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Live Streaming Microsoft Teams Meetings to IBM Video Streaming

This article details how to live stream a meeting from Microsoft Teams to IBM's video streaming services. As a result, the audience can be greatly expanded, as IBM's delivery infrastructure can support huge audiences. This session will also be automatically archived for later use, with AI-driven processes for caption generation and search capabilities.

Note: this requires the host to have a Teams license and updated to the latest version. To use this functionality you must first have the following:

• LiveStreamingMode policy turned on for your account: Stream Teams meetings - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Docs
• Access to Team's Custom Streaming meeting app
• IBM Enterprise Video Streaming subscription

If you conduct your meetings over Webex or Zoom, IBM also has integrations to Live Stream Cisco Webex Video Conferences or Live streaming meetings from Zoom.

• Enabling at the admin level
• Configuration: live streaming a meeting
• IBM broadcast settings
• Initiating a live stream inside Teams

Enabling at the Admin Level

The feature to broadcast a Teams meeting session must be enabled first at the administration level inside the account, else you might face a "You can't stream live events." error message. Currently, this policy is not available in the Teams admin center so you will need to use Powershell. There is a per-user policy which is used to specify who can enable live streaming. It's turned off by default.

To install and use Powershell for MS Teams, please, see documentation. You need to enable it under the following attribute 'Windows PowerShell Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy' cmdlet to set up streaming. For more information on the cmdlet, see Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy. You will need to set 'LiveStreamingMode' to Enabled in order to allow the hosts to start the integration.

Configuration: Live Streaming a Meeting

Once everything is set from the Teams' admin side, you will need to start the meeting (and be a host) in order to launch the Custom Streaming meeting app. This will allow you to input the IBM Video Streaming RTMP URL and key. Upon entering the correct credentials, you will be able to start streaming.

Note: This custom streaming meeting app can only be added to your meeting during the meeting by the meeting organizer.

After adding the custom streaming meeting app as shown above, you will see two input fields. Input both the RTMP URL from the IBM dashboard to the Stream URL field and the channel key to the Stream key field. After that the Start streaming button will allow you to start the integration.

Click Start streaming and you will see an alert asking you to confirm. Allow the integration to start.

If you do not have the live streaming mode policy available to you or you did not complete the first step, you will see a message in the app directing you to contact your IT administrator. Please double check that the necessary policy changes were applied to your account.

Technical Limitations

For security reasons, Teams does not save the RTMP URL and key in the Custom Streaming app.

IBM Broadcast Settings

In the case of IBM's video streaming solutions, the needed information is found inside an IBM Video Streaming account under "Broadcast Settings" after selecting a channel. Inside are what are called "Encoder Settings". This includes both the RTMP URL, which is the Stream URL, and the Channel Key, which is the Stream Key.

Each channel has its own unique Stream URL and Channel Key, which tell the source to broadcast to that live channel. That source can be anything from an encoder, like the Telestream Wirecast or vMix, to Teams in this case.

Initiating a Live Stream Inside Teams

Once completely configured, the live stream session will automatically start and the channel will go live with the meeting. If you want to stop Streaming to the IBM Video Streaming channel, you can stop the integration in Teams.