Live stream internet strength - Beach wedding

[hasselblad]

One of my clients want me to provide live feed of the wedding ceremony they are going to have on the beach.
I would like to use my 5d mark iv to record and provide the feed into OBS Studio software. I am planning to use my mobile internet on my phone. I would like to set up my phone as hot spot and connect my notebook to my phone.

- My question is how to make sure I have strong internet to support the upstream data??? I don't have mobile wifi? The location is 2 hours away from my home. I can go and test the speed but I would rather not to.
What do you do when you live stream an event? How do you make sure you have a strong signal?

[Peter C.]

It sucks to travel out there but you really need to. If they live near by you could combine the test with a pre wedding video session if that's your style.

Most mobile carriers have coverage maps to give you an idea. Your mobile phone carrier might have an upgrade option for a month (this is going to be your cheapest option), otherwise I've seen Verizon offers mobile data device, but it ain't cheap. https://www.verizon.com/internet-devices/ (look at the terrible reviews) Even if the beach has a decent coverage, the speed isn't going to be great. Hope the beach isn't mobbed with lots of people using the same network. think about some sort of shade to keep your equipment out of the sun.

Btw, you could simplify it with a quality phone with facial tracking on tripod/light stand with phone holder. This would eliminate the need for a mobile hotspot device, laptop and you would no longer be tethered to any of it.

[Kubicixfactor]

I know it’s a PITA but I’d go to the location and check the upload speed, run the camera and see how it performs. I use a Teltonika RUT955 router with dual SIM cards with a 4g external antenna when there’s only 4g available, that way I can see two different carriers and pick the one with the best speed, plus it will fail over if there’s a problem (although there’s a lag). My experience of coverage maps in the UK is that they’re generally too optimistic to be reliable so I’d rather go to the location and see for myself.

I know from previous posts that Puredrifting has a lot of live-stream experience, hopefully he’ll be along to offer more advice.

[ahalpert]

I livestreamed a wedding yesterday using GH5 tethered to MBP routed through OBS streaming to YouTube

Luckily it went well, but I experienced an odd issue during set-up. OBS was playing smoothly and said there were no dropped frames. YouTube claimed the connection was excellent.

But in the preview window in YouTube, the video would freeze for about 5 seconds every 30 seconds while the audio continued to play.

When I went live and checked the stream on my phone, it played without a hitch. But I was sweating bullets because I wasn't permitted to go live early and I couldn't identify the source of the issue.

Maybe it was a playback error on my laptop since it was uploading and then streaming the video simultaneously? But it was only 360p resolution, so I dont think it was very taxing.

Has anyone else experienced a similar issue?

[Kubicixfactor]

Good that it went ok, nothing worse than having an unexpected gremlin in the works! What’s the delay like for the stream on YouTube?

[ahalpert]

Good that it went ok, nothing worse than having an unexpected gremlin in the works! What’s the delay like for the stream on YouTube?

Between what's happening and when it showed up on my phone watching the livestream? I didnt time it but probably around 8-12 seconds

[Bassman2003]

It is an uphill battle! I have been live streaming quite a bit this year and it is the wild west unless you have an ethernet cable connection. I would start by setting expectations with your client and letting them know you are a video provider, not a cell tower technician. I am serious, we can not be responsible for all of that *stuff* that goes on in the consumer cell phone world. All of the carriers try to limit the traffic on their systems which means we are at odds with them. Which also means we will probably lose most of the time.

I have a cool little device called a Mighty Wifi. It allows you to buy data in chunks of 10 gigs and if in the city, will pretty much guaranty 20Mb up and down. I did a baseball game a little outside of town with this device and in about the third inning, AT&T decided to bump our connection down to 3G just because. Very frustrating. Even inside wifi can be problematic as all of these systems do not like large steady streams of data for extended periods of time. They are designed to not allow this by nature. As resolutions increase, we are expected to throw a lot of data around to have a nice looking livestream. Not a great combo.

As Dan pointed out in another thread, be careful, your company's reputation is in the crosshairs. Folks don't care if you do a great job with the video but the livestream for that one person on the other side of the country failed...