Operate the product, step by step.

Guide overview

What Cosmik Streamer is, what it needs, and how the pieces fit together before you build one.

• What it does, in plain terms
• Guide contents
• What you need
• A quick word on how it's organised

Hardware and installation

The Raspberry Pi 4 build: ports, power routes, the Goggles 3 USB connection, and what to plug in where.

• The parts
• Connect it
• Prepare the microSD card
• Open it in a browser
• Powering off
• What the licence does not include

Getting started

First boot to live video, in order: write the card, join the setup Wi-Fi, create your account, activate.

Joining your Wi-Fi

Put the Streamer on your home or venue network, and the one thing it costs you while it is there.

• ⚠️ The one thing to know first
• Joining a network
• If it says it is waiting
• If your network is not in the list
• If it says it could not join
• Leaving a network
• What you can reach it at
• See also

Live View

The main screen: the live picture, recording, fullscreen, and what each indicator is telling you.

• What you'll see
• Recording a flight
• Sharing the live picture with others
• A word about delay
• If the picture doesn't appear

Sharing the live view

Let clients and guests watch the flight - open, behind a code, or by QR - and change it mid-flight.

• The two doors
• Sharing the live view
• Choosing what viewers are allowed to do
• The choices
• Codes
• Guests
• After a restart
• Adjusting what viewers see
• Picture
• Everyone sees the whole picture
• Getting to your own console
• What visitors can and cannot do
• Tips for a shoot
• Coming soon

Media and clips

Recordings, the rolling ten-minute buffer, playback, and the shot lists clients ask you for.

• Recording: automatic or manual — your choice
• The rolling clip buffer
• The buffer is not a recording
• Where it is kept — and what each choice costs you
• What the page tells you while it's running
• Your recordings
• Clip requests — mark the shot with the client
• How it works
• Managing the queue
• The shot list — getting shots to your editing software
• Twenty requests at once — GyroFlow project files
• Write the shot list onto the footage card itself
• Line up another camera's footage
• Important: which file the clip actually comes from
• Storage
• Your footage is never deleted automatically
• Coming soon

Cosmik Batch Exporter

The free desktop app that drives Gyroflow and stabilizes a whole folder of flights in one run.

• What it does
• What you need
• Using a Streamer shot list
• Current integration boundary
• Price and licence

Flight Log

How your signal held up, flight by flight: timeline, signal, attitude, and the GPS path on a map.

• Why you'd bother
• Finding it
• What it tells you
• The plain-English summary
• The chart — the Timeline
• The Signal view
• The Attitude view
• Moments worth a look
• The flight path — for drones with GPS
• Reading the 3-D view
• Choosing what the colour means
• What the markings mean
• Moving around it
• About height
• What each part needs
• Housekeeping

Destinations

Send the flight out: WebRTC, HLS, RTSP, RTMP and SRT, including YouTube and Twitch.

• 1. Sharing on your own network
• 2. Going live to YouTube, Facebook and others
• Adding a destination
• Where to find your stream key
• Watching the status
• Running several at once
• The other destination types explained
• Which picture gets sent?
• Branded is automatic
• When to choose Pilot feed instead
• MQTT — feeding dashboards and automation
• Letting the broker control the Streamer
• Coming soon

OBS and production tools

Use the flight as a camera in OBS or vMix with a clean, low-overhead browser source.

• Add the Browser Source
• Choose the picture
• Build the OBS scene
• Framing a 4:3 picture
• If OBS shows nothing

Video and output

The broadcast version of your feed, resolution and bitrate, and driving an HDMI screen.

• The problem this solves
• The two feeds
• Turning on the broadcast version
• The settings
• Aspect ratio
• Fit mode
• Resolution
• Bitrate
• Encoder
• Pilot feed (input)
• What it costs you
• Adding your branding
• Putting the flight on a monitor or TV

Overlays and branding

Put your logo, lower thirds, timecode and standby screens on the broadcast feed.

• Splash screen (what viewers see between flights)
• Adding your picture or video
• Placing your message
• What kind of file works best
• Your logo
• Adding it
• What kind of file works best
• Placing it
• The name bar (lower-third)
• Timecode
• Display name
• A suggested setup
• Coming soon

Signal and telemetry

Read control-link strength and aircraft data from an ExpressLRS radio and your flight controller.

• What you'll see today
• Two different sources — and why half the page can be blank
• Getting the aircraft readings
• GPS needs a GPS module
• Setting it up
• What you need first
• On your radio
• The one menu to stay out of
• Fixing it — telemetry stopped and the radio still says WiFi
• Getting it to Cosmik Streamer
• Checking it's working
• Looking at it afterwards
• Coming soon

Licensing

Board ID, licence key, activation, and how to move a licence to another Streamer.

Power

Powering a Raspberry Pi 4 properly: voltage, current, cabling, and what undervoltage looks like.

Software Updates

Checking for new software, installing it, and what the Streamer will never do while you are flying.

• The short version
• Checking for an update
• "Could not reach the internet"
• What it will never do
• How the Streamer knows an update is really ours
• Installing it
• What stays up while it installs
• The Streamer will never install on its own
• If something goes wrong
• Questions

Troubleshooting

The common problems in the order worth checking them, and what each symptom actually means.

• No picture — "Waiting for goggles link"
• The picture keeps pausing while I fly
• I can't open the app
• The Streamer's Wi-Fi network has vanished from the list
• I can't sign in / I forgot my password
• "Licence needed" — no video at all
• The picture is stuttering or freezing for viewers
• A streaming destination shows "Error"
• Telemetry says "Waiting for telemetry"
• No GPS — no satellites, no map, no speed or altitude
• 1. Does the aircraft actually have a GPS module?
• 2. Put a flight battery in — USB alone is not enough
• 3. Look at the GPS sensor indicator — this is the test that matters
• 4. Is GPS switched on?
• 5. Is a serial port assigned to GPS? — the invisible one
• 6. Go outside and wait
• Still nothing after all six?
• The logo isn't appearing on the broadcast
• Recordings aren't appearing
• Recordings have the wrong date or time on them
• Everything seems stuck
• ⚡ Odd, unrelated problems all at once — check power first
• Still stuck?

Glossary

Plain-English explanations of the technical words used across these guides.

• Air unit
• Aspect ratio
• Bitrate
• Broadcast version / broadcast branch
• Codec / H.264
• Crop
• CSV
• ELRS (ExpressLRS)
• FPS (frames per second)
• Gyro data / stabilisation
• Buffer (rolling clip buffer)
• Hardware encoding (HW)
• HLS
• Latency / delay
• Link Quality (LQ)
• Lower-third
• MPEG-TS
• NDI
• Pad / letterbox / pillarbox
• Passthrough
• Pilot feed
• RSSI
• RTMP / RTMPS
• RTSP
• SNR (signal-to-noise ratio)
• SRT
• Stream key
• Telemetry
• Timecode
• TX power
• WebRTC