Hi all! This is my first post here. I am scratching my head a bit as to what options I might have in this scenario. I am working with a groom who wants a live stream of the wedding broadcast so that the bride's family in the Philippines can feel included. I originally quoted him a single, stationary camera for the streaming video.

After speaking with him more, he could care less about post-production but would rather have a multi-cam (2 cams) with one camera being operated and somewhat mobile. I definitely don't have the means to use a hardware video switcher and I'm unsure about the quality of software solutions. I am working with an iMac and only have one firewire 800 port - is it possible to use a hub and connect two cameras to this single port? This is standard def and if this is possible I think I will have to go with uStream and their software for switching between the cameras.

Any thoughts or suggestions? I think this is going to price him out of going this direction but I would like to see my options anyway.

Thanks!
Christian

adding multicam real time switching will add a team member to do the mix.
i would really use one of thse cheap mixer (like the videonics Mx1) and you will loose nothing in quality since video streaming is well under SD quality. The output of the mixed would be encoded with a cheap USB or Firewire video converter
For the mobile camera, then you got the problem to feed the mixer (should it be your mac) with the signal without using cable.
wireless video is tricky and except the WEVI system, i know none that can fit the job reliably.
Another solution would be to encode the mobile camera directly on the cameraman (backpack with a laptop), then stream wifi to the main PC, so you can mix this mobile stream with the other one. You will find easily some apps that do this and this require no special hardware.
This is the most tricky setup you can imagine , realtime edit+ mobile wireless video +streaming....

good luck !

I'm not sure what software solutions there are, but camera-wise, you will need at least two cameras with operator and then cables going back to the switcher and a Technical Director (TD) to switch back & forth. Three, or four cameras is always nice. Plus you will want head sets so that the TD can tell people what shot to get.

Camplex (http://www.camplex.com/) have some good solutions. You might want to see who in your area might have a mobile truck to rent or the necessary gear for a live event. Your local public access cable TV channel might have a truck or gear to do a live event.

Check it out and check out rental houses in your area.

Good luck.

You might want to look at what Telestream has available. It's not cheap but it might provide you with some ideas for a valuable new market.

Their hardware and software will allow a single Mac to take in multiple camera feeds, encode and cut in real time in HD. And you can simultaneously feed to the internet, again in real time.

Thanks for the responses everyone! After a ton of researching, I made the decision that this is simply not my forte at this time. I emailed the customer and explained the costs of doing even a simple 2 camera switch and went back to my original offer of one streamed camera. I haven't heard back from him so I am assuming he is still looking for someone who can do this for him. Thanks anyway!