How to Set Up a 24/7 Facebook Live Stream From Pre-Recorded Video

Written by Andrew·Founder of Streamloop—August 5, 2026

Facebook does not have a 24/7 mode. Every live broadcast on the platform ends after eight hours — not degrades, not throttles, ends. So a nonstop Facebook Live channel is not one long stream. It is a chain of broadcasts that restart the moment the previous one dies, without anyone clicking anything at 4am.

This guide is for anyone who wants a Facebook Page that is always broadcasting: church media teams with a back catalogue of services, small marketing teams running product loops, and technical folks who would rather run the whole thing themselves.

The 60-second version: turn on a persistent stream key in Facebook Live Producer, point an auto-restarting encoder at it, and keep the playlist long and varied. The rules matter more than the setup — Facebook explicitly prohibits looping video, pre-recorded content must be labelled, and a looped stream can never be monetised.

The six numbers that decide this project

Before you pick a tool, check whether the platform limits work for what you had in mind.

What a 24/7 Facebook Live stream actually is

Meta's Help Centre is blunt about it: the time limit for a live video session is eight hours, and that applies whether you go live from a phone, a browser, OBS or the Live Video API. A handful of media partners and large gaming creators are approved for up to twelve, but that is arranged through an account manager rather than a setting you can switch on. The published limits are here.

At the cap, Facebook ends the stream. No grace period, no rollover. Meta's own suggested workaround, printed on that same page, is to end and immediately restart the broadcast.

There used to be a real answer. In 2016 Meta shipped a Continuous Live Video API built for exactly this — puppy cams, construction feeds, anything meant to run for weeks. It is gone. It appears nowhere in the current Live Video API documentation, and the URLs that hosted it return 404s.

So an always-on Facebook stream in 2026 is a relay, not a feature. Something has to notice the broadcast ended and start a new one on the same key. Every method below is a different way of automating that.

One consequence worth knowing before you start: each restart creates a new post. Viewer count resets, the comment thread resets, and the previous eight hours becomes its own separate video. A channel running around the clock produces roughly three posts a day.

Facebook's 24/7 rules and limits

Six rules decide whether your channel survives. This is the section that matters most, and the one you will rarely find on a competing page.

1. Looping a video is against the Live policies

Not a grey area. Facebook's Live Policies list four prohibited practices, and the fourth names looping videos, static images and poll-only videos directly.

This does not mean you cannot run an always-on channel. It means what you broadcast has to be genuine content rather than one clip repeating. A playlist that takes many hours to cycle is a different animal from a two-minute loop. Lean toward more content rather than less.

2. Pre-recorded content has to be labelled

The same policy requires any pre-recorded footage in a live broadcast to be clearly marked as such. Meta accepts either an on-screen graphic or a disclaimer in the video title or description. Easy to comply with, easy to forget. Put “Pre-recorded” in your stream title and you are covered.

3. Copyright detection runs on live video, mid-broadcast

Meta's developer documentation says it plainly: your broadcast may be stopped if infringement is detected, and content management technology will flag, block and remove uncleared material — including a stream carrying unlicensed background music.

Music is the sharpest edge. The Meta Music Guidelines state that you may not use Meta products to create “a music listening experience”, and they name live video explicitly. They also note that the denser the music, the more likely the content gets limited, and that there should always be a visual component. If the plan was a 24/7 music channel, read that page before you spend anything.

A looping stream compounds the risk in a way a one-off broadcast does not: the same asset is fingerprinted every cycle, so one unlicensed element generates a repeating claim rather than a single one. Meta's repeat infringement policy can disable accounts and remove Pages.

4. Your recordings disappear after 30 days

In February 2025 Meta changed live video storage. Live broadcasts are replayable for 30 days and then deleted automatically. They used to be kept indefinitely.

For a 24/7 channel that means roughly 90 rolling videos on your Page at any moment, each ageing out on its own schedule. If a segment matters, download it or convert it to a Reel inside the window.

5. Looped content cannot be monetised

Meta's Content Monetization Policies list looping videos as a prohibited format: content that loops and displays the same segment multiple times cannot be monetised. Static videos and image slideshows are on the same list.

There is a second hurdle even for original content. The partner policies require that you created the content or were involved in creating it, and that your Page has an established presence of at least 30 days. You will find specific follower and watch-time thresholds for in-stream ads quoted all over the internet; none of them could be verified against a Meta page, so treat them as folklore until you see them in your own Monetization dashboard.

