runtime
  • Control upstream quality at runtime

The current implementation of WHIP follows the mandatory parts from specifications,

  • Endpoint provides service to create resource and delete resource.
  • Bearer token authorization isn't required in the current implementation.
  • Requires Input sources to have H.264 codec for video, and Opus for audio.
  • The client should append configuration options as query parameters for the target ingest to set up the broadcast stream. The parameters stream_name and stream_url are mandatory.

We provide a WHIP endpoint at:

 https://bintu-webrtc.nanocosmos.de/p/webrtc

The request to create resource will then look like the form:

POST https://bintu-webrtc.nanocosmos.de/p/webrtc?stream_name=<example-stream>&stream_url=rtmp://bintu-stream.nanocosmos.de:1935/live
[sdp body]

WHIP Ingest Quick Guide​

WHIP Ingest Setup

  1. Prepare for streaming

    Obtain Stream Name

    • Sign in to your nanoStream Cloud dashboard
    • Create a new stream or choose an existing created or Ended stream
    • Alternatively, get your API key and prepare stream with bintu API

  2. Configure Encoder ingest URL

    In your encoder software or device, select the WHIP ingest protocol.

    • Use the WHIP ingest URL format: 
    https://bintu-webrtc.nanocosmos.de/p/webrtc?stream_name=<STREAM NAME>&stream_url=<STREAM URL>

Full request path will have the form:


    https://bintu-webrtc.nanocosmos.de/p/webrtc?stream_name=<string>&stream_url=rtmp://bintu-stream.nanocosmos.de/live

  1. Encoder Settings

    Use H.264 video codec, and Opus audio codec. Configure video resolution and audio quality options according to preferences

    Recommended settings:

    • W×H: 1280×720 resolution
    • FR: 25 fps
    • Bitrate: 2 Mbps
    • Keyframe Interval: 2 second, or GoP size of FR×2
      • (i.e. in OBS > Settings > Output (Advanced) > Streaming > Encoder Setting > Keyframe Interval)
  1. Start Stream
    • Start streaming from your encoder
    • Your stream will be ingested into nanoStream Cloud via WHIP
    • The stream will broadcast over RTMP from:

rtmp://bintu-stream.nanocosmos.de/live/STREAM-NAME

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