live event video services Archives - Mainstream | Live Video Agency

A Comprehensive (And Animated!) Guide to Live Streaming Setups

Nick Bacon — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 20:52:54 +0000

Determining Your Optimal Setup for a 1-Camera Live Stream

While the majority of Mainstream Media’s live streams are multi-camera configurations, there are numerous situations where only one camera is needed. Events such as online learning modules, press conferences, electronic news gathering, and internal corporate broadcasts can be really successful with a simple one-camera setup.

If you have been asked to produce a one-camera webcast for your company – or you just want to cover a cool event that’s coming to your town – but don’t know where to begin, fear not! We’ll walk you through everything you need to know in order to have a successful broadcast.

The Fundamental Setup

First, let us quickly dissect exactly what is required in order to broadcast a camera feed online.

Ultimately, the camera at your event needs to communicate with your streaming platform of choice in real time. Below, we will look at various setups as determined by your initial equipment.

First: cameras! We’ve included a few important reminders for each type of camera.

Choosing the right camera for your live event

It’s not always the case that you need a full HD broadcast camera to cover your live event. Sometimes, even a simple web camera will do. Or perhaps you’re limited to the technology your media services department has on-hand. Whatever the case may be, fear not! We’ll go over setups for webcams, DSLRs, smartphones, and broadcast cameras.

Option 1: A USB Webcam

If you’re using a USB webcam, you are probably planning on broadcasting webcasts or webinars that offer training or online learning courses. Chances are, you’re expecting a concurrent audience – that is, viewers simultaneously watching your live stream – of fewer than 100 people.

In order to ensure proper connectivity with your USB webcam, make sure that you have downloaded the most recent drivers for your device. If you plan on capturing audio through your webcam, confirm that the microphone works, too!

Option 2: a DSLR (such as the Panasonic GH2/GH3/GH4, Canon 5D, Sony A7s, or others)

Using a DSLR? By our estimation, that means you’re likely covering an event such as a wedding, a local music show, a live event, or an internal corporate broadcast. You may also be exploring long-form live streamed content, streaming a particular space for hours, days, or even weeks on end.

First of all, it is important to make sure that your DSLR has clean HDMI output. Many DSLRs now include this, but some- notably, Canon DSLRs – require third-party firmware such as Magic Lantern. Install at your own risk and make sure you’re comfortable with the new setup before your event begins!

Next, you’ll need to determine what type of output your camera has. There are three options: micro-HDMI, mini-HDMI, and standard HDMI.

Option 3: Smartphone

Perhaps you’re offering floor coverage a cool event, exploring a new art gallery opening, streaming your favorite band (with their permission of course!), or just connecting with your digital fan base. Whatever the reason, smart phones now have a plethora of live streaming tools at their disposal!

Prior to broadcast, make sure you are on WiFi with great upload speeds (for an HD broadcast, you should have greater than 5Mbps). While you can broadcast from a 4G/LTE connection, streaming consumes your data very quickly.

Check your bandwidth by using SpeedTest, and run the test multiple times to get a better sense of your average upload speeds.

Also: consider investing in an external microphone and a stabilizer. Your audience will really appreciate the added production value!

Option 4: Broadcast Camera

It’s a high-profile event, and you’re bringing the best gear you have. Or maybe you’re stuck at the back of a room and you’re relying on your broadcast camera’s low-light ability and its big zoom. Either way, you’re broadcasting in full HD and you’re not going to miss a single second!

Because you are likely far away from the presenter, plan on bringing some additional audio elements to handle capturing sound. Often, the venue will be able to run you an XLR from their house mixing booth; if you run this into your camera, you’ll be able to capture all speakers exactly as they’re being output in the venue. Just in case, make sure you bring your audio adapters, an extra XLR run, and (if possible) a wireless lavaliere transmitter and receiver set.

Next: let’s select your platform!

Selecting the Right Platform for your Event

In order to determine the correct live streaming platform for your event, ask yourself these questions:

Is your event private or public?
Will you require user registration, password-protection, or paywalls?
Does your IT department already have a platform in place?

