Is 5 Mbps upload good for streaming live videos on Facebook?

As you probably know, broadcasting live videos mainly involves uploading data. Without sufficient internet upload speeds, the video and audio quality of your live streams will be significantly affected for sure. 

Live streaming

So, is 5 Mbps upload good for streaming live videos on Facebook Live? Or you will need up to 10 Mbps upload speed or even higher? Check out this post to find out now!

First of all, let’s learn a bit about Facebook Live.

Facebook Live

Launched in 2016, Facebook Live is a live video streaming service that allows Facebook users to broadcast real-time video content from their mobile devices or computer to their Facebook News Feed.

Facebook Live, youtube...

Facebook Live is considered one of the most popular live-streaming platforms, along with YouTube live, Twitch, and more. 

Broadcasters can livestream events, performances, and gatherings using Facebook Live. Viewers can view the live videos from PC, phones, or connected TVs. Interactive features like shares, comments, reactions, and more are available on this platform, enabling broadcasters to engage with their audience. 

Understand why upload speed matters to live streaming

For broadcasters, upload speed is what they want to pay attention to the most when it comes to internet connections for live streaming. And download speeds seem not to matter at all here. 

As stated previously, streaming live video content primarily involves uploading data during the whole live broadcasts. When you’re livestreaming, sounds and video images captured from your device are continually sent or uploaded to a server on the internet. 

Unstable and inadequate upload bandwidth and upload speed will result in poor watching experiences for the viewers. Things like dropped frames and other issues are very likely to occur.

Fast internet upload speed

Is 5 Mbps upload speed good for live streaming on Facebook?

Well, 6 Mbps upload speed or 5 Mbps upload speed might be good or might not be good for streaming live videos on Facebook. It depends on the video quality you choose. 

Note that when it comes to livestreaming, “video bitrate” is an important term to know. According to dacast.com, video bitrate is the amount of data transferred over a certain period of time. It’s often measured in Kbps - Kilobits per second (1 Mbps is equal to about 1000 Kbps). 

Good speed for live streaming

Facebook supports different video qualities, which require different specifications (though the platform limits most accounts to 720p video resolution). Following are details on the video bitrate range requirements for each live video quality option:

For 360p video 

• Resolution: 640x360

• Video bitrate range: 600 Kbps -2,000 Kbps

For 480p video at 30 fps (frames per second)

• Resolution: 854x480

• Video bitrate range: 600 Kbps - 2,000 Kbps

For 720p video at 30 fps

• Resolution: 1280x720

• Video bitrate range: 400 Kbps -1,000 Kbps

For 720p video at 60 fps

• Resolution: 1280x720

• Video bitrate range: 2,250 Kbps - 6,000 Kbps

For 1080p video at 30 fps

• Resolution: 1920x1080

• Video bitrate range: 3,000 Kbps - 6,000 Kbps

For 1080p video at 60 fps

• Resolution: 1920x1080

• Video bitrate range: 4,500 Kbps - 9,000 Kbps

For other supported live streaming specifications, you can go to Facebook’s website to learn more.

Back to the main point, as you can see, the better the video quality, the higher the bitrate, and of course, the more the internet upload bandwidth required. 

So, is 5 Mbps upload good enough? Well, it totally depends on your encoding bitrate. If your connection has 5 Mbps upload bandwidth, your stream bitrate needs to be less than 5 Mbps (5000 kbps). 

According to epiphan.com, broadcasters should also always have some extra upload bandwidth and speed available (in addition to the required bitrate) to ensure any changes to your network do not affect the stream’s quality. 

Internet speed test

Wrapping up

Now, you know “when is 5 Mbps upload speed good for live streaming”, right? Well, it depends on the quality of your live video. Always aim for the highest upload speed that you can to ensure good watching experiences for your viewers. Running an upload speed test (https://gospeedcheck.com/article/upload-speed-test-544)  is the quickest way to measure your current speed. And that’s all for this post; hope you found it helpful. 

Sources:

epiphan.com/blog/bandwidth-for-streaming

facebook.com/business/help/162540111070395

dacast.com/blog/viewers-internet-speed-needed-for-streaming