The short version: build a 24/7 stream to reach people, not to print money.

6. You need to clear the eligibility gate

Since mid-2024 your account has to be at least 60 days old and your Page needs at least 100 followers before you can stream at all. If a setup fails with error subcode 1363120 or 1363144, that is what you are hitting.

What people actually use always-on Facebook streams for

Rolling service and event replays. Churches, conferences and community organisations with a back catalogue get a channel that is always showing something, so anyone landing on the Page at any hour finds live content rather than a static feed.

Product and showroom loops. Furniture, cars, property, equipment. A continuously running walkthrough people can drop into, comment on and ask questions under — the comment thread is the actual point.

Ambient and location cams. Harbours, wildlife feeders, ski slopes, workshop cams. This is the one use case that is genuinely live, which sidesteps the pre-recorded rules entirely.

Training and onboarding channels. Internal or public, running a rotating curriculum so there is always a session in progress.

Radio-style talk and podcast channels. Your own back catalogue on rotation with a visual layer. Works well — just be careful with music beds.

Event countdowns and pre-shows. A pre-roll ahead of a scheduled broadcast, so the room fills before you go live for real.

What can you stream on a 24/7 Facebook channel?

Four source types work, in descending order of how safe they are.

Your own video library. The best answer and the boring one. Files you made, uploaded from your own master, arranged into a playlist long enough that it is not obviously a loop. No copyright exposure, no originality problem, no policy tension beyond labelling it as pre-recorded.

Licensed, royalty-free or public domain material. Stock footage libraries, Creative Commons archives, public domain film. Read the licence — “royalty-free” and “cleared for broadcast” are not the same thing, and many stock music licences specifically exclude continuous streaming.

A genuine live camera. An RTMP camera or an encoder pointed at something real. The only route that dodges the pre-recorded rules completely.

Re-streaming from YouTube: read this first

You will find plenty of tutorials for pulling a YouTube video and pushing it to Facebook. Technically it works. Legally it is a mess, in two separate ways.

First, YouTube's Terms of Service prohibit it. Users may not download, distribute, transmit or broadcast any part of the Service or its content except as expressly authorised, and a separate clause limits use to personal, non-commercial viewing. Third-party downloaders and HLS relays fall outside that authorisation — including when the video is yours. Studio's own download button is a different matter; that one YouTube explicitly offers you.

Second, if the content is not yours it is straightforward infringement regardless, and Facebook's Rights Manager tends to catch it mid-broadcast.

The compliant version is simple: upload the original master file to your streaming tool rather than the YouTube link. Same result, none of the exposure.

How to get your Facebook Live stream key

Every method below needs two strings from Facebook: a server URL and a stream key.

If a stream starts misbehaving after weeks of running fine, regenerating the key is the first thing to try.

Method 1: Streamloop, the fast way

We build Streamloop, so treat the ordering here as what it is. The alternatives further down are listed with their real pricing and their real limitations, including where they beat us.

Streamloop is a cloud service that turns a playlist of pre-recorded video into a continuous live stream pushed to any RTMP destination, including Facebook. No OBS, no PC, no VPS. Six steps, roughly ten minutes plus however long your files take to upload.

You can edit a running playlist — add, remove or reorder items — and the new order takes effect at the next item boundary with no restart and no gap. Changing quality, frame rate or destination does require a restart.

Pricing is pay-as-you-go rather than a subscription. Continuous 1080p30 works out to roughly $10 a month, 720p30 to about $5, and 4K30 to about $30. Preparation encoding is a fraction of a cent per minute, charged once per file. Storage and idle playlists are free — you only pay while a stream is actually live. Credits do not expire, and if your balance runs out mid-stream the stream stops, so keep a buffer.

Method 2: other cloud tools

If you need to hit multiple platforms at once, these are the real alternatives. Three questions matter for an always-on Facebook channel: can it loop indefinitely, can it multistream, and what does continuous 1080p cost.

Pricing verified against each vendor's published figures on 4 August 2026. These move — search the tool name plus “pricing” to check.

Castr is the established name and the one to pick if multistreaming matters, with Facebook as a named destination rather than a generic RTMP target. Two catches: looping requires the Premium plan or higher, and the “infinite” loop turns out to have a ceiling — Castr's own TV Playout documentation lists Max Loop Days as 15 on Premium and 30 on Ultra.

