Streaming enables resurgence in areas abandoned by traditional TV companies at DVinfo.net

Andrew Smith · September 5th, 2016, 03:12 AM

The advancement in technology has meant that broadcasts abandoned by major players are now becoming viable to smaller operations who can do all their switching on a single computer unit, and stream to the internet.

Here is a dedicated 3 min 30 sec ABC news bulletin story on what is happening in regional Australia.

A text version of the story is here: Online streaming sparks cheap and cheerful TV revolution in regional Australia

Andrew

Chris Harding · September 5th, 2016, 04:21 AM

Thanks Andrew

So we will shortly see "Smith TV" ??? It's a massive industry in the making and becoming quite affordable too. I was delighted to seem the footy broadcast using the same switcher that we use!! If you think about it it's not a horrific cost either to set up either ...one could even find an old panel van and bam..you have a mobile OB unit!! Over here we used to have Channel 31 as a community channel which was abandoned a few years ago so the Perth market is also ripe for Community TV ... the USA people love their community cable shows so doing the same with a stream channel would be just as easy as more and more people have smart TV's so living room viewing becomes practical!!

Andrew Smith · September 5th, 2016, 09:47 AM

Not likely, but I do get together with a mate of mine and live switch an occasional 2-cam event. Here's one we did recently, steaming to both YouTube and Facebook, streamed from Parliament House n Queensland.

Annoying slight green cast from the fluorescent lights (amongst many types) in the room which seem to be impossible to white-balance out for live stuff.

Andrew

Andrew Smith · September 5th, 2016, 09:50 AM

Additional note: Pretty dang sure we streamed out to YouTube in full HD, yet the highest showing on the embedded playback at the moment is 720P. Weird.

Maybe it's just a temporary hiccup.

Andrew

Edit: Video at source at YouTube (not the embedded version here) has the 1080P option for playback for those that want to judge the quality of the stream.

Simon Denny · September 5th, 2016, 01:59 PM

When the community channels were turned off here on the East Coast this shut down my TV programs, I had no where to go. I thought streaming was going to be the answer for me however, educating business to support my programs has proved to be a dead end. I still think streaming is the future and once people become educated to this and learn to connect and watch this on their TV, it's a winner.

Oh, congrats guys on streaming, very envious at your endeavours.

Chris Harding · September 5th, 2016, 06:34 PM

Your TV programs were really awesome Simon ..it's such a pity they were abandoned. I'm assuming that your dead end was purely lack of sponsorship from companies ? For Aussie companies it's still a very new and scary thing and they will need time to be convinced that it's a good product promotion media. I really think it's more education and bringing companies out of the dark ages is all that's required. A LOT of homes have Smart TV's now and it's hard to see anyone walking down the street without a phone in their hand nowdays so the audience is there ..they simply need to be informed!!

Simon Denny · September 5th, 2016, 06:48 PM

Yep Chris, lack of funding. Sponsors seem to think that going to a TV Network is the holy grail, maybe it is... however why limit your brand to just a few thousand viewers that are watching on the network, with the internet, live streaming etc... the potential for a given product to been seen is massive.

Trying to educate business that the way forward ( for me anyway) is internet based commercial content embedded or aligned within the production. But hey, TV is what they want. I just don't get it.

Look at KODI and the add ons for content, live streaming etc... exciting times ahead and I think the typical TV station model is in danger.

My two cents worth anyway....

Chris Harding · September 5th, 2016, 07:31 PM

What is sad is that sponsors still see TV advertising as people sitting in the living room watching a program in front of the screen at a set time, whereas modern broadcast can go to almost every type of device and with "catch up" TV you can still watch a show long after it has been live. Our CDN records our stream as a DVR so even if you miss the start you can go back and start at the beginning and then you can re-watch it anytime you like which equates to a much bigger audience. We did a simple stream of a Real Estate home open a few weeks ago and more than double the viewers watched it after the event was over. Sponsors need to realise that their product is not only promoted during the show but also afterwards too.

