Note
The following information is about Microsoft Stream (Classic) which will eventually be retired and replaced by Stream (on SharePoint). To start using the newer video solution today, just upload your videos to SharePoint, Teams, Yammer, or OneDrive. Videos stored in Microsoft 365 the way you'd store any other file is the basis for Microsoft Stream (on SharePoint). Learn more...
Live events in Microsoft Stream (Classic)
Important
For the latest information on Microsoft 365 live events temporary limit increases see the Microsoft 365 live events assistance program to learn more.
Overview of live events
You can create live events using Microsoft Stream (Classic) across the organization. You can schedule, produce, and deliver live events for various scenarios such as company-wide events, leadership updates and more. Live events enable producers to curate and control the content that is broadcast to an audience.
Tip
Do you have a question about or need help with live events? Contact our Live Events Assistance team to get started!
You can create, schedule, and run live events using a single bitrate RTMP or RTMPS stream from an encoder – we’ll take care of all the transcoding for adaptive bitrate delivery to your viewers.
Just like any other video in Stream, you can make the live event open to your entire company or limit the access to specific groups. This provides an end-to-end creation and viewing experience inside of Stream.
After the event, the video will be available on demand with intelligent features including:
Speech-to-text and closed captions
Transcript search and timecodes let you quickly find moments that matter in a video.
Live events in Microsoft 365
You can create a live event in Stream, Microsoft Teams or Yammer — wherever your audience, team, or community resides. Attendees can participate in real time, with high-definition (HD) video and interactive discussion, or catch up later with powerful AI features that unlock the content of the event recording. Seamless integration across Microsoft 365 means that you can use Stream (Classic) to deliver highly produced, studio-quality events. Learn more about live events in Microsoft 365.
Ignite 2019 session: Microsoft 365 live events - How to produce an event, architecture, admin, which tool when
If you missed our "M365 live events across Teams, Yammer, & Stream" session at Ignite in November 2019, you can watch the recording of the session below or go to the Microsoft Tech Community to download resources for the session.
Get started
Ensure that users you want to be able to create live events have the granted permissions required to create a live event.
By default, everyone in your organization can create a live event, however a Stream (Classic) admin can restrict access. Learn more about live event administration.
Go to Admin settings > Live events
Click Create > Live event. Follow the instructions in Create a live event in Stream
Monitor your event
As an organizer or producer you can monitor the audience engagement in real-time. Quickly toggle between audience and producer views to see different screens and monitor analytics like current viewers, likes, and total views for your event.
Capabilities
The following are capabilities of live events:
| Operation | Limits |
|---|---|
| Create live events in Microsoft Stream1 | Enterprise (E1, E3, E5), Education (A3, A5) |
| Create live events in Microsoft 3651 (Teams and/or Yammer with external encoder)2 | Enterprise (E1, E3, E5), Education (A3, A5) |
| Watch live event | Viewers with permissions on the event and a valid Microsoft Stream (Classic) license |
| Maximum resolution | 720p |
| Maximum concurrent live events (in pre-live or live) | 153 |
| Active concurrent viewers | 10,0003 |
| Maximum length of live event | 4 hours |
| Partner network caching support | Hive, Kollective, Ramp |
| Other network caching support | May work but not supported |
| Attendee DVR controls | Pause, playback speed (2x catch up, 1x at live), seek |
| Real-time captions | 708 caption pass-through from encoder |
| Automatic speech-to-text and captions | Processed after event |
| Interactive discussions | Supported via Yammer when event is created from Yammer |
| Microsoft Stream (Classic) comments | Available after event |
| On-demand viewing on live event (after event) 4 | Automatic transition for live to on-demand for immediate viewing and indexing in Microsoft Stream (Classic) |
| Downloadable recording | Processed and available after live event by owners |
1 The Stream (Classic) admin can restrict permissions to create live events.
2 You must be a group owner to create a live event in Yammer.
3 Number of live events and attendee counts are subject to change and dependent on service availability.
4 Live events are subject to storage usage in Microsoft Stream. The size of the post-live encoded top bitrate, used also as the downloadable recording, is used towards storage quota. Licensing overview.
Live events in Microsoft 365 is a highly available service and you can expect good performance at scale. In the very unlikely scenario that results in failover being required, live events using external encoding will not have redundancy and are not recoverable.