I am back on my "Live Streaming" kick again. Currently the easiest solution I have found is Ustream. I was hoping to find a solution that actually allowed me to do everything (input stream, encode, output) but have found it a bit over my head.What I liked most about Ustream was that I could simply grab a wifi signal and go (assuming its a good signal of course) and no need to mess around with IP stuff with every new location. The 2 items I did not like was the $99 a month and it seems I cant get widescreen even with a 16:9 input. Anyone else find any solutions that I may want to look at?

Thanks all.

Have you looked at wirecast?

Thanks Gabe, I may have checked them out earlier and will check em out again today. Is this the one where you buy the software and thats all you need? Or do you still need some kind of a service?

I am back on my "Live Streaming" kick again. Currently the easiest solution I have found is Ustream. I was hoping to find a solution that actually allowed me to do everything (input stream, encode, output) but have found it a bit over my head.What I liked most about Ustream was that I could simply grab a wifi signal and go (assuming its a good signal of course) and no need to mess around with IP stuff with every new location.


If you think that you can merely "grab a wifi signal and go", you truly are out of your element, LOTS more to streaming than that. Unless of course this is just for your own enjoyment.

Is this the one where you buy the software and thats all you need? Or do you still need some kind of a service?

You ALWAYS need some kind of service (or your own streaming servers) to stream more than a single stream.

Lest I be thought a troll, allow me an analogy:

what you propose is the same as an amateur photographer saying "I have a DSLR and a laptop I just bought... I can edit video now, right?"

Lots more to the equation.

Shaun's comments don't sound troll-ish at all.

There are a *lot* of moving parts, *many* potential points of failure with webcasting methods today.

I've not kept up with U-stream's competitors, but they are out there. If you find the web site for Streaming Media magazine, you'll find lots of resources.

However, getting on wifi expecting turn-key success is a high-risk endeavor. Yes, it will work sometimes. Maybe for you it will work most of the time, depending on the environments you're working in. At that level of expertise, you'll likely not be able to troubleshoot when it doesn't work. The local network/wifi may determine success or failure - a sad truth! So many shared wifi services are easily saturated by multiple user requests that you have no control of... this is bad for the stream, and therefore bad for engaging and keeping viewers.

IMHO, if clients are paying you to do work that matters, you need to reach a little higher or outsource the work. If it doesn't matter if the stream goes down... learn a bit more, buy some stuff, get online,have some fun!

P.S. Wirecast is great, I use it. But it's just one piece of a lengthy chain of things and services that must work together to get that stream from your camera to your viewer.

By the way, don't be fooled by some of the Big Boys that are advertising EASY webcasting solutions for enterprise - I watched a webinar once that promised to change webcasting forever and make it easy for anyone to webcast their own content... when they got to the part about " just spinning up additional edge virtual streaming servers" I laughed out loud.

Successful webcast has LITTLE to do with video and LOTS to do with IT/Networking. And that's even if you have an all-in-one services provider on the streaming side like UStream or Livestream.

I've been webcasting for about 4 years (on the streaming side... 15 on the production side) - I still get "pucker" when going live on an event until I can see my own stream coming back.

True story - I had a VERY large event streaming a couple of years ago on a weekend. We had spent two days setting it up and had the IT department of the institution involved and opened up the port we needed to get out past the firewall.

Half way through an event on a Saturday afternoon with about 5000 viewers online, the stream stopped. Dead. Hard fail.

Turned out a VERY junior IT guy saw a large amount of data moving through a port and decided to close it, without consulting anyone or looking at the notes left by the senior techs.

Client was NOT pleased. I think the tech lost his job and believe there was legal action. I was merely operating.

Thanks Gabe, I may have checked them out earlier and will check em out again today. Is this the one where you buy the software and thats all you need? Or do you still need some kind of a service?

