Intro

If there's one camera that's synonymous with an outdoorsy and adventurous lifestyle, it's the GoPro. We have GoPro cameras to thank for countless photos and hours of amazing footage of everything from snorkeling to skydiving, from small activities to the biggest public events.

GoPro has managed to motility 30 million units in their ten years of doing business organisation, only they are always looking to broaden their horizons and find new ways to win the marketplace. GoPro consistently offers new services and products, similar their subscription-based deject storage service.

Now, you lot can also use GoPro to live stream footage from your activities or events.

👀 GoPro streaming: the practiced and the bad

GoPro makes action cameras, and they excel at what they do. All the same, a GoPro photographic camera can't stream on its ain, which is why y'all need to pair it with a smartphone that has the GoPro app installed or use a third-party platform. For mobile device users, a full GoPro streaming setup would include the camera equally the source, the app as the encoder, and the smartphone equally the processing figurer.

The benefits of using GoPro for streaming include:

  • Great image quality. If you want to shoot outside under bright light, GoPro will provide quality footage with an awesome color balance.
  • It's pocket-size and highly portable. GoPros are smaller and lighter than regular cameras; you tin can hands comport ane in your pocket.
  • It's rugged and waterproof. Your phone tin't have a beating like a GoPro photographic camera can. Plus, you lot can employ the action camera nearly (and in some cases under) h2o.
  • The wide angle. Information technology captures a larger field of view and offers an action-cam esthetic that people expect from adventure footage.
  • Endless wearability and mountability options. You tin can wearable a GoPro camera for betoken-of-view shooting or mount it on your cycle, a tripod, or anywhere else.

GoPro has some corking advantages, but live streaming with one has its drawbacks, also:

  • Limited device back up. Currently, the GoPro app only supports alive streaming on the HERO7 Black and after.
  • Limited platform support. The app comes with native support for YouTube and Facebook, and RTMP support for select platforms including Twitch and DouYu, but information technology lacks support for some obvious platforms, such equally Instagram.
  • Poor low-light performance. The cameras weren't actually designed for capturing depression-calorie-free footage, and then live streaming at nighttime and from some indoor events might bear on the quality.

Conspicuously, live streaming with GoPro has its limitations. You can't exercise much well-nigh the low-light operation, but you tin can featherbed other limitations, including the device and platform support issues.

But outset, let's see how yous can employ your GoPro camera and its smartphone app to showtime streaming activeness footage correct abroad.

👉 How to alive stream with the GoPro app

Before  setting up your stream, you need to do some prep work. First, install the GoPro app; it's available for iOS and Android. Side by side, connect your HERO7 Black GoPro camera (or a subsequently model) to a Wi-Fi network.

If you lot don't take a Wi-Fi network, you need to create a personal hotspot with your smartphone and connect your camera to information technology. Then, pair your photographic camera with the GoPro app.

After you connect your camera to the internet and pair it with your app, follow these steps:

  1. Option the platform. Open the app and curl the options all the fashion to the correct, past video and photo, until yous become to a "set up upwards live" button. You'll see a platform icon in the lower right-hand corner — click on it to choose betwixt Facebook Alive and YouTube.
  2. Set the live stream. Yous will need to log into your Facebook or YouTube account and give the GoPro app access, connect to Wi-Fi or a personal hotspot, set visibility, write a clarification, cull the resolution, and determine whether you want to save your stream to an SD carte.
  3. Go live!

If you want to live stream to a platform other than Facebook Live or YouTube, you will need to:

  1. Observe and re-create the platform'south RTMP URL. You lot'll ordinarily observe them in the streaming options on your platform of choice.
  2. Paste the RTMP URL into the GoPro app. From the app, select RTMP instead of Facebook Alive or YouTube. You lot'll run across a field for inbound the URL and the stream primal. Make sure the URL ends with a "/" after you lot've pasted it.
  3. Copy the stream cardinal. You lot'll find it at the aforementioned place on your platform every bit the RTMP URL.
  4. Paste the stream central into the GoPro app. Paste it correct after the "/" following the URL, no spaces needed.

You lot should now take the URL and the central in a single line. And that'southward all there is to it — you're ready to stream to the website of your choice, if GoPro supports it.

Read later: Fun things to practise on a live stream 📍

📷 Using your GoPro as a webcam

The GoPro cams HERO8 and HERO9 Blackness support directly live streaming for macOS and Windows users. All yous demand to outset live streaming is your cam, a microSD card reader, a USB-C cable (usually comes with the camera), and your computer. Allow's swoop into the quick tutorial:

  1. Set up up your point of view with the GoPro mounts. Every existing GoPro mount is compatible with all GoPro cameras, so you lot can get creative and come up with new and interesting angles.
  2. Download and install the latest firmware and software for your HERO8 or HERO9 Black. You tin can learn how to practice it in the official guide. After the installation is completed, a GoPro icon should announced in the status bar.
  3. Connect your GoPro cam via the USB-C cable. A bluish dot should appear on the GoPro icon, confirming information technology is successfully connected and set to Webcam Fashion.
  4. Select your GoPro as your default camera for live streaming. Go to the GoPro app and cull the Show Preview choice to check that everything's working properly.

🤩 How to live stream using the Live4 app

People who have an earlier model of the GoPro photographic camera than the HERO7 Black can't benefit from the new alive streaming feature. Fifty-fifty the company's best-selling camera, the HERO5 Black, doesn't accept native live streaming support. To go live with the earlier models, you need a third-party application.

The Live4 app supports GoPro cameras all the way back to the HERO3 White. The simply exceptions are the HERO 2014, which doesn't have Wi-Fi, and the Fusion, which isn't supported yet.

To live stream from GoPro to Facebook Live using the Live4 app, you lot need to:

  • Log into your Facebook account from the Live4 app.
  • Turn your camera's Wi-Fi on and connect your smartphone to it.
  • Go back to the Live4 app and tap the "let'southward get started" button.

Yous're all set to kickoff broadcasting. You'll encounter a preview of the camera and a big red button you take to printing when you want to start streaming. Just be mindful that your cell plan supports your streaming habit — this method of GoPro live streaming uses your cellular data.

As of July 2021, the app just supports streaming to Facebook Live. Merely Live4 and Restream have partnered upwards to let you multistream with your GoPro. Not only volition you be able to stream to several other websites, you'll also be able to stream to them at the same time. When you lot multistream, you can ever exist on the platforms your audiences like to apply.

Restream tools and features

Allow's wrap upward

GoPro cameras have a lot to offer for people who desire to showcase their outdoorsy lifestyles. The addition of live streaming to GoPro's offerings has been very welcome. The drawback is that only two models back up it — but the Live4 app can help with that trouble. Thank you to the collaboration with Restream, you lot will besides be able to live stream from your GoPro camera to many other websites, simultaneously. That'southward when you lot really starting time seeing the benefits of live streaming.