Every webinar has its own RTMP stream URL and key, so someone re-pastes credentials into OBS or a hardware encoder before each session — and ninety seconds before going live is a poor time to discover a typo. A channel broadcast replaces that with one URL and one key pair for the whole channel: configure the encoder once, attach the webinars you want it to feed, and BigMarker relays the stream into each of them as their rooms open. The credentials never change from session to session.
A webinar’s stream keys belong to that webinar. Run a weekly series from the same studio and the encoder has to be reconfigured every week, with the stream URL and key copied across minutes before doors open.
A channel broadcast lives at the channel level. It has its own stream URL and its own pair of keys, and every webinar you attach to it receives the same feed — so the encoder is configured once and then left alone.
rtmps://bc-eu1.bigmarker.com:443/livebm-main-7f3a••••••••bm-bkup-9c21••••••••Main encoder: connected · Backup encoder: connected
The channel broadcast page under Channel Settings → RTMP Broadcasts: one encoder on the left, every webinar it feeds on the right.
Each broadcast carries two keys rather than one. Point a second encoder at the backup key and it sits there doing nothing until it is needed — if the main feed drops, attendees switch over to it.
It is the same broadcast and the same destination webinars; only the key differs. Both encoders report their own status, so you can confirm the backup is actually connected before you need to find out the hard way.
Relay used to wait for the scheduled start time, which meant an encoder could be pushing a clean feed for ten minutes with nothing reaching the room. Now the relay begins as soon as the webinar room is open — which happens when the recording view or the first person enters it, generally a little before the published start.
The card tells you which of those it is waiting on rather than leaving you guessing:
| Relay says | What it means |
|---|---|
| Connected | The feed is reaching this webinar’s room. |
| Waiting for the webinar room to open | Everything is ready; the room opens when the recording view or a person enters it. |
| Connecting · Retrying | The relay is dialing the room, or re-dialing after a dropped attempt. |
| Idle | No encoder is pushing to the broadcast yet. |
| Failed | The relay could not be established; the reason is shown beside it. |
Two ways in, depending on who is doing the work.
Channel broadcasts feed upcoming webinars that use the Default RTMP streaming experience. Native and Multi-stream webinars keep their own stream keys.
A channel broadcast runs on a broadcast server that BigMarker adds to your channel, so it is not something you can enable yourself. Reach out to your BigMarker customer success manager to have one set up; once it is on, the option appears on every eligible webinar’s RTMP card, and saving with it on creates your channel’s first broadcast automatically.