Simon Denny · September 5th, 2016, 07:43 PM

Valid points Chris, I would love to include Streaming into my services, I'm just not sure how to go about this yet, both as a cost to my business and client fees.

Chris Harding · September 5th, 2016, 11:39 PM

Hi Simon

Whenever I see an event I find myself thinking "Gosh I could stream this!!" But seriously my first reason was weddings and an attempt to streamline my workflow.

In the old days of VHS and full size cassette cameras I used to film 10 seconds of the wedding invitation prior to the wedding then line up the start position and film the entire wedding doing an in camera edit and planning shots carefully (quite the opposite nowdays where people tend to shoot a huge amount of wasted footage) At the end of the night I would eject the tape, hand it to the bride and I was done!! No post production and spending days trying to piece clips together.

What we do now is stream our weddings (shooting carefully) where our CDN automatically makes a DVR copy of each event. At the end of the event the bride already has her entire wedding on the server (in fact often they have already watched bits of it) Once I get home I simply download the clips and drop them onto a USB and I'm done. So, I spend 8 hours shooting only instead of spending 8 hours working then 20 odd hours doing post ... I can actually drop my prices a bit this way and still double my hourly rate.

It's also a great feeling to shoot for 8 hours and actually say "I'm done!!!

Simon Denny · September 6th, 2016, 03:56 AM

It's also a great feeling to shoot for 8 hours and actually say "I'm done!!!

I can relate to that Chris.

Chris Harding · September 6th, 2016, 08:09 AM

My mate Alan on the Gold Coast did a 4 year old's funeral back in July and after an hour he actually phoned me and said "I can't believe I have finished ..no editing, no copying media ... I'm done!" Live broadcasts do have a few advantages!!

Andrew ? Nice job on your two camera shoot ...it shows that a simple two camera switch can be very effective! What did you use to do the live switching BTW??

Andrew Smith · September 7th, 2016, 08:36 AM

Same mate of mine who has the ATEM Black Magic thinggy.

I kept myself busy running both cameras and checking on the stream status.

Speaking of "I'm done", an older lady at the back of the room at that event commented to me at the end how she had difficulty hearing what was being said. I think the issue might be with her hearing. So I informed her that we had made a recording and she could always watch it online again at home (with the good audio).

I emailed the YouTube link address to her email address, right there on the spot from my phone.

I soon received this reply: "Many thanks Andrew. I'm amazed - you're efficiency plus."

Clients seem to be impressed by the fact that the recording of the stream is already there. :-)

Andrew

Simon Denny · September 7th, 2016, 02:40 PM

A few years ago I was going to setup Live Streaming services as part of my business... anyway I found vMix and was really impressed by this.

Live Video Streaming Software | vMix

Chris Harding · September 7th, 2016, 06:37 PM

I do like the fact that it's there "instantly" ... With weddings the big issue has always been how long you have to wait to see the end result and in that industry 3 months is often quite normal ...I would have totally forgotten about the video by then ..even if it's a huge event.

The VMix does look interesting Simon, I'll have to look into it. We are currently applying the live stream to weddings and so far the only tough part is finding a fast enough laptop to handle the switching. So far we are using LiveStream Studio software which works well

The only thing you really need to do is decide where your content is going to ..Some CDN's are sneaky and charge you on audience viewings which can be pricey!!

September 5th, 2016, 03:12 AM	#1
Andrew Smith Equal Opportunity Offender Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 3,064	Streaming enables resurgence in areas abandoned by traditional TV companies The advancement in technology has meant that broadcasts abandoned by major players are now becoming viable to smaller operations who can do all their switching on a single computer unit, and stream to the internet. Here is a dedicated 3 min 30 sec ABC news bulletin story on what is happening in regional Australia. 4 Sept 2016 - ABC News - streaming media revolution - YouTube A text version of the story is here: Online streaming sparks cheap and cheerful TV revolution in regional Australia Andrew

