live streaming services Archives - Mainstream | Live Video Agency

How to Host a Virtual Event: A Step-by-Step Guide

Alex Onion — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 15:00:00 +0000

At this point in our post-pandemic world, none of us are strangers to virtual events. From all-company meetings to virtual fundraisers to livestreams of in-person concerts, galas and more, we’ve all gotten pretty comfortable with watching events from the comfort of our own couches.

But when it comes to producing your own virtual event, lots of folks are still in the dark. And that’s okay — we’re here to help! Even if you’re planning a return to in-person events, the truth is that a virtual component is no longer optional. Allowing attendees to engage remotely expands your reach, makes your event more accessible, and helps you spread your message to those who may not have otherwise received it.

So after partnering with SmashFly Technologies to stream their event, Transform Virtual, we caught up with their Event Marketing Manager, Shannon Pierce, for her expert insights on how to plan a virtual event successfully. Here’s what she had to say.

How to Host a Virtual Event in 7 Easy Steps

1. Getting started

The first step in hosting a successful virtual event is to determine its theme and content. Branding and visual communication is one of the most important factors to consider as you start planning, and will determine all of your event messaging, speakers, marketing strategy, and more.

So start by outlining your goals and budget. What are you hoping to accomplish with your event, and what metrics will you measure to define your success? From there, outline the main talking points and tone you want your event to take.

For SmashFly, they wanted to leverage the success of a recent in-person event in an effort to continue to engage their audience.

“We hosted a super successful in-person conference – SmashFly Transform – and it created so much buzz we knew we had to do it again. The only problem was cost. In-person events can be incredibly expensive. We wanted to keep the momentum of Transform going and continue growing this community, but can we get everyone together virtually and still have a great event? Turns out you can!

Transform Virtual was branded the same, the virtual experience was just like our livestream experience from the Transform event and the content was presented by practitioners so it’s all peer-to-peer learning (same concept that was so well received at our in-person event).”

2. Outline your content

Once you have a general sense of what you’d like your event to look like, it’s time to get down to brass tacks. What kinds of content will you include in your event?

Just as with any event, your content should include a mixture of different presentation formats. This can include keynote presentations, breakout sessions, and panel discussions. And as Charlie Kennedy reminded us in another recent panel discussion, virtual events come with their own sets of challenges when it comes to programming. He says:

“We have to think of this like we’re producing a TV show. We have a much shorter amount of time to keep the viewer’s attention. Whereas in a ballroom, we always knew where people were, if they were paying attention or not — it’s a whole new challenge when we can’t see our audience.”

— Charlie Kennedy, Founder & Creative Director, Show Up Event Consulting

So it’s not enough to prepare a Powerpoint presentation and call it a day. We have to work a lot harder now to keep audiences engaged while they’re distracted with everything going on behind their computer screen. So think about how you might educate your audiences with interesting speakers, while also keeping them entertained and present. Here are just a few ideas to get you started:

Offer a panel discussion with a diverse range of voices, with the option for attendees to submit their own questions
Host a DJ set between speakers to drive energy
Run polls or quizzes during or between speakers
Organize a contest that attendees can vote on during the event (like this chef and mixologist competition at a Marriott-hosted event a few years ago)
Get people out of their seats with a virtual dance party

3. Choose your format

Next, it’s time to choose a format (or “container”). Where will your virtual event live? How will your audience engage with your content?

These days, there’s no shortage of options for hosting an event remotely. Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and LinkedIn all offer live streaming options, giving audiences the ability to react and comment on the content they’re viewing.

Other platforms like Zoom or Vimeo offer a bit more privacy if you’re looking to make your event feel exclusive, or if you’d prefer to pre-record all of your content beforehand. Here, attendees might be able to interact with each other in the chat, or click on links for more information about your brand. These platforms also offer accessibility features like closed captioning or alternative languages, making your event more approachable to more people.

For a fully immersive experience, consider licensing a virtual events platform like Hubilo, Hopin or cvent. While costly, these all-in-one platforms support virtual networking, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) integration, and built-in interactions that drive engagement through the roof.

Whatever platform you choose, make sure you do plenty of research to understand how the tech works before the big day. (We know this piece of the puzzle can feel like a lot — so we’re always here to support you with the right technology and help you produce a seamless event! Get in touch to learn more.)

4. Secure (and prep) your speakers

Once you’ve outlined your content and platform(s), do some research to determine who the best speakers would be for your event. Perhaps it’s a client, or someone who works for your company. Or maybe it’s a highly-regarded expert who can speak to your event topics. Going big? Maybe you book a big-name celebrity as your keynote speaker!

