Dacast Free Account: Viewer Limits

Free trial accounts are not limited in any way by the number of viewers.

But with a free trial, naturally, there are limitations when it comes to bandwidth and storage. These are the only factors of course which would hamper your free trial, in terms of course of limited capacity. Free trials are given 14 days upon sign-up and come with 10 GB of bandwidth (for streaming) and 2 GB of storage (for uploading VODs).

Note: If you need to test further after the initial 14 days, you may request an extension for 7 more days via your Dacast account. 72 hours before the end of your initial trial, the extend button should appear. Please note however that 5 days after your initial trial has ended, the extend button should disappear.

We feel that this would be more than an adequate setup for one, to try out the platform and assess for themselves if Dacast would fit their streaming needs.

Now with viewership keep in mind that what affects bandwidth consumption are these factors:

How often will your content be streamed?
How many people will watch it?
How long will they watch?
The average video bitrate/quality you set it to

To know more about bitrates and encoder settings, you can refer to our Dacast live encoder configuration guide below.

Recommended Dacast Encoder Settings

To ensure your Dacast live stream is stable and fully functional, you MUST configure your encoder to use the settings defined on this page.

First, ensure you are following everything in the Common Settings section. Then select the most appropriate Resolution & Bitrate (depending on your needs) and configure all settings for that size exactly. Finally, be sure not to use any of the Unsupported Settings because they will very likely break your stream.

Table of Contents

Required Settings

The following settings are required for live streaming with Dacast, regardless of your selected resolution and bitrate:

VIDEO CODEC	H.264 (x264 may work)
FRAME RATE	25 or 30
KEYFRAME INTERVAL	3 secs (or 3x frame rate)
SCANNING	Progressive
ENCODING BITRATE	Constant (CBR)
AUDIO CODEC	AAC
AUDIO BITRATE	128 kbps
AUDIO CHANNELS	2 (Stereo)
AUDIO SAMPLE RATE	48 kHz (48,000 Hz)

Resolution & Bitrate Settings

Please select one of the following configurations and ensure your encoder is set up with these exact settings to help prevent streaming issues:

	ULD	LD	SD	HD	FHD
Name	Ultra-Low Definition	Low Definition	Standard Definition	High Definition	Full High Definition
Video Bitrate (kbps)	350	350 – 800	800 – 1200	1200 – 1900	1900 – 4000
Resolution Width (px)	426	640	854	1280	1920
Resolution Height (px)	240	360	480	720	1080
H.264 Profile	Main	Main	High	High	High

Unsupported Settings

Note that the following settings are unsupported and will break your stream:

Baseline H.264 Profile
Interlaced Scanning

Additionally, we have a complete guide to VOD Video Renditions & Bitrates for the Dacast Online Video Platform.

Any questions or need help/access to this feature? Please contact us.

You can check out what type of plan would best suit your needs on our live streaming pricing page.

Not yet a Dacast user, and interested in trying Dacast risk-free for 14 days? Sign up today to get started.

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Additional Resources

Jose Guevara

Jose is a part of the Dacast Customer Onboarding team and started working with the company in 2016. He has vast experience in customer service/engagement and live streaming support.