If your company does not already have a platform in place, then follow the guide below for selecting the one that suits your event best.

Live Event Streamed to the Public

With a public event, you are hoping for as many viewers as possible. The last thing you want is for your viewers to crash the stream because you’ve run out of bandwidth, so let’s look at platforms that support unlimited viewers. In our view, here are the three best options:

YouTube is the top choice so long as you do not have copyrighted content and you’re ad-free. It’s free to use, you can embed your stream on your website as easily as you would any other YouTube video, and their servers will never crash.

If you have concerns with copyrighted content or that your content might conflict with YouTube’s Terms of Service, you can consider Livestream. The basic plan is free, though your users will be required to sign up for a Livestream account. Premium accounts, which allow you to embed the stream on your website, cost $199/month billed annually or $399/month monthly.

If your content is related to either music or gaming, then Twitch is a great option. Twitch has a highly active community of stream-watchers, is free to use, and is very straightforward to set up.

Of course, there are many other live streaming platforms available. When deciding which one to use, you should choose based on your audience: where will they be most comfortable? What platforms are they already using? Make it as simple for them as possible!

Live Streaming a Private Event

Depending on how private your event is, you have a few different options. For example, you can still use YouTube if your event is private: simply change the access from “public” to “unlisted”, and turn off “promote when this event is live”. Then embed it on a page on your website, and direct all traffic there.

If you need further protection – such as a paywall, or password-protection – we recommend DaCast. Their plans start as low as $25/month, though you’ll likely need to purchase additional bandwidth if you’re expecting a large audience.

For an event that is exclusively internal to your corporation, such as a CEO town hall, consider an enterprise webcasting solution such as MediaPlatform. Their Webcaster platform, for example, allows you to collect registrations, deploy Powerpoint slides and live chats, and many more features that would be of value for an internal corporate broadcast. However, these platforms are comparatively expensive, often costing in the thousands of dollars for single events.

Direct Connection to Fans

If you want your fans to look behind the scenes with you, then your best bet is a phone-based app like Periscope or Meerkat. These apps, which caught on in a big way in 2015, tie directly into your social feeds (in particular Twitter) and encourage you to interact with your audience while you’re broadcasting.

For a more intimate connection with your fans – maybe you’re sitting at your computer, rather than attending a major awards ceremony – you can set up a simple Google Hangout and invite them to attend. By the way, you can run Google Hangouts through YouTube – so you can talk with some of your audience directly while others simply spectate. And it’s archived on your YouTube channel automatically, as well!

Okay, you have your camera and you’ve chosen your platform. But in between lies a challenge – how do you connect the two? For that, we’ll need to select a capture device.

Selecting the Proper Capture Device for your Camera

Roving Cameras

If you need to stay mobile – for example, side-line coverage of a sports event, field reporting or electronic news gathering – then you can use an on-camera encoder to send your signal where it needs to go. For this, there’s really only one clear choice: the Teradek VidiU Pro. Technically, it’s not a capture device – it handles the capture, encoding, and streaming of your feed all-in-one. While it is costly ($999), it offers the ability to stream your camera feed via WiFi, ethernet, or 4G/LTE (via a USB modem, not included) directly to any platform of your choice. This includes uStream, Livestream, YouTube, and any platform that accepts an RTMP stream.

If you’re using an SDI camera, you might need to go with the more costly Teradek Cube, unless you feel comfortable converting your SDI feed to HDMI.

Stationary

You’re settling in for a long day of conference live streaming. You have your camera set up at the back of the room, and you’re on the edge of your seat awaiting the first keynote speaker. If you won’t be moving around, then you can feed your camera into a capture device such as the Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle or Blackmagic Mini Monitor.

For PCs, we recommend using the Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle or Blackmagic Ultrastudio SDI, depending on your camera. These offer USB3 connections from your camera to your computer.

For Macs, use the Blackmagic Mini Recorder, which have Thunderbolt connections.

