Remote guests in a live show

Open Live can bring a remote guest into a live show with nothing more than a link. The guest opens it in a browser, sends camera and microphone to the production, and hears the show back without their own voice. The crew sees the guest in Studio and takes them to air like any other source.

Can a guest join an Open Live show from a browser?

Yes. Guest calling is built into the Open Live backend and is on by default. Each guest gets an invite link to a guest page that the backend serves itself, so the guest installs nothing and needs no account. The page works in a recent Chrome, Safari or Firefox, on a laptop or a phone.

The guest's camera and microphone reach the production over WebRTC with WHIP, and the guest hears and sees the show through a return feed over WHEP. Both run through the same cloud pipeline as the rest of the production, on Strom, the open-source media engine behind Open Live.

How do I invite a remote guest?

• Reserve guest slots. In the production's options in Studio, add up to four guest slots. A guest slot is a mixer input set aside for a guest, with its own return feed.
• Create an invite. Once the production is active, open the Guests panel in Studio, pick a slot, give the guest a label if you like, and choose how long the link stays valid: one hour, four hours, one day or one week.
• Send the link. Copy the link and send it to the guest by chat or email. The secret part of the link sits after the # sign, so the browser never sends it to the server and it does not end up in access logs. Open Live stores only a hash of it.
• Stay in control. You can revoke an invite at any time, and removing a guest ends their connection and frees the slot. When the production stops, its invites stop working.

One guest fills a slot at a time. If a second person opens a link for a slot that is already in use, the page tells them the slot is not available. The same guest can reload the page or rejoin after a dropped connection and keep their slot.

What does the guest see on the guest page?

• A preview first. The page shows the guest their own camera and lets them pick a camera and a microphone. Nothing goes to the studio until they press Go live.
• Live controls. While live, the guest can mute their microphone, switch to another camera or microphone without dropping the call, and leave. A muted guest shows up as muted in Studio.
• The return feed. Once live, the page plays the return feed from the studio. The guest can show their own camera as a small picture-in-picture over it and move it to another corner.
• Problems in plain words. If a camera or microphone stops, for example because it was unplugged or another app took it, the page says so and offers to reconnect it. If the connection to the studio drops, the page warns the guest that the studio can no longer see or hear them and offers a Rejoin button.

What does a remote guest hear?

The guest hears the programme sound with their own voice taken out, a mix-minus, so they do not hear themselves come back with a delay. The return is built from the production's audio mixer and follows the crew's faders and mutes, and it stays in sync with the programme picture the guest sees.

The guest can switch to the full programme instead, which includes their own voice about half a second late. The page warns them that this makes talking hard. The crew can switch the same setting for each guest from Studio, and a change on either side shows up on the other.

How does the crew take a guest to air?

A guest slot is an ordinary input of the vision mixer. The guest appears in Studio's preview and program buttons and in the multiviewer, so you load them to preview, check them and take them to air with the usual controls, or put them in a picture-in-picture next to the host. The multiviewer tile and the audio strip show the guest's name.

The Guests panel in Studio lists each slot with its guest and state: invited, joined, on preview, on air or left. It marks a guest whose microphone is muted, more strongly when that guest is on preview or program, and a guest whose audio or video has stopped arriving. If a guest who is on air drops off, Studio marks their tile, but it never cuts away on its own. That call stays with the director.

Can a guest join from a phone camera app or an encoder?

Yes. A guest slot can take its picture and sound from an SRT or EFP source instead of the browser, for example a phone streaming over cellular from an SRT camera app. The guest then opens the invite link only to hear and see the return feed, and the page does not ask for a camera or microphone. For more on bringing in feeds over SRT, see remote production over SRT.

What does a guest need on their network?

A browser and an internet connection. The guest page gets its ICE servers from the Open Live deployment, the same list Studio uses. A guest whose browser cannot reach Strom directly, for example when Strom sits behind NAT, connects only through a TURN server on that list. If you host Open Live yourself, add one to Strom's list; the backend README explains how, and how to limit what that TURN server relays, since its credentials reach every guest who joins.

What does guest calling not do yet?

• There is no talkback on the guest page. To talk to a guest off air, use Open Intercom, the open-source intercom that runs alongside Open Live, or a phone call.
• The guest page does not show the guest when they are on air. Tell them when they are live.
• There is no low-latency return that runs ahead of the picture. The return stays in sync with the programme.
• A production has at most four guest slots, with one guest in each slot at a time.

Is Open Live guest calling free and open source?

Yes. Guest calling is part of the Open Live backend and Studio, both published on GitHub under the MIT licence. Self-hosted, you run the backend and its CouchDB database, Studio and Strom yourself; the self-hosting guide covers what that involves. On Open Source Cloud you sign in, pick a monthly plan that includes production hours on shared Strom, and start producing. Your first live show walks through a production from an empty account to on air.