September 5th, 2016, 04:21 AM	#2
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: Streaming enables resurgence in areas abandoned by traditional TV companies Thanks Andrew So we will shortly see "Smith TV" ??? It's a massive industry in the making and becoming quite affordable too. I was delighted to seem the footy broadcast using the same switcher that we use!! If you think about it it's not a horrific cost either to set up either ...one could even find an old panel van and bam..you have a mobile OB unit!! Over here we used to have Channel 31 as a community channel which was abandoned a few years ago so the Perth market is also ripe for Community TV ... the USA people love their community cable shows so doing the same with a stream channel would be just as easy as more and more people have smart TV's so living room viewing becomes practical!!

September 5th, 2016, 09:47 AM	#3
Andrew Smith Equal Opportunity Offender Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 3,064	Re: Streaming enables resurgence in areas abandoned by traditional TV companies Not likely, but I do get together with a mate of mine and live switch an occasional 2-cam event. Here's one we did recently, steaming to both YouTube and Facebook, streamed from Parliament House n Queensland. Two Men Talk About Marriage BNE launch - YouTube Annoying slight green cast from the fluorescent lights (amongst many types) in the room which seem to be impossible to white-balance out for live stuff. Andrew

September 5th, 2016, 09:50 AM	#4
Andrew Smith Equal Opportunity Offender Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 3,064	Re: Streaming enables resurgence in areas abandoned by traditional TV companies Additional note: Pretty dang sure we streamed out to YouTube in full HD, yet the highest showing on the embedded playback at the moment is 720P. Weird. Maybe it's just a temporary hiccup. Andrew Edit: Video at source at YouTube (not the embedded version here) has the 1080P option for playback for those that want to judge the quality of the stream.

September 5th, 2016, 01:59 PM	#5
Simon Denny Trustee Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 1,409	Re: Streaming enables resurgence in areas abandoned by traditional TV companies When the community channels were turned off here on the East Coast this shut down my TV programs, I had no where to go. I thought streaming was going to be the answer for me however, educating business to support my programs has proved to be a dead end. I still think streaming is the future and once people become educated to this and learn to connect and watch this on their TV, it's a winner. Oh, congrats guys on streaming, very envious at your endeavours.

September 5th, 2016, 06:34 PM	#6
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: Streaming enables resurgence in areas abandoned by traditional TV companies Your TV programs were really awesome Simon ..it's such a pity they were abandoned. I'm assuming that your dead end was purely lack of sponsorship from companies ? For Aussie companies it's still a very new and scary thing and they will need time to be convinced that it's a good product promotion media. I really think it's more education and bringing companies out of the dark ages is all that's required. A LOT of homes have Smart TV's now and it's hard to see anyone walking down the street without a phone in their hand nowdays so the audience is there ..they simply need to be informed!!

September 5th, 2016, 06:48 PM	#7
Simon Denny Trustee Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 1,409	Re: Streaming enables resurgence in areas abandoned by traditional TV companies Yep Chris, lack of funding. Sponsors seem to think that going to a TV Network is the holy grail, maybe it is... however why limit your brand to just a few thousand viewers that are watching on the network, with the internet, live streaming etc... the potential for a given product to been seen is massive. Trying to educate business that the way forward ( for me anyway) is internet based commercial content embedded or aligned within the production. But hey, TV is what they want. I just don't get it. Look at KODI and the add ons for content, live streaming etc... exciting times ahead and I think the typical TV station model is in danger. My two cents worth anyway....

September 5th, 2016, 07:31 PM	#8
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: Streaming enables resurgence in areas abandoned by traditional TV companies What is sad is that sponsors still see TV advertising as people sitting in the living room watching a program in front of the screen at a set time, whereas modern broadcast can go to almost every type of device and with "catch up" TV you can still watch a show long after it has been live. Our CDN records our stream as a DVR so even if you miss the start you can go back and start at the beginning and then you can re-watch it anytime you like which equates to a much bigger audience. We did a simple stream of a Real Estate home open a few weeks ago and more than double the viewers watched it after the event was over. Sponsors need to realise that their product is not only promoted during the show but also afterwards too.