Note: there are many types of capture devices available. Avoid the temptation of purchasing low-cost or generic devices: these regularly have issues with latency, or cause the audio and video to drift slowly apart. We recommend Blackmagic devices because we have never experienced these issues using them.

Encoding your Signal

Whether you’re using a Mac or a PC, capturing the camera feed is only half the battle. the other half is encoding that feed for your platform of choice. (If you’re using a webcam, you’ll also need to use one of these encoders.)

With only one camera and no switching needed, you can feel safe using Adobe’s Flash Media Live Encoder. Select the appropriate input, type in your platform information, and then enjoy the fruits of your labor.

If, however, you need to do some occasional switching – maybe throwing in a “thanks for watching” graphic, or an occasional video, then you should plan on using WireCast. While costly ($500 for the basic version), WireCast is the de facto industry standard. It’s a great piece of software, and fairly intuitive to figure out. WireCast also offers other bonuses, such as being able to pull in smart phone feeds, a robust screen capture system called Desktop Presenter, and even social media integration with a live Twitter plugin.

As with all other categories, there are other encoding options available – notably, XSplit and Open Broadcaster System, which are both open-source encoders – but we believe WireCast and Adobe FMLE are straightforward enough that anyone can produce a simple broadcast with only a few hours’ training.

That’s it for this blog post! Thanks for sticking with us. As always, you can e-mail us at info@mainstreamchicago.com if you have any questions, concerns, or comments.

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Lessons Learned from Streaming a Summer’s Worth of Live Events

Nick Bacon — Fri, 07 Aug 2015 17:27:27 +0000

Top 5 Lessons we Learned from Streaming this Summer’s Live Events

The past few months have seen us busier than we have ever been before. Producing live streams on a nearly continuous basis has not left us much time to update our blog – sorry about that!

Having live-streamed weddings, brand relaunches, political events & town halls, live music, and graduation ceremonies (all in the last 6 weeks), we have learned some brand new lessons and reinforced older ones. We have also had the opportunity to work with amazingly talented people with decades of experience in event production, running the gamut from IT Directors to seasoned television engineers to marketing specialists. Over the next few months, we plan to have many of them sit down and chat with us so that we can impart their wisdom through our blog – you’ll see posts about Tricasters, intricate camera chain setups, the marketing side of running a service-based agency, and much much more. So stay tuned!

While those posts are coming, today we would like to focus on the valuable lessons about live-streaming and event production that we have learned over the last few months. And so, let us begin!

Lesson 1: Audio Adapters are your Best Friends.

Ah, Radio Shack. How we miss thee. Gone are the days where, while on production, you could casually stroll to your neighborhood electronics store to pick up spare connectors. In this post-Shack world, putting together a complete audio connector kit and carrying it with you to every event is of the utmost importance.

It’s been stressed many times by countless people, but getting good audio at an event is so, so important. An audience can tolerate lower-resolution video; they cannot abide inferior audio.

Unless your team is personally responsible for the entire audio run, you need to be prepared for any sort of connection the venue or audio vendor might send to you. While you can hope that it’s a balanced XLR feed, that might not be the case!

Here’s what’s included in our audio connector kit:

1/8″ to XLR
1/8″ f-f coupler
1/8″ m-f extension cable – 20′
1/8″ to 1/4″
1/8″ to RCA
1/4″ to 1/8″
1/4″ to XLR
XLR m-m coupler
XLR f-f coupler
XLR Y-cable
XLR cables – 15′ and 25′ (which you can daisy-chain if needed)
BONUS: Wireless transmitter/receiver (such as the Sennheiser G2 or G3
DOUBLE BONUS: shotgun mic
TRIPLE BONUS: field recorder such as the Tascam DR-40

With this setup, we have been able to save several productions by piece-mealing together a high-quality audio run. And here it is, all assembled, in one Amazon wishlist!

