Get the apps
Two pieces of software, both free under AGPL-3.0. The encoder is the one you always need: it bonds your uplinks and sends a single RIST feed to the relay. The OBS plugin is only for people whose source is OBS — it hands OBS's raw frames and synchronised audio to the encoder instead of letting OBS compress them first.
No installers and no account needed to try either one: every download runs as-is, and GStreamer is bundled inside the encoder. Connected features — relay allocation, per-uplink telemetry, remote destinations — need an account on the hosted service or your own receiver.
Encoder
Bonds Starlink, LTE and fixed links into one feed. This is the application that does the sending, whether OBS or one of its own capture inputs is the source.
AppImage · single file
Zip · portable
OBS raw output plugin
Install this only if OBS is your source. The plugin registers an output with no encoder attached, so libobs hands over raw video and synchronised audio and the encoder on the far end does the only encode — OBS never compresses, so nothing is encoded twice. It is a LAN/loopback transport to the encoder: 1080p60 NV12 is about 1493 Mbit/s on the wire, which is why it is not carried over the internet.
Zip · plugin and data
Build against your OBS
A plugin loads only into the OBS that built it. An OBS upgrade can invalidate a prebuilt module — if the output disappears from OBS after an update, rebuild from source or wait for a release built against the new version.
Run the encoder
Linux. The AppImage is the program — mark it executable and run it. Nothing is installed system-wide, and no dependencies are fetched.
chmod +x open-broadcast-encoder-linux-x86_64.AppImage
./open-broadcast-encoder-linux-x86_64.AppImageThe AppImage is built against Arch's current glibc, so a distribution older than roughly 2025 may refuse to start it. That is the one case where building from source is the answer — the AppImage carries no distribution-specific packaging.
Windows. Unzip anywhere that is not a network share and run open-broadcast-encoder.exe. The zip carries GStreamer and its plugins, so there is nothing else to install.
Install the OBS plugin, if you need it
Close OBS first, then extract the plugin zip into the OBS install directory. The archive already carries the folder layout OBS scans, so the module lands where OBS looks for it:
# Windows — extract over the OBS install, keeping the folder layout
C:\Program Files\obs-studio\
obs-plugins\64bit\open-broadcast-raw-output.dllStart OBS and the output appears in Settings → Output as an open-broadcast output. On Linux, cmake --install build places the module under ~/.config/obs-studio/plugins/open-broadcast-raw-output/, and the shared object must keep the same name as its directory.
Point it at a relay
On the hosted service, choose Hosted in the encoder and it shows a short code. Approve that code in the panel while signed in, and the encoder picks up its allocation, destinations and per-session key from your account:
# approve the code the encoder shows
https://app.stream.huntervalleyit.net.au/linkRunning your own receiver instead? The self-hosting guide covers the receiver, the bonding router and the listen address to paste into the encoder. Nothing about the encoder changes.
Supply what the builds cannot
- NDI. The encoder reads NDI sources through GStreamer's device provider, and the NDI runtime is never redistributed with it. If you want NDI input, install the free NDI runtime from the vendor first; without it the encoder simply lists no NDI sources.
- A capture device the platform can enumerate, if your source is HDMI or SDI rather than NDI or OBS.
- Uplinks. Each WAN — Starlink, LTE, fixed — is bonded by the router or the encoder, whichever you run; one link works, several are the point.
Verify the download
Every artefact publishes its SHA-256 next to it. Check it before running the file, particularly on Windows where neither build is code-signed yet.
# Linux
sha256sum -c open-broadcast-encoder-linux-x86_64.AppImage.sha256
# Windows (PowerShell), for either zip
Get-FileHash .\open-broadcast-encoder-windows-x64.zip -Algorithm SHA256Nothing here is code-signed yet: Windows SmartScreen will show an unknown publisher, and the AppImage carries no signature. Verify the SHA-256 above and take the files only from this page or the GitHub releases it links to. There is no macOS build of either.
Every release
Version history, older builds and release notes live on GitHub. The links above always resolve to the newest release; use these pages when you need to stay on a specific version:
Source and build instructions — CMake and GStreamer 1.28 or newer plus FLTK for the encoder, libobs and Qt6 for the plugin — are in those repositories under README.md.