Livepush is the middle ground, cheaper than Castr with broader reach than us. Facebook streaming needs a paid plan, and 24/7 looping is gated to the Creators tier rather than the entry plans.

Gyre is built for nothing but always-on channels and supports up to eight simultaneous streams on one subscription. More expensive per channel, simpler if you run several.

Restream deserves a specific warning. It is a capable multistreaming service with an Upload & Stream feature, but its own help documentation caps replays at ten times. That is a scheduled rerun, not a 24/7 channel. Plenty of listicles get this wrong.

Method 3: OBS Studio, free but it needs a machine

OBS is the default answer when people ask what Facebook Live streaming software to use, and for a 24/7 channel it is the free route with the most control. The tradeoff is that something has to run it around the clock — your PC, your power bill, your connection, and Windows deciding to reboot for updates at 3am. Install OBS Studio and VLC separately; the bitness has to match, so 64-bit OBS needs 64-bit VLC or the source will not appear.

Add a VLC Video Source rather than a Media Source. VLC Video Source handles playlists and loops by default; Media Source is single-file with looping off. Add your files, confirm Loop Playlist is on, then in Settings → Stream choose Custom and paste the Facebook server URL and stream key. In Settings → Output, set 3,000–6,000 Kbps for 1080p30 and a keyframe interval of 2 seconds.

Facebook's encoder specifications, straight from the Live Video API documentation:

One rule catches people out: do not change encoder settings mid-broadcast. Meta lists that as a cause of unexpected stream termination.

Method 4: FFmpeg on a VPS, cheapest and most technical

If you are comfortable in a terminal, a small Linux box and one command will do this.

ffmpeg -re -fflags +genpts -stream_loop -1 -i master.mp4 \
  -c:v libx264 -preset veryfast -profile:v high -level 4.1 \
  -b:v 3000k -maxrate 3000k -bufsize 6000k \
  -pix_fmt yuv420p -r 30 -g 60 \
  -c:a aac -b:a 128k -ar 44100 -ac 2 \
  -f flv rtmps://live-api-s.facebook.com:443/rtmp/YOUR-STREAM-KEY

-stream_loop -1 loops forever. -re reads at native frame rate, which you want for live output. -r 30 -g 60 pins 30 fps with a keyframe every two seconds, matching Facebook's requirement. -ac 2 forces the stereo Meta asks for. -fflags +genpts heads off the non-monotonic timestamp errors that -stream_loop throws at the seam between loops.

Note that -i takes a single file. For a real playlist, either pre-join your clips into one master or feed FFmpeg a concat demuxer list. Your build also needs TLS support compiled in for RTMPS — most distribution packages have it, a stripped static build might not. Wrap the whole thing in a systemd unit with Restart=always so it survives crashes and the eight-hour cutoff.

Sizing and cost. 1080p30 wants roughly 4 vCPU and 4–8 GB RAM. At about 3.1 Mbps that is roughly 1 TB of egress a month, call it 1–2 TB depending on bitrate. A Hetzner CX33 runs about €8.49 a month excluding VAT after the June 2026 price adjustment, plus IPv4. The equivalent DigitalOcean droplet is $48 a month with 5 TiB of transfer.

Which makes the DIY route less of a bargain than it looks. Once you are paying €8.49 plus IPv4 and doing your own sysadmin, a cloud loop at around $10 for the same channel is roughly a wash. Build it yourself if you want FFmpeg-level control or you are running several channels off one box — not because it is cheaper.

Which method should you pick

Before you hit start

Run through this once:

• Persistent stream key enabled, and re-copied after enabling
• Playlist long and varied enough that it is not a short clip on repeat
• “Pre-recorded” in the stream title or an on-screen label
• Every clip and every music bed is yours or properly licensed
• Auto-restart or a watchdog in place for the eight-hour boundary
• Bitrate and keyframe settings matched to Facebook's specifications
• A plan for downloading anything worth keeping before day 30

Get those right and the stream runs itself. Get the policy ones wrong and you find out the hard way that Meta enforces mid-broadcast.

Every policy and specification claim above was checked against Meta's own documentation on 4 August 2026, and the links go to primary sources so you can re-check them. Where a figure circulates widely but could not be confirmed against a Meta page, we have said so rather than repeat it. More on how we work in our editorial policy.