Larix Broadcaster: Live Stream

Review by eFreeware

If your work involves getting live video out of a phone and into a broadcast chain, Larix Broadcaster is the sort of app you end up comparing everything else against. It is a free Android encoder from Furtree Systems that pushes video to streaming platforms, media servers and production switchers over protocols like SRT, RTMP, NDI and WebRTC. The pitch is that a phone replaces an encoder box and a desktop setup, and for a lot of field work that trade is worth considering.

The app has been on Google Play since August 2015 and has passed 100,000 installs, which puts it among the longer-running tools in this category. Its 2.9 average from 1,579 ratings suggests the audience is not uniformly delighted, and once you look at how the features are split between the free app and the Premium subscription, that split becomes easier to understand.

What I find most interesting is the range of jobs it is built for. This is not a one-tap go-live button for casual posting. It is aimed at people who already know what their ingest server expects and want the phone to speak that language properly, whether that is an IRL stream to Twitch or Kick, a reporter filing over a patchy connection, or a camera position feeding a studio switcher.

Streaming to Twitch, Kick and other platforms

The most familiar use is going live to a platform. The developer lists Twitch, Kick, YouTube Live, Facebook Live and Restream.io among the destinations, and says any RTMP-capable service will work. RTMP and RTMPS are both supported, so the setup is the one most streamers already know: point the app at the ingest address and key the platform gives you and start broadcasting.

Camera handling goes further than a basic streamer app. Front and back cameras can be switched while live, and the app supports portrait and landscape rotation, which matters if you are moving around rather than sitting at a desk. Resolution reaches UltraHD, and adaptive bitrate streaming adjusts to changing network conditions, which is the feature that makes this plausible for IRL work where signal strength varies block by block.

Overlays are part of the same package. You can place image, text, HTML and GPS-based elements on the video, and set up separate overlay groups for the live feed, the paused state and the stand-by state, so a holding screen can look different from the live feed without rebuilding anything. Streams can also be recorded as MP4 files alongside the outgoing feed, which is useful when you want a local copy of what went out.

Field reporting and remote production work

The second audience is professional rather than platform-facing. SRT is the headline here, and the developer positions it for contribution from unreliable networks, which is the situation a reporter in the field usually faces. Instead of a bonded cellular pack, the phone becomes the contribution link, with low latency as the goal.

NDI HX2 and SRT output let the app feed a production switcher in a studio setup. Talkback provides audio return from the studio over SRT, RTMP or Icecast, so an operator can talk to the person holding the phone. An NDI tally light shows on-air status, and stand-by mode lets a pre-configured stream sit ready until it is needed. Together these are the pieces that make a phone behave like a camera position rather than an afterthought.

Multi-camera productions get SEI and NTP metadata insertion for syncing several devices, and events or sports work can send to more than one destination at once. That last capability sits behind the Premium subscription, along with several other features, so the free app is best understood as a capable single-output encoder with a paid tier above it.

USB cameras and hardware input

One of the less common features is UVC input over USB OTG. With a compatible camera or capture card attached, the app can take that feed and stream it, which turns an Android device into a small encoder for a wired source. It is the kind of setup that suits a fixed position at an event, a bench in a workshop or a room where a phone camera is not the right tool.

This is also where the hardware requirements start to matter. UVC camera support is a Premium feature, so it is not part of the free experience. Multi-camera capture on the device itself requires Android 11 or newer, which narrows the pool of phones that can use that particular capability.

If you already own a capture card and an Android tablet or phone with USB support, the combination is appealing because it avoids buying a dedicated encoder. The catch is that the subscription is what makes it work, so the cost comparison is against hardware and other software rather than against free alternatives.

Protocols, codecs and what the free tier actually does

Under the hood the app is unusually broad for a mobile tool. It supports SRT, RTMP and RTMPS, WebRTC and WHIP, NDI HX2, RTSP and RIST. Video is encoded in H.264 or H.265/HEVC, and audio uses AAC or Opus depending on the protocol in play. That spread is what lets the same app serve a Twitch streamer, a news crew and a studio engineer without three different installs.

The free download carries a watermark and a time limit, and Premium at $9.99 per month removes both. Premium also unlocks multiple simultaneous outputs, Talkback, HEVC encoding, ABR streaming, auto-start, UVC camera support and extra overlay options. That is a long list, and it means the free version is closer to an evaluation than a full working setup for most professional uses.

The app contains no advertising, which is a point in its favor for anyone who has tried to run a broadcast tool with banners on screen. Purchases are handled inside the app, so the cost recurs for as long as you need the features. Remote management is handled through Larix Tuner, which the developer describes as a way to manage licenses and control Larix devices from elsewhere.

Setting up and sharing configurations

Getting started assumes some prior knowledge. The app supports a long list of servers, including Nimble Streamer, Wowza, Red5, Flussonic, vMix, Dacast, Limelight and Akamai, so the chances are good that your existing infrastructure is covered.

Settings can travel between devices via Larix Grove, which passes them along as a QR code or deep link. For anyone running several phones in a multi-camera setup, that is a meaningful convenience compared with typing server addresses and stream keys into each handset. Auto-start streaming is available too, so a stream can begin without someone pressing a button.

The developer maintains documentation and a setup video, and there is a beta program through Google Play for people who want features before general release. The most recent update added preferred audio input support for Remote Control and moved to libsrt v1.5.6, which suggests the app is still being worked on rather than left as it was.

Who this fits best

Larix Broadcaster makes most sense for people whose job or hobby already involves a streaming server, a switcher or a contribution workflow. Mobile journalists, remote production crews, event and sports operators, and IRL streamers who want camera switching and overlays on a phone all fall inside the intended audience. The protocol list and the Talkback, tally and sync features are aimed at that group rather than at casual viewers.

A tool with this many moving parts tends to attract frustration when a configuration does not behave, and the gap between the free tier and the Premium feature set will not please everyone. Anyone expecting the full professional toolkit without a subscription should read the feature split carefully before committing.

If you are a casual streamer who wants to post a quick live video to a social platform, the depth here is more than you need, and the watermark and time limit on the free version will push you toward paying for capabilities you may never touch. If you are already comfortable with SRT or NDI and want a phone to act as a camera or encoder, this is one of the few Android apps that covers the whole chain in one place.

A capable encoder for people with a workflow already in place

My recommendation depends heavily on what you already have. If you run a production setup with a server or switcher and want to add phone-based cameras, Larix Broadcaster is a strong candidate because it speaks the protocols that infrastructure expects and adds the supporting pieces like Talkback, tally and metadata sync.

If you are a solo streamer on Twitch or Kick, the calculus is different. The free version gives you a working RTMP encoder with overlays and camera switching, but the watermark and time limit mean that anything beyond a trial points toward the $9.99 monthly subscription. That is a reasonable price for a professional tool and a harder sell for a hobby.

The app's breadth is its main argument: SRT, RTMP, NDI, WebRTC, RTSP and RIST in one Android package, with H.264 and HEVC encoding and MP4 recording alongside. The 2.9 rating suggests it does not satisfy everyone, and the feature split means the free tier is a starting point rather than the finished product. For field crews and production teams, though, the combination is difficult to match on Android.

What's new in version 1.5.13

~ Added Preferred Audio Input support for Remote Control ~ libsrt v1.5.6