When your outreach is complete and you have commitments from your speakers that they’re willing to participate, the Mainstream team always recommends scheduling a “dry run” tech check call with speakers before the event (or pre-recording). This ensures they are comfortable with the recording software, have adequate internet speeds and proper lighting. It will also give you a chance to control the background of the speaker to avoid distracting images or bad patterns.

Shannon offers this helpful advice:

“Honestly, the hardest part about planning a virtual event is scheduling your speakers, internal stakeholders and your production team for all the calls that it takes to pull the event together.

Our goal was to have 3 calls with each speaker: first the kick-off call to introduce the event and discuss a topic, next a dry run to walk through the entire presentation and make content suggestions, and then the final session call as if they were presenting live.”

Set expectations with your internal stakeholders that they will need to be flexible to accommodate your speaker’s schedules during the weeks leading up to the event.

5. Promote your event

What’s an event with no attendees?

Before your big day, be sure to include marketing in your overall event strategy. It starts with a strong landing page where audience members can find more information and register.

From there, schedule promotional email blasts and social media posts. For larger events, maybe you’ll even reach out to local media to promote and help cover the event. Here’s what SmashFly did:

“In order to get the word out about Transform Virtual we used email marketing, mobilized our internal sales reps and customer success team to send personal invites to their accounts, social media including Twitter and announcements to our Transform Community Facebook Group, retargeting ads and partner marketing. Our content team was constantly writing tweets and sending them out internally and to our speakers to activate as many people as we could on social and make is super easy for them to spread the word.

One of the biggest differences between an in-person event and a virtual event is that the bulk of your registrations for a virtual event come the week prior to your go-live date. We heavily exceeded our registration goals, but over 50% registered in the last 4-5 days (including the day of!). It’s always a little stressful waiting for your pre-promotion campaigns to convert into registrants.”

Even though you may get a slew of registrations the week before the event, it’s still important to keep audience members engaged before you hit the “Go live” button. Send regular reminders to registrants with a sneak peek at what they can expect, and instructions for how to join on the day of the event.

6. Run your show

Congratulations! You’ve produced some exciting content with world-renowned subject matter experts. Whether you’re live or streaming pre-recorded content, the last step is to push “Start” on your event and engage with your audience in real time—by monitoring your social media outlets and responding to chats and Q&A during the event.

Think about what hashtags you might use to drive community conversation on social, and understand where your audience is spending the most time so that you can maximize their event experience and meet them where they are.

And if there are any questions that can’t be answered during your event, make sure you flag those too so that you can follow up with event attendees after the fact. No one likes to be left hanging!

7. Analyze, analyze, analyze!

Now that your event is over, it’s time to look at the data and see how it went. For SmashFly, they wanted to keep their audience watching the content as long as possible. Their average viewing time was about an hour, nearly twice the industry standard. Other points of data may include:

Email open rate
Total ticket sales (if paid), total registrations (if unpaid)
Conversion rate
Total audience size
Average view time per audience member
Engagement during broadcast (tweets, shares, comments, etc.)

With data in hand, you can understand how to make your next event even more successful.

Final Thoughts

With proper planning, SmashFly knocked their first virtual event out of the park. SmashFly leaves us with this wisdom:

“Besides the obvious need to deliver great content and work with your speakers very closely on their presentation development, make sure you have an awesome production partner if you plan to host a virtual event. You content could be awesome, but your production partner can help make the viewing experience more dynamic and interesting.”

If you have any further questions or would like Mainstream to produce your virtual event, feel free to get in contact with us! We’d love to share our expertise with you or even handle your entire virtual event from start to finish.

A previous version of this post was originally published on 7/28/17 by Brian Ciaccio.

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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Did Telestream Accidentally Create the Industry’s Best Webinar Production Tool?

Nick Bacon — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 15:10:07 +0000

Twitch Con, a conference celebrating the world’s most popular eSports streaming platform, is not the place where you would expect to see the launch of an incredible new webinar production tool. But this past week, that is exactly what happened.

At the event, Telestream launched its new stream production tool. Known as Gameshow, the low-cost tool – a stripped-down, sleeked version of its popular webcasting program, Wirecast – offers the gaming community the ability to create dynamic, interactive, high-quality streams at the bargain-basement price of only $9/month. It’s available for Mac & PC and streams directly to YouTube or Twitch.

Though unintended by Telestream, this tool can be a powerful asset for those who regularly produce webinars.