It depends. Wirecast DOES have a built in server which will allow you to stream to
a limited number of viewers (think 5 max, and even then you'd have to have internet
with fast UPLOAD speed which is uncommon). Wirecast will also allow
you to stream to most of the popular services, UStream, JustinTV and so on.
If you are doing it for pay, best to get a dedicated hard line that no one shares.
When I did live streaming for our state government, I built that cost into the
contract. Remember at your event, everyone and their brother is probably
jumping on the site's wifi with a phone or tablet. Don't risk it, get a line
hard wired that is just for you and not shared.

Also if not using UStream or JustinTV or similar ad supported streams (where they insert
their commercials in your live cast) you need to hire a streaming services company. I
paid about $300 per month for this but that will depend on the number of events you do per
month and the number of viewers. Most of the companies will allow an
archive of your event for later viewing and the good ones will have someone
on hand the day of your event in case you need tech support.

It would be helpful to get a bit more info about what kind of LiveStreaming you are attempting. It's wide range from simple desktop live stream for webcast to multi-camera Video signal from event venue to audiences in conference rooms across the country.

Thanks all for the posts. I am a one-man-operation videographer, weddings and small to medium corporate jobs. I have had 2 recent inquiries about live streaming events. As a fan of technology, I have been playing around with live streaming on and off but mainly for personal enjoyment. Being a very quiet time for me (dead of winter here on the east coast) I have spent many hours trying this and trying that. One of my inquiries was a funeral (event has now passed) which believe it or not, I do a bunch for this funeral home. For this type/size job, my guess would be maybe 10-20 viewers at max? If they are interested in paying for the service, I am interested in providing the service. I have so far successfully (again, testing in the house):

Ustream live feed with audio. (I would need to subscribe to avoid ads)

Youtube with Goggle hangouts with audio.

Both embedded on my web page. Quickie Test Page For Clients (http://www.harborviewvideo.com/live/)

For the funeral, I charge $800, includes editing and 5 DVD's. Had I been able to stream, I would have charged $400 (funeral home approved) additional. I would definitely use the 2 fee system with a provision if the streaming fails, I would only forfeit the streaming fee. This funeral home has its own chapel with broadband wifi that I checked and results were 35mbps down and 20mbps up. If Ustream and/or the Youtube setup only require 2-4mbps, I am thinking I have plenty of bandwidth to get to them, then they deliver to viewers. If this can work out, they said they would even run an ethernet port right next to the spot I shoot from.

So as you can see, I am looking at a much smaller service/market than ESPN and hoping one of these 2 setups (under ideal conditions) can and would work.

I've done small & medium event live streaming.

I would avoid WiFi if at all possible. Even if you tested the bandwidth it can be variable at the worst possible moment. Ethernet has no cable length limit and keeping a 100ft cable with you and working with the location folks will get you a solid connection in most places. Especially with repeat clients.

For the livestreaming I used an external encoder from BlackMagic - there is a small one that just takes SDI and a bigger one that has all different kind of audio and video signal options. It connects to your laptop via TB or USB. From there I connected with Livestream.com which handles the encoding and hosting. Not a free service, but if you have a steady stream of business it can work out. You just need a suitable uplink to them and then can add subscribers as needed.

There are a number of these services. Some of them offer pay per view with in-viewer credit card processing. So you charge your client a smaller production fee to cover the basics, and then make money from the pay-per-view.

This funeral home has its own chapel with broadband wifi that I checked and results were 35mbps down and 20mbps up. If Ustream and/or the Youtube setup only require 2-4mbps, I am thinking I have plenty of bandwidth to get to them, then they deliver to viewers. If this can work out, they said they would even run an ethernet port right next to the spot I shoot from.

BIG issue here isn't bandwidth, it's that I'm assuming you'd be using dynamic IP addressing - the router COULD boot you off IF there are more requests to log on than available clients. Again, as I mentioned earlier you need more IT than AV - you'd need to make sure you were GUARANTEED an IP connection to the router. And not by an office manager but by their IT person.

BIG issue here isn't bandwidth, it's that I'm assuming you'd be using dynamic IP addressing - the router COULD boot you off IF there are more requests to log on than available clients. Again, as I mentioned earlier you need more IT than AV - you'd need to make sure you were GUARANTEED an IP connection to the router. And not by an office manager but by their IT person.

