Live streaming a funeral with a Sony FS100 - is it possible?

B

Budgieboots

Well-known member
Hello everyone,

How does one go about live-streaming their footage, in real-time, from their Sony FS100 video camera, to family members of a client that can't attend a funeral in person?

Like what would I need to do that?
It's the first time I've ever gotten a request like that and I'm at a total loss as to where to start.
 
If you want to do it very simply you could use skype and call them directly with a video call. However with the fs100 the trickiest but will be to get the video signal into the computer. With a camera with firewire thats easy but there is none on the fs100 so you'll have to get some sort of capture device.

The other way is to use ustream, you can get a free account and it's reasonably simple to use. However again you will need a way to get the video signal into the computer. If you can get a camera with firewire you could make it a lot easier for yourself.
 
I do this (well not the funeral part) all the time and use either a BM ultra studio or an AJA IO XT to get into the computer. It's really not hard and if only a few people need to see it you could also stream with Google hangout.
 
But the other trick is to get the bandwidth to upload to your streaming service. Not all locations have suitable connections (if they have any) - wifi and ADSL are contested, so any dip in bandwidth, however momentary, can break the stream. As I was involved with webcasting Analyst Announcements, things absolutely had to work, with backup, which could mean installing a trio of ISDN lines into a venue, or renting a satellite truck. These days you can do somthing with Viddy or bolt together a number of 3G devices if the local telco will allow this and you can afford the dataplan for 6 phones at their max data rate.

TBH, streaming seems to work on the cheap when there's no real pressure, but fails cataclysmically 10 seconds before you're due on air. :-) Lots of solutions at lots of price points at both ends, but the electric string in the middle is the biggest gotcha.
 
Very true!!! Bandwidth is EVERYTHING when streaming. But if it is just for personal use if it goes down its not going to end your career:) Thats also the nice thing about google hangouts, if you drop you can join back in really easily.

My allocated bandwidth for my last stream... HEHEHE.

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Okay - you get ultimate bragging rights! :beer:

And there was me, pleased as punch with this:

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I believe with a teradek cube and 4g dongle you can stream directly from HDMI to a web stream.
 
The product I think you're thinking of is the Teradek Bond, which multipexes over several 3G or 4G dongles - and this plugs into the Cube-155. The prices look a little frightening - to broadcast an HDMI signal to the web starts at around $8.5k - phew.

I do hope we get the whole 4G thing sorted out (which would simplify matters). But as you'll know, 4G in the US doesn't work with the European 4G - D'oh! I thought we got that sorted after all that GSM stuff ages ago, but no. The nice thing about standards is that there's so many to choose from. Bottom line is that it makes investment in 4G for European/International folk rather tricky.

And if the entry cost is high, one must bear in mind that a 1 mbit stream means you're burning 3.6 Gbits per hour (compare that with the average monthly allowance of 5 Gbits for data dongles and 50 Gbs for 'fair use' ADSL. Whilst 'that's a shame', current mobile data providers tend to hoist up the cost of 'over quota' bandwidth, so you're REALLY stung.

4G is deffo the way to go in the future, but even so, to get less contention (and a bigger share of the overall upload bandwidth in your cell area) you're going to have to pay.

Which is why webcasts tend to be in a bit of a 'bell curve' outside of your average conference hotel venue: cheap and easy from your mobile, expensive and cool with your Teradek Bonds so the broadcasters will be happy, and us in the middle, in the middle of nowhere, left to explain why it's so expensive. :-/
 
MattDavis said:
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Click to expand...

I hate you!

My ISP (Force9) has degraded my service from a solid 16Mbps/1024kbps to 9Mbps/320kbps. My DSL was faster than their poxy Fibre offerings. Avoid Force9/Plusnet.

We're not in a cable area but will move to 100 Mbps FTTC next month.
 
Livestream also has their Broadcaster box coming out this month. HDMI in, connect it to a Wifi network and set it up through an iPhone app and it handles all compression and uploading to their servers. It's $495 (plus I think it requires a paid Livestream account) but way cheaper than other on-camera solutions like the Teradek, and much more versatile than tethering to a laptop.

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http://new.livestream.com/broadcast-live/livestream-broadcaster

Edit: says it works with USB 3G/4G dongles as well.
 
MattDavis said:
The product I think you're thinking of is the Teradek Bond, which multipexes over several 3G or 4G dongles - and this plugs into the Cube-155. The prices look a little frightening - to broadcast an HDMI signal to the web starts at around $8.5k - phew.
Click to expand...

I haven't used them but my understanding is that all you need to stream video using teradek is the $1200 cube and add your own USB 4G dongle and pay for your data connection. Otherwise the one that adds wifi as an option is another $300.

The bond I believe is only used to increase your throughput by bonding multiple 4G dongles together for higher bitrates and connection stability.
 
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