Webinar producers can learn a lot from the eSports & streaming communities. The two products – webinars and game streams – are structurally very similar.

Both webinars and game streams feature the following:

A screen capture – either a game being played, or a presentation being given
Live view of the presenters (via a USB webcam or full HD camera)
Interactive elements to drive engagement – Q&As, chats, and direct communication between presenter and audience

Besides the compositional similarities, there are similar goals in the positioning of the audience and the presenters. In both cases, presenters seek to be seen as thought leaders in a particular area. The audience sticks the presenter for an extraordinarily long time – Twitch users watch their favorite streams for an average of 109 minutes a day, while a typical webinar will keep a viewer engaged for over 30 minutes. Whether your goal is to distinguish yourself as an expert in generating PR for technology startups or in withstanding a 6-pool zergling rush in Starcraft, your method of attracting and engaging an audience is the same.

Even though Telestream’s “Gameshow” is geared towards streamers, it can also be a vitally useful tool for webinar producers as well. It’s designed from the ground-up to be streamlined into complex workflows: the last thing a gamer wants is to lose valuable clicks-per-minute on a clunky production tool. So production is as simple as possible. Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Select Your Template

With one click, select a pre-designed template. You can also build your own.

Step 2: Setup your platform

While Twitch is a great platform for streamers, most webinar producers will find YouTube’s interface much more suited to their goals. Input your username and give your camera and mic access, and Gameshow will prompt you to login to your YouTube account.

Step 3: Customize your broadcast

Gameshow’s user interface is incredibly intuitive – especially if you’ve used Wirecast. Customize each shot with screen /window captures, webcam shots, and a suite of dynamic interactive elements such as image carousels, web displays, social media icons, and more.

Step 4: Go Live

Once you’re all set, click the “Stream” button in the top-left corner. You’ll see a count-up timer start. If you go to your YouTube Live Dashboard it will look like this:

If the light is green, you’re good to go! Scroll down to the bottom of the page and go to the URL to your broadcast. You can then embed in your website as you normally would any YouTube video.

Using these tools to their fullest effect can have an immediate impact on your audience engagement, But there are key differences between the two industries to consider. While Twitch and YouTube are the platforms of choice for streamers, webinar producers have many more options. WebEx, GoToMeeting, WebinarPlatform, and more all exist and share a userbase. Currently, Gameshow only supports YouTube and Twitch, but with a “virtual camera” option, as we see in WireCast, webinar producers would gain access to the platform of their choice.

The other key difference is the “formal”-ness of the presentation: whereas streamers tend to show content off the cuff and in a less structured schedule, webinars tend to feature rehearsed presentations at a very specific pre-appointed time. You have to tune in at the right time and watch an entire webinar in order to get the most out of it; streamers encourage folks to tune in and out as they please, catching a few minutes here and there. You don’t have to watch Naniwa’s entire 8-hour stream to enjoy it; you can watch him rip apart an enemy for one match, crack a couple jokes in the chat, then go on to the next channel.

Webinar producers can learn much from the streaming community. Creating accessible, irreverent, yet high-quality broadcasts would cast a wider net and help create a more focused, engaged audience. Producers should also adopt the filmmaking mantra “show, don’t tell” – rather than deliver a rehearsed pitch, put your presentation into practice and let your audience come along for the ride. If your webinar discusses how to increase sales effectiveness, stream yourself as you call, qualify, and sell your product. If you’re leading an e-class on how to develop an electronic press kit, let them watch as you develop the actual materials in yours.

By adopting some of the tools and ideas from the streaming community, webinar producers can drastically increase their impact and effectiveness. See you at Twitch Con 2016, and if you need help producing your webinar, reach out to us!

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Live streaming the 2014 Midwest | Chicago Emmys

Nick Bacon — Wed, 05 Nov 2014 18:25:19 +0000

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This Halloween, Mainstream Media’s costumes featured black ties and snazzy dress shoes. The spooky party we attended was the 2014 Midwest Chicago Emmy’s at the Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel, and we had been asked to produce two live streams: the Backstage/Red Carpet Show and the main Awards Ceremony.

A week earlier, we received a call from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ Midwest Chapter asking for our assistance in streaming their event. While our name, “Mainstream Media”, has always been a bit tongue-in-cheek, we saw this as a great opportunity to work with the some of the more talented broadcast professionals in the region. Furthermore, the project presented some exciting challenges for us:

How do we produce two HD live streams simultaneously?
How quickly can we capture and post clips from the live streams to the Chicago Emmy’s YouTube channel?