Lesson 2: Measure Twice, Cut Once

This old carpenter’s adage certainly applies to live event production, as well. When we live stream an event, we typically have two deliverables: (1) the live stream itself and (2) a line cut, or recording, of the broadcast. When you put in the work up front, it’s much more likely that your project is complete once you deliver the line cut. If you don’t, chances are you will have to make changes after the event is over – swapping in ISO recordings from the cameras, removing errant graphics, and so on.

If you are pulling in feeds from other vendors – say, an audio feed from the house A/V, or a Powerpoint presentation from a speaker’s computer – be perfectly clear about what you need for your broadcast. Rather than asking for “a feed from the computer”, ask for “a 16×9 feed via HDMI with embedded audio mirroring the exact display of the computer desktop.” And once you are on site, verify that you are getting exactly what you need.

As an example: this year, we produced the live pre-show to the Chicago legs of the Grateful Dead’s Fare Thee Well Tour. Produced on behalf of Live Alliance and LiveList, it was imperative that our pre-show match the superb quality of the shows that both those organizations regularly produce. Our line producer Charlie Fritschner did an outstanding job leading a team of segment producers, camera operators, and on-air talent every day, giving us detailed breakdowns of every minute of each show. Because of his hard work (and YouTube Live’s instantaneous auto-archiving), our job was done as soon as the pre-show was over.

Two additional tips to ensure you won’t have to re-edit your line cut: (1) Always get graphics pre-approved by the client prior to air, and (2) have multiple people double-check for typos.

In sum: preparing your event in excruciating detail ahead of time drastically reduces the amount of work you will have to do on the backend.

Matt Koerner, our on-air talent, prepares for the live show.

Lesson 3: Record Everything, Everywhere

Murphy’s Law, as applied to live event production, is as follows: “that which is not backed up will fail.”

To that end, it’s important to record all media at multiple points so as to ensure you are fully prepared in case of emergency. More often than not, you won’t need to access your recordings – but they’re always good to have.

For us, we have learned to always record ISO shots on each camera and audio straight from the mixer (prior to it feeding into one of our cameras). We also always get backup copies of Powerpoint files and digital graphics. And if we’re on a multi-cam shoot, we capture source audio from our B- and C- cameras as well.

As a quick aside: if you’re working in a venue that cannot provide adequate bandwidth to stream a full HD broadcast, it’s great to offer HD remasters for archival. With proper backup recordings, this is fairly simple to execute!

Lesson 4: Embrace Technology

When people ask if we can do something we have never attempted before, we almost always respond with a qualified “yes.” We appreciate the challenge, and love adding new tools to our tool belt.

Given enough time before an event, it is certainly possible to learn enough about a given technology to implement it. Lead time is important: you need to make sure you have adequate time to fully research, develop, and test a new idea. Because people approach us weeks or even months before their event begins, we can be confident in our ability to fully execute a new idea.

That said, it’s important not to over-burden yourself with ideas or processes that you have not used before. To that end, we often institute the “one new thing” approach – for every event, we allow ourselves to explore one new process. With only one independent variable, we can rely on the strength of our workflow and quickly troubleshoot anything that surprises us.

One example: during a recent graduation ceremony live stream, we were asked to stream a clean feed to an overflow room. The room was several hundred yards away from our control room, which would make a traditional cable run very challenging. Because the client brought the idea to us well in advance, we were able to work through a solution with them ahead of time. All it took was adding one $100 piece of equipment to our signal flow, and voila! Everything worked just fine. We have since used that piece of equipment on multiple occasions since then.

Lesson 5: Learn All The Things

Video production often puts you in the unique position of interviewing subject matter experts, giving you unfettered access to highly specific knowledge. Similarly, producing live events gives you behind-the-scenes access to events and locations for which people travel all over the world. Maintaining a thirst for knowledge and genuinely appreciating the opportunity to learn from experts keeps us passionate about the work that we do. Never take that for granted!

Conclusion

While it has certainly been a busy summer for us, we continue to look forward to producing more live streams over the ensuing months. We have been extraordinarily lucky to work with very talented folks and we will continue to learn from them. And we will certainly share what we have learned with all of you!