Thanks Shaun, can this happen with a wired connection as well?

It can happen wired or wireless. USUALLY the wireless connections are more "tightly" controlled though... a maximum number of simultaneous connections...

Been there done this many times. Nothing casual about it. These are must work situations. No wireless AT ALL, never, I wont do it. We work with the IT folks at the venue to establish a dedicated line just for us. It is not unusual for the client to pay $800.00 to $1,200.00 a day for that line. Then we get the mac address, port info, etc. and disable dynamic IP addressing. Everything is dedicated and locked in. That is just on the IT side of it.

On the AV side of it there are multiple cameras, PowerPoint and other sources being switched before encoding. As most have said here already, lots of moving parts. Your funerals may have a smaller budget and audience but that does not matter, its the same technology.

I interpreted something you said to suggest you might try this and inform them "it will probably work but maybe not"? This is business advice you did not ask for, I am not trying to be harsh but I would never go there. When people pay for something they expect it to work, even if they did not pay enough to make it work. I would never put myself in a situation were 20 people remotely viewing a funeral could suddenly loose a connection! It is a funeral, that would be cruel. I am sure you will have some very upset people on your hands even if you tried to warn them first.

Someone mentioned Black Magic. Research their units capabilities closely. Most of the units they sell to make this sound easy do not have internal scalars.

Kind Regards,

Steve

Thanks everyone for all the great replies and advice. I have decided to skip this new adventure and stick with what I know. I seem to go through this every winter when I am bored. See you all next January :)

P.S. The final straw was in fact the Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle. Could only get to work in DV mode with HDMI connection.

Yeah, when I get my dedicated line I ALWAYS specify that I need a static IP address for the same reasons
you guys all talked about.

Big problem with wifi is that although pre-event you may have sufficient up bandwidth but fill the venue with connected devices when the villagers arrive and the shared bandwidth will dwindle to near zip

Been there done this many times. Nothing casual about it. These are must work situations. No wireless AT ALL, never, I wont do it. We work with the IT folks at the venue to establish a dedicated line just for us. It is not unusual for the client to pay $800.00 to $1,200.00 a day for that line. Then we get the mac address, port info, etc. and disable dynamic IP addressing. Everything is dedicated and locked in. That is just on the IT side of it.

On the AV side of it there are multiple cameras, PowerPoint and other sources being switched before encoding. As most have said here already, lots of moving parts. Your funerals may have a smaller budget and audience but that does not matter, its the same technology.


Yeah, a dedicated line with static IP address was the same way I did
my live casts for the state. But on the AV side, this is one reason I really
liked wirecast. Multiple cameras, powerpoints, movies recorded beforehand
and other sources all able to be switched by wirecast......which also
encodes, and allows you to insert lower thirds and tons more. It's kind of
like a Sony Anycast system only you can run it on any modern laptop.
Great program for live streaming.

Hi Gabe,

Wirecast claims all that, but you still have to get all of those sources into the laptop. And it wants your PowerPoint or other computer sources to come in through LAN. No thank you. Corporate AV varies from shows that are perfectly controlled (rare for me the TD) to shows that are pure chaos and stress. No matter what you tell the presenters in advance some yahoo is always going to walk in ten minutes before he goes on stage and throw some device at you and say, my presentations on there! Today that device could be anything from a phone to a tablet to a laptop, and in any flavor.

I had one of the first 100 Sony Anycasts ever released. Other than a totally useless built in encoder it served me well for many years as a switcher, among other things. I finally sold it six months ago. The new Anycast is one hundred percent touch screen, no thank you.

Call me old fashioned but in a live switching environment I want buttons I can mash and a take bar. Not to mention the ability to set up good previewing.

We all agreed in this thread that webcasting has a lot of moving parts. Those parts can vary greatly. Most guys I know that use Wirecast still have a hardware switcher feeding it if they are running multiple sources. I have not found a perfect "all in one solution" yet. I don't think it is out there.