September 5th, 2016, 07:43 PM	#9
Simon Denny Trustee Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 1,409	Re: Streaming enables resurgence in areas abandoned by traditional TV companies Valid points Chris, I would love to include Streaming into my services, I'm just not sure how to go about this yet, both as a cost to my business and client fees.

September 5th, 2016, 11:39 PM	#10
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: Streaming enables resurgence in areas abandoned by traditional TV companies Hi Simon Whenever I see an event I find myself thinking "Gosh I could stream this!!" But seriously my first reason was weddings and an attempt to streamline my workflow. In the old days of VHS and full size cassette cameras I used to film 10 seconds of the wedding invitation prior to the wedding then line up the start position and film the entire wedding doing an in camera edit and planning shots carefully (quite the opposite nowdays where people tend to shoot a huge amount of wasted footage) At the end of the night I would eject the tape, hand it to the bride and I was done!! No post production and spending days trying to piece clips together. What we do now is stream our weddings (shooting carefully) where our CDN automatically makes a DVR copy of each event. At the end of the event the bride already has her entire wedding on the server (in fact often they have already watched bits of it) Once I get home I simply download the clips and drop them onto a USB and I'm done. So, I spend 8 hours shooting only instead of spending 8 hours working then 20 odd hours doing post ... I can actually drop my prices a bit this way and still double my hourly rate. It's also a great feeling to shoot for 8 hours and actually say "I'm done!!!

September 6th, 2016, 03:56 AM	#11
Simon Denny Trustee Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 1,409	Re: Streaming enables resurgence in areas abandoned by traditional TV companies It's also a great feeling to shoot for 8 hours and actually say "I'm done!!! I can relate to that Chris.

September 6th, 2016, 08:09 AM	#12
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: Streaming enables resurgence in areas abandoned by traditional TV companies My mate Alan on the Gold Coast did a 4 year old's funeral back in July and after an hour he actually phoned me and said "I can't believe I have finished ..no editing, no copying media ... I'm done!" Live broadcasts do have a few advantages!! Andrew ? Nice job on your two camera shoot ...it shows that a simple two camera switch can be very effective! What did you use to do the live switching BTW??

September 7th, 2016, 08:36 AM	#13
Andrew Smith Equal Opportunity Offender Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 3,064	Re: Streaming enables resurgence in areas abandoned by traditional TV companies Same mate of mine who has the ATEM Black Magic thinggy. I kept myself busy running both cameras and checking on the stream status. Speaking of "I'm done", an older lady at the back of the room at that event commented to me at the end how she had difficulty hearing what was being said. I think the issue might be with her hearing. So I informed her that we had made a recording and she could always watch it online again at home (with the good audio). I emailed the YouTube link address to her email address, right there on the spot from my phone. I soon received this reply: "Many thanks Andrew. I'm amazed - you're efficiency plus." Clients seem to be impressed by the fact that the recording of the stream is already there. :-) Andrew

September 7th, 2016, 02:40 PM	#14
Simon Denny Trustee Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 1,409	Re: Streaming enables resurgence in areas abandoned by traditional TV companies A few years ago I was going to setup Live Streaming services as part of my business... anyway I found vMix and was really impressed by this. Live Video Streaming Software \| vMix

September 7th, 2016, 06:37 PM	#15
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: Streaming enables resurgence in areas abandoned by traditional TV companies I do like the fact that it's there "instantly" ... With weddings the big issue has always been how long you have to wait to see the end result and in that industry 3 months is often quite normal ...I would have totally forgotten about the video by then ..even if it's a huge event. The VMix does look interesting Simon, I'll have to look into it. We are currently applying the live stream to weddings and so far the only tough part is finding a fast enough laptop to handle the switching. So far we are using LiveStream Studio software which works well The only thing you really need to do is decide where your content is going to ..Some CDN's are sneaky and charge you on audience viewings which can be pricey!!