A contribution feed is the link that carries live video from the source - a stadium, studio, or OB truck - to the platform's ingest. Unlike the distribution feeds sent to viewers, contribution prioritizes quality and reliability over compression, often using protocols built for lossy public networks such as SRT, RIST, or Zixi, or dedicated lines.
Because it is the single point where the live event enters the system, contribution is engineered for resilience: bonded connections, dual redundant paths, and automatic failover, since a dropped contribution link means dead air with no recovery. Getting contribution right is the difference between a flawless live event and an embarrassing on-air failure.
The handbook · 7 volumes
Fora Soft Video Engineering Handbook
A contribution feed carries the live signal from the venue to your ingest, and every quality loss there reaches every viewer. We wrote seven volumes covering the video stack; for contribution start with Volume 2 on ingest over RTMP, SRT, and RIST, packet loss, and latency budgets, then Volume 1 on encoder settings, with delivery in Volume 3. Written by Nikolay Sapunov, CEO at Fora Soft.
Bringing live events into your platform over unreliable venue links?
We will review your first-mile setup and send a contribution plan with protocol, bitrate, and redundancy choices for each source. 250+ video products shipped since 2005.