Steve

Well maybe I've been lucky then. I've done a bunch of livecasts using Sony's older Anycast system,
including a special session of the state legislature. I know the Anycast system quite well.
And Wirecast has worked just fine for me with multiple cameras, using the add on Desktop
Presenter to display Powerpoint presentations from another computer. I've done pretty much every
kind of 'stressful' livecast you can think of, live sports, weddings, funerals, Governor's addresses to the
state, and plenty more. Wirecast only, no external switcher. Works fine for me. About 90% of
an Anycast for about 1/20th the price.

Gabe,

I think your misreading something I said? I am not knocking Wirecast or anyone elses choice. I said Wirecast requires a hardware component in front of it to feed it multiple video sources. A switcher such as the old Anycast gave me the ability to switch between four video sources and two computer RGB inputs and output that signal into the common firewire input found on most laptops at the time.

What method did you choose to input multiple camera feeds into Wirecast? Just asking, my input so far was never meant to be adversarial, it never is.

Steve

Steven,

Sorry, I just wanted to point out, Wirecast DOES in fact
have a built in switcher an external one is not needed.
As for how you input multiple cameras into Wirecast,
it depends on your computer and cameras of course.
In standard def, I have connected 3 DV cameras to a laptop
successfully via FireWire. With a tower you can use the
card slots to put in Matrox or other capture cards for HD cams.
The Matrox VS4 for example, gives you 4 HD-SDI inputs
which will all work with Wirecast. Wirecast will also work with
HDV over FireWire. Like many things the exact setup varies
depending on what sort of cameras you wish to
stream from and what outputs they have as well as what sort of
computer you have, But rest assured, no external switcher
is needed, Wirecast has that functionality built in, program
and preview monitors, a 'window' for each camera angle,
transitions or straight cut between camera angles, the whole
deal. Not sure if I am allowed to name vendors because of
board sponsor policy, but several well known video gear
vendors sell ready to go multi-camera Wirecast set ups.

Great topic. Like Darryn, I'm the "One Man Band", filming various one camera events like plays, memorials, concerts, meetings,etc. Lately, I have been asked to do the live broadcast option, and have not been able to do, thus turning down some additional cash. A good amount of requests, seems to be something a lot of people want more and more.

So I am in the process of researching. I understand all the pitfalls noted in this post. Could turn into a nightmare, but I'm willing to try, and cover myself legally if problems arise.

Here's where I'm at, keeping the potential connection issues, wifi problems, dweeb IT kid screwing up, etc. all separate.

1. Looking to purchase the JVC GY-HM200 or Sony PXW-X70. The 200 is yet to be released, but looks to have built-in streaming capabilities. The x70 also says future streaming to come, not sure what that means. In either, I assume I can wirelessly connect each cam directly to the internet and send the video to a CDN? I wonder if both cams will have an ethernet port to be wired?

2. If another cam without built in streaming, would get a teradek cube. Has wireless and ethernet wired. Looks like you can go right from the cube to your CDN. Anyone use this cube?

3. Finally, the CDN. Obviously, wanna spend least amount of cash. Can't have ads. Ustream, Livestream, etc. all have plans $99+ per month, wanna avoid. Anyone use Youtube Live? Looks to be free, unlimited views, is that true? I can't tell if that has ads or not, like the full screen interruption ads, or the banner type ads.

1. I've avoided committing to closed solutions. I'd define a camcorder that includes a stream output of some sort as a closed solution. Why? Fear that it would not be configurable to do the spec needed by this or that CDN. I'm guessing that neither of these would have an ethernet connection, but would be wifi out only.

2. I've used a client's cube. Not as easy to configure as a software encoder running on a computer, but it does create a single stream, and I (eventually) successfully connected up to Akamai. Don't think I ever connected up via wifi, but I'm sure my client did. The results were good.

The cube is quite a versatile little box, but you do need to know your networking to get the max out of it.

Do bear in mind that these sorts of solutions create a single stream; if you want streams of multiple specs they'll have to be created by a bridging service or by the CDN.

3. Never tried Youtube Live. None of my clients would accept third-party branding, period. For my work, most is done on premium white-label services like Akamai, but I've experimented with Amazon AWS solutions, which are inexpensive in that you only have to run them when you're live (or learning). Live streaming on AWS is *very* challenging, knowing simple networking ain't the half of it!

