Raspberry Pi Automatic Twitch Streaming

This project is a camera placed on a three in our Sugar Shack that displays sap dripping in a collection bucket. We keep the feed running 24/7 for as long as the sugar season continues(2 to 4 weeks).

It will start streaming to the defined twitch channel when you power it. It will also check every 2 minutes the twitch API to see if you are still online. If the stream is offline, the Pi will reboot and restart the stream automatically.

This project is built with a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B and a USB webcam. It could also work with the Raspberry Pi Camera Module.

Pull Requests are always very welcome.

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Setup

You need to have the basic piOS image installed on your Raspberry Pi to get this to work. Make sure it's connected to the internet.

• SSH into your Raspberry Pi.

• install FFMPEG sudo apt-get -y install ffmpeg

• install Python sudo apt-get -y install python3-pip

• Edit startStream.sh to add your Twitch stream key.

• Copy startStream.sh to /home/pi/piTube/

• Add startStream.sh to the cron job

• In terminal type sudo crontab -e

• Add this entry and the end of the file

• @reboot /home/pi/piTube/startStream.sh

• Exit and save.

• Now, you can reboot and see if it works.

If you want to monitor if you are still online:

• Edit checkLive.py to add your Twitch API key and secret.
• Copy checkLive.py to /home/pi/piTube/
• Add checkLive.py to the cron job
• In terminal type sudo crontab -e
• Add this entry and the end of the file
• */3 * * * * /home/pi/piTube/checkLive.py
• Exit and save.

Voila!

PS: This is not the best code I have written, but it works for me :)

The setup

2022 is the 5th year we have installed the project, and over the years, we have used multiple streaming services. First 2 years, we used Facebook Live, Then YouTube, And since last year, we have used Twitch.

Since we now have upload bandwidth to spare (fiber optic internet installed over winter), we might broadcast other nice things in the forest - lost of deers walking around.