What is Password Protected Live Streaming?

A password protected live stream is essentially a live stream that is put behind a wall that can only be accessed with a password. The streamer decides the password and only shares it with select viewers. On WordPress and with WpStream, the way a password protected live stream works is by creating a password protected page and embedding the WpStream Video Player onto this page. The password can then be shared with viewers so that they can access the live stream.

Uses of a password protected live stream

There are plenty of reasons why one may choose to have password protected live streaming.

Password protection is crucial to businesses, non-profits, schools, and universities. All these industries have increased their video content by 50%. Since the pandemic began, live streaming and video content has been even more popular. For this reason, we know that we need to find different ways to live stream – whether it’s for free, pay-per-view, or if they subscribe to a monthly plan to watch live streams and video content.

Because of this trend, businesses have been providing training materials and confidential content via live streams whether it is on Zoom or Teams. However, if there are webinars or bigger live events, such platforms may not be suitable. For this reason, they would want to create a live stream on their website and share the link with their colleagues or other people in the field. In this case, they can create a password protected page and share the link and password for limited access.

Another use of password protected streaming, which is also quite a popular question we get here at WpStream, is offering a live stream for free to certain people (VIPs, for instance), and having other people pay for the live event. Essentially, the VIPs may have already paid or are members of the particular organization so they get to watch the stream for free. However, others will need to pay to watch and of course, do not have access to the password protected live stream.

Take a look at how to create a password protected live stream with WpStream.

How do broadcast a password protected live event?

In order to create a password protected live stream, you will need to invest in a video streaming platform. YouTube or Facebook Live do not offer such a feature so that would not be an option for a streamer that wishes to set up such a live stream. If you have a WordPress website, all you need to do is install the WpStream Plugin.

Next, you will create a page by going to your WordPress admin and clicking on ‘Pages’ and then ‘Add New’

Add a heading (title). On the right hand side of the page under ‘Page’, you will see the tab ‘Status and Visibility’. Click on this tab and you will find ‘Visibility’ pop up with the default as ‘Public’.

Go to press ‘Public’ and there will be 3 options that pop up. ‘Public’, ‘Private’, and ‘Password Protected’. Select ‘Password Protected’. You will now be asked to add a password – choose any one you would like and make sure you note it down.

Press Enter and Publish the page. Click on ‘View Page’ and you will be taken straight to your Password Protected page where you will have to enter the password

Now go back to edit your page. I am using Elementor,

Look for the ‘WpStream Player’ widget. You can also find the block under the same name or Elementor or you can use this shortcode:

[wpstream_player id=”Add here the live stream id or the video id” ][/wpstream_player]

Replace “Add here the live stream id or the video id” with your Channel ID.

Drag the widget to the ‘+’ on the page

Once it has been added, you will see that you have to add a Product/Free Product ID

To find this ID, you will first have to create a free channel. Go back to your WordPress admin and click on ‘WpStream’ and then ‘Channels’

Add your title, description, featured image, any tags, and categories. Hit ‘Publish’

After it has loaded, you will find the the Channel ID on top. In this case, it is 797. Copy this number and go back to where you were editing the WpStream Player Widget

Paste the channel ID into the Product/Free Product ID section

Now let’s go back to start our live event. You can check out the settings and enable things like recording your live stream or disabling the viewer count. After you are happy with your setting, click on ‘Start Live Event’

Wait about two minutes while it loads. In the mean time, open OBS Studio. OBS Studio is a free pro tool that you can use to broadcast live events using Custom RTMP

Click on ‘Settings’, and then ‘Stream’. You will find a server and stream key that you will have to in put from WpStream once the channel is done loading

Once the event is ready to start, go back to WpStream and click on ‘Broadcast with External Broadcasters’. This will give you the Server and Stream key that you need to paste into OBS. Copy each of them and paste them in the appropriate sections. Click ‘OK’

Now, you can start your live stream by pressing ‘Start Streaming’

Go back to your password protected page and click on ‘Preview’. You will now be taken to the page where you will enter the password in order to gain access to the live stream. Enter your password and click ‘Enter’

You can now watch the live stream!

Once your broadcast is set to end, go back to OBS Studio and click on ‘Stop Streaming’

Go back to your page and you will see that the following message appears which means that your broadcast has ended

Remember: when you share the link with viewers, also share the password. They will only have access to the live stream if they can enter to right password.

And that is how you can set up a password protected live stream on WordPress with WpStream. You can start protecting your content in no time.

Video Monetization vs. Password Protection

In some situations, you may want to sell your live streams as you sell ‘tickets’ for people to watch. In this case, you want to charge viewers to get access to your content. Selling ‘Tickets’ or ‘Pay-Per-View’ means that the viewer will have to purchase the live stream before they can watch.

Another monetization method that we offer is subscription plans. This is when a viewer pays or a weekly, monthly, or yearly basis to have access to a particular channel (or multiple channels). This is similar to Netflix, Hulu, Disney +, and other streaming websites.

If you do not want to monetize your content OR if your viewers have already purchased tickets to your event and you do not want them to pay again, that is when you set up a Password Protected Live Stream. You can also mix and match! For those who have not purchased tickets, you can set up a Pay-Per-View live stream that they have to pay in order to watch. For those who have previously purchased tickets directly from you, you can email them the password to the password protected live stream. Please note that in order for this to work, you will need to set up two different devices and external broadcasters. One that broadcasts on the Pay-Per-View channel, and another that broadcasts on the Password Protected channel.

Conclusion

Password protected live streaming is a feature we highly encourage to our streamers as this makes their streaming experience more secure and controlled. Things could go left during a live stream because it is LIVE and the wrong people may be watching. With an extra barrier offering security, you can safely broadcast and only focus on your content instead of worrying about other factors that could infringe on the the quality of the broadcast.

At WpStream, we make it easy for you to live stream your content at any time, in any place. With the added security of having password-protected live streams, your broadcasts are safe with us.

Start your free trial with WpStream today and experience the ability to broadcast live events, set up Pay-Per-View videos, and diversify the way you do your business.