I guess one question I'd ask of all the one-man bands: How will you monitor the return stream if you're also shooting & encoding? If you don't monitor the webcast distribution stream(s), and someone says "my cousin couldn't see it, your sh** is broken!" what do you say?

Thanks Seth. Yeah, maybe staying away from the combo streaming cameras is a good idea. Gotta have Ethernet, and with the cube, I can use on other cameras, rather than being "locked in".

I am a "One-Man Band", but when I start doing these live streams, gonna have a younger kid come along, throw him $100 for the shoot, and have him police the stream on a laptop and on his phone to make sure everything is online. Of course, will be testing ahead of time, knowing things could change bigtime during the live event.

I have a friend who is an attorney, and he will be helping me develop the contract for these shoots. Just at starting point, but will have stipulations in the signed contract if stream fails. Also, if stream is fine, but Jimbo trying to view in Montana and has issues, the contract will somehow handle that type of situation. The contract will cover as many potential pitfalls I can think of.

Rick,

In more than 20 years of doing business never once have I uttered the words "my contract says" and I plan to keep it that way. But that's a different story.

Good advice from Seth. Spot on!

Check out these guys: Broadcast online, Web/Internet broadcasting, PayPerView, Flash | Win Media Hosting | AudioVideoweb.com (http://www.audiovideoweb.com)

I used to use them a lot, a long time ago. Easy to deal with, tech support you can talk to, low priced, no locked in contract, no ads. Here is the catch, and this is totally my speculation, I don't know the story for sure. They have been around for many years. I think that is the problem. Their website has not changed, they have not seemed to have changed anything. So I suspect their streaming servers never changed. They still recommend 320x240 at 300kpbs for the best result. That works for a solid stream but it does not work at all in the real world anymore. Your clients will expect far more than that from you. I have not used them in a few years but they are still there. You might take a look. I just looked and saw that they at least list higher resolutions now. I do not know how well they stream them?

In fact, if anyone else has input on these guys I would love to hear it. They were great to deal with and very reasonable. I lost confidence them but they never failed me.

Steve

Great topic. Like Darryn, I'm the "One Man Band", filming various one camera events like plays, memorials, concerts, meetings,etc. Lately, I have been asked to do the live broadcast option, and have not been able to do, thus turning down some additional cash. A good amount of requests, seems to be something a lot of people want more and more.

So I am in the process of researching. I understand all the pitfalls noted in this post. Could turn into a nightmare, but I'm willing to try, and cover myself legally if problems arise.

Here's where I'm at, keeping the potential connection issues, wifi problems, dweeb IT kid screwing up, etc. all separate.

1. Looking to purchase the JVC GY-HM200 or Sony PXW-X70. The 200 is yet to be released, but looks to have built-in streaming capabilities. The x70 also says future streaming to come, not sure what that means. In either, I assume I can wirelessly connect each cam directly to the internet and send the video to a CDN? I wonder if both cams will have an ethernet port to be wired?

2. If another cam without built in streaming, would get a teradek cube. Has wireless and ethernet wired. Looks like you can go right from the cube to your CDN. Anyone use this cube?

3. Finally, the CDN. Obviously, wanna spend least amount of cash. Can't have ads. Ustream, Livestream, etc. all have plans $99+ per month, wanna avoid. Anyone use Youtube Live? Looks to be free, unlimited views, is that true? I can't tell if that has ads or not, like the full screen interruption ads, or the banner type ads.

Rick, I just bought an X180, and use the live streaming function to feed into a Teradek receiver at my station, which pops it out on air with like a half second delay. I have had success with 720p 3Mbps streams, but ONLY with a modem hard attached and poking up into the air on a 6 inch mast of sorts. Attempts to use WiFi are sketchy even for SD 1Mbps. The Sony asks for a web address (IP) and a port. The JVC HM650's we use ask for a lot more information, and have a separate Zixi server function as well.

I would assume the X70 and the HM200 wuld be similar if not identical.

Paul