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A Comparison of YouTube and Livestream’s Live Video Services

Nick Bacon — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 19:16:28 +0000

December 12, 2013 was a day that will live in infamy for live streaming producers: it is the day that YouTube opened up its Live Video service for all YouTube accounts in good standing. For free.

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While support for the platform still lags behind other streaming service providers such as Livestream and uStream, recent rumors around YouTube’s negotiations to buy twitch.tv suggests that they’re willing to make the necessary investments to turn its service into a ripe economy of live producers. All that is well and good, but how does YouTube live currently compare to its competitors?

As a company specializing in live streaming services for events, festivals, and other web broadcasts, we felt it was our duty to compare and contrast YouTube’s current feature set to its competitors. Today, we’re going to focus on YouTube vs. Livestream’s Premium Package (which costs $399/month). We’ll try to be as thorough as possible.

Category #1: Features

Here’s a rundown comparing the feature sets of Livestream Premium and YouTube Live. Differences in bold.

Features	YouTube	Livestream Premium
Ad Free
Unlimited Event Pages
Unlimited viewers and storage
Unlimited On-Demand Embedding
DVR
Adaptive Bit Rate
smart device compatibility
Cloud Recording
Live Chat with moderation	No
Live Blogging Tools	No
Unlimited Event Archive
Vanity Account and Event URL	No
Local Publishing Server
Google Analytics Integration
Unlimited Embedding of Live Video Player
Event Page Facebook Application	No
White Label Player and Embeds	Kind of	No
Multi-camera		No
Highlight clips
Ad Insertion	InStream, commercial breaks, pre-roll	No
Call to Action overlays		No
Closed captioning		Available to partners; add’l production costs

As you can see, the basic offerings of both platforms are effectively the same. Both allow for ad-free, full HD live streaming with adaptive bit rates and DVR. Both purport to work on smart phones and tablets, although anecdotally we have had some issues with Livestream’s mobile broadcasts occasionally dropping out without explanation. At the Premium level, Livestream allows you to embed events in external web pages; so, too, does YouTube. Without taking into account the cost of the services, they are effectively a wash.

There are, of course, key differences to note. Livestream’s strengths lie in creating single event pages with full branding and live chat and blogging tools. YouTube features more robust options for ad insertion, includes call-to-action overlays, and has a more streamlined integration with closed captioning.

Advantage: YouTube. While the live blogging tools for Livestream are a neat feature, these can be easily replicated with a YouTube live stream by simply embedding your video on your own web page and incorporating whichever social media and blogging tools you prefer.

For example, one request we see quite often from clients is to embed a Twitter widget on their page. (Here is a recent example.) When embedding a feed into your website, implementing such a tool simply requires dropping in an extra line of HTML. This extended functionality increases viewer engagement with the event, while giving them the flexibility to join the social media conversation. While “old Livestream” used to have the ability to drop in a Twitter feed, “new Livestream” does not.

Category #2: Ease of Production

When Livestream switched over to its new platform, appropriately dubbed “New Livestream”, it dramatically changed the entire production workflow for stream producers. In essence, new Livestream is a closed system: in order to use it, you must use the tools that their company provides. This means you’re unable to use streaming standard software such as Telestream Wirecast, XSplit, or the open-source Open Broadcaster Software.

To get live video to New Livestream, you have two software options: Livestream Producer (free, Mac and Windows) and Livestream Studio (free or $799 for Pro, Windows only). Both applications have very limiting parameters.

Livestream Producer has dramatic limitations – only one camera input! – which means if you want to produce multi-camera events, you need external hardware such as a Tricaster or Blackmagic ATEM TV Studio.

Livestream Studio, while more robust, lacks Mac compatibility. If you have a Mac-based live streaming setup then you’re pretty much out of luck here.

YouTube, on the other hand, allows for the full spectrum of software- and hardware-based encoding and streaming solutions.

