See exactly what your encoder is sending, the moment it reaches 5centsCDN. Monitor bitrate, frame rate, codec, resolution and audio on a real-time 24-hour timeline, with SCTE-35 ad breaks in the same view.
Live stream health monitoring is the real-time tracking of your stream's technical signal (bitrate, frame rate, codec, resolution and audio) to catch problems before your viewers notice them.
Your encoder can show a green light while the stream arriving at ingest tells a different story. A 6 Mbps setting can arrive as 3 Mbps. A frame rate can drift. A changed profile can break playback on older devices. None of this shows up in your encoder's preview window.
5centsCDN measures your encoder's output independently at ingest, so you see what your stream really looks like, not what your encoder claims it is sending.
Spot drops and spikes as they happen, before they turn into stalls and quality switches for viewers.
Confirm that codec, profile, level and resolution match your intended setup before they cause device compatibility problems.
See SCTE-35 cue-outs and cue-ins alongside your video signal, so you can tell a signalling problem from a stream problem instantly.
Look back through the whole day, not only the last few minutes, and export older data to CSV.
Every second of your stream is plotted on one timeline covering the last 24 hours. Hover over any point to see a full snapshot of your signal at that moment.
Many tools stop at bitrate and FPS. 5centsCDN also surfaces the encoding parameters that decide whether your stream plays everywhere.
A change in H.264 profile or level, or an unexpected pixel format, can make a stream fail on some devices while it looks perfect on your monitor. Because every parameter is measured independently at ingest, you can confirm that your encoder is producing exactly what your workflow and your viewers' devices expect. This works whichever encoder you use.
When your stream carries SCTE-35 markers, every ad break appears directly on the health timeline. You see when each break opened and closed, next to the bitrate and audio at that exact moment.
That context matters. When a break looks wrong, you know right away whether the marker was the problem or the stream was. An unexpected drop in audio bitrate during a break, for example, stands out immediately when both signals share one view.
Hover over any break for the decoded cue-out and cue-in details, including the splice event ID, break duration, PTS and raw payload.
Need full SCTE-35 validation, pairing checks and missing-marker alerts?
Explore SCTE-35 MonitoringViewers report buffering during a live match, but the encoder dashboard shows a steady 6 Mbps.
The health timeline shows the stream arriving at ingest at under 3 Mbps for the same ten minutes.
The problem is the venue's uplink, not the platform, and you know it in minutes.
Mid-rolls on a 24/7 channel suddenly lose audio.
On the timeline, audio bitrate drops to almost nothing during every break while the SCTE-35 cues fire correctly.
The markers are fine; the slate audio isn't.
Your encoder's output is measured at ingest, the first point where your stream meets 5centsCDN, giving you an independent, vendor-neutral view of what your encoder delivers.
Software encoders like OBS, vMix and Wirecast, as well as hardware encoders. If it can push a stream to 5centsCDN, its output can be monitored.
Monitoring follows your stream, whichever way it arrives.
Stream health monitoring works alongside 5centsCDN's alerting:
Monitor every second of your live stream's health, with your ad breaks in the same view.
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