With little time to prepare, we had no choice but to get to work right away. As with all live streams, the first issue we wanted to resolve was on-site bandwidth. Coordinating with the hotel’s Director of Event Technologies, we secured a 100Mbps up/down broadband connection. Occasionally it happens that venues over-promise the speed of their connection, underestimating the amount of bandwidth it requires to stream in full HD. So imagine our pleasant surprise when we set up our computers and got this readout from speedtest.net:

Our reaction:

The next step was figuring out which platforms to use for our streams. We knew the goal was to ultimately get everything to YouTube, but because the Awards Ceremony was going to include some performances that might ping YouTube’s copyright infringement algorithms, we had to come up with multiple solutions.

For the Awards Ceremony stream (generously fed to us as a complete line cut from Chicago’s PBS affiliate, WYCC-TV), we opted to go with our tried-and-true white-labeled streaming partner DaCast. (DaCast, by the way, has recently made some updates to their API that we’re quite fond of. Way to go, DaCast!)

Main #broadcast area for #Emmys2014. Live in a couple minutes!

A photo posted by Nick Bacon (@kosher_bacon) on Nov 11, 2014 at 4:58pm PDT

We used YouTube for the Backstage/Red Carpet stream, as it would not contain any copyrighted material (so we hoped). The streams were then embedded in the Chicago Emmy’s website (which you can see here).

Having decided on our platforms, we went onto the next issue: how on earth do we pull, edit, and upload clips in real-time to the Chicago Emmy YouTube Channel? Here’s where we learned something new: YouTube’s live streaming platform has a built-in feature allowing you to publish highlights from your event as you stream! Here’s a video showing how to do so:

For the Awards Ceremony stream coming from DaCast, we had to add a couple extra steps. We wanted to allow for review of copyrighted material prior to posting, and we also had to account for the fact that our stream was coming from a different room than where our editors were posted.

To accommodate, we created a WireCast project file that would record clip segments to a DropBox folder shared between our streaming computer and our editing laptop. With the two computers synced via DropBox, our editor received the clips almost instantaneously and he was able to quickly review, edit, and post to YouTube.

Having resolved the technical challenges of the project, we were free to focus on producing a great event. Our field producers did an amazing job of keeping our hosts busy with great interviews. Our hosts for the evening – Tammie Souza, Stephanie Mansour, and Mike Beier – kept our backstage stream engaging and entertaining over the course of the night – 6 hours in total! And thanks to WYCC-TV, we never had to worry about the quality of the clips coming from the Awards Ceremony.

And we are live! #emmys2014 #mainstreamchicago #livestreaming A photo posted by Nick Bacon (@kosher_bacon) on Nov 11, 2014 at 2:31pm PDT

Over the course of the night, we posted 119 event highlights to the Chicago | Midwest Emmy YouTube channel. Here are some of our favorites:

A special thanks to our remarkable crew for an amazing night. Comment on your position and experiences below!

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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 streaming services Archives - Mainstream | Live Video Agency

How to Host a Virtual Event: A Step-by-Step Guide

How to Host a Virtual Event in 7 Easy Steps

1. Getting started

Transform Virtual was branded the same, the virtual experience was just like our livestream experience from the Transform event and the content was presented by practitioners so it’s all peer-to-peer learning (same concept that was so well received at our in-person event).”

2. Outline your content

“We have to think of this like we’re producing a TV show. We have a much shorter amount of time to keep the viewer’s attention. Whereas in a ballroom, we always knew where people were, if they were paying attention or not — it’s a whole new challenge when we can’t see our audience.”

— Charlie Kennedy, Founder & Creative Director, Show Up Event Consulting

3. Choose your format

4. Secure (and prep) your speakers

“Honestly, the hardest part about planning a virtual event is scheduling your speakers, internal stakeholders and your production team for all the calls that it takes to pull the event together.

Our goal was to have 3 calls with each speaker: first the kick-off call to introduce the event and discuss a topic, next a dry run to walk through the entire presentation and make content suggestions, and then the final session call as if they were presenting live.”

5. Promote your event

6. Run your show

7. Analyze, analyze, analyze!

Final Thoughts

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

Did Telestream Accidentally Create the Industry’s Best Webinar Production Tool?

Step 1: Select Your Template

Step 2: Setup your platform

Step 3: Customize your broadcast

Step 4: Go Live

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Live streaming the 2014 Midwest | Chicago Emmys

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A Comparison of YouTube and Livestream’s Live Video Services

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