Advantage: YouTube. The issue with Livestream is that if you have already developed a streaming workflow, you will need to radically readjust your setup in order to produce high-quality streams. Additionally, YouTube’s Live Control Room allows you to preview your stream privately before pushing it live to your audience. With Livestream, there’s no good way to preview a stream before it goes live: you have to create an unpublished draft event, stream to that, verify that it looks good, then switch back to your main event. It’s a cumbersome process.

Category #3: Customer Support

According to GetHuman, the average wait for YouTube’s customer support is over 37 minutes, and has a frosty 1 out of 5 star rating. This can be an excruciating problem for live event producers, where a minute’s delay can cost thousands of dollars.

On the other hand, Livestream receives top marks for its customer support. Premium users are given a unique PIN number and phone number to call for any support needed; calls are answered promptly, and in my experience, the staff is very knowledgeable about how to fix common issues.

Advantage: Livestream.

Category #4: Copyright Infringement and Enforcement

As anyone who has uploaded a video to YouTube probably knows, Google is absolutely draconian in terms of enforcing copyright violation claims. This carries over with substantial implications to its Live platform.

If YouTube thinks that you are streaming copyrighted content, you are given roughly two minutes to take it down. Failure to comply results in your stream being removed immediately, and a strike being issued to your account. Three strikes and your account is suspended for 6 months.

This is a big issue for event producers because there is no simple process for purchasing broadcast rights to copyrighted content. (And if YouTube is really interested in purchasing Twitch and becoming a major player in the eSports/live streaming industry, they should address this issue right away.)

Here’s a pseudo-hypothetical situation: let’s say you’re streaming a great local event (like one of our favorites, the Chicago League of Lady Armwrestling). Prior to the show, the venue plays house music. If YouTube identifies any of that music as being a match in their Content ID database, they will take down your stream right away.

Livestream also has a ‘no copyright infringement’ policy, but they are not quite as severe or fast-acting as YouTube.

Advantage: Livestream. YouTube’s harsh copyright enforcement policy doesn’t translate to live streaming, and absolutely needs to be addressed.

The Bottom Line

While both services offer competitive feature sets, the fact that YouTube’s service is free while Livestream costs nearly $5,000/year makes YouTube a clear winner. If you have even moderate web development skills and your Google-fu is strong, then you can replicate all the additional features that Livestream offers on your own web page with a YouTube embed.

However, if you plan on streaming copyrighted content (provided you have purchased the legal right to do so) then YouTube’s nigh-on-ridiculous copyright enforcement policies prevent it from being the de facto platform for streaming.

Winner: YouTube. For most streams, copyrighted content should not be an issue and can be easily substituted for royalty-free or unique material. The vast difference in price and compatibility puts YouTube way ahead of its competitor.

Interested in streaming your event over YouTube? We can help. Shoot us an email at info@mainstreamchicago.com and we’ll get you started!

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live event video services Archives - Mainstream | Live Video Agency

A Comprehensive (And Animated!) Guide to Live Streaming Setups

Determining Your Optimal Setup for a 1-Camera Live Stream

The Fundamental Setup

Choosing the right camera for your live event

Selecting the Right Platform for your Event

Selecting the Proper Capture Device for your Camera

Lessons Learned from Streaming a Summer’s Worth of Live Events

Top 5 Lessons we Learned from Streaming this Summer’s Live Events

Lesson 1: Audio Adapters are your Best Friends.

Lesson 2: Measure Twice, Cut Once

Lesson 3: Record Everything, Everywhere

Lesson 4: Embrace Technology

Lesson 5: Learn All The Things

Conclusion

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Recent Posts / View All Posts

In-House or Agency? How to Choose the Right AV Partners For Your Next Event

How to Produce a Next-Level Internal Corporate Event

The 4 Steps You Should Take Before You Start Planning a Conference

How to Host a Virtual Conference: A Beginner’s Guide

A Comparison of YouTube and Livestream’s Live Video Services

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Congratulations – you’ve reached the end of the article! But that’s not the end of the story. Subscribe below and we’ll keep you up to date!