Live Streaming advice revisited

F

firehawk

Veteran
We talk about this from time to time but due to recent events I now have client asking to live stream dance recitals so I'd like to revisit this to get advice.
The venue will have an audience present watching but some may choose to watch live stream from their homes instead.
I have multiple matching cameras, BM switcher (ATEM Television Studio Pro), cables, wireless transmitters and a Black Magic Web Presenter to compress the video to connect to outgoing stream...
but my question centers around the actual delivery of the video stream to the viewing audience.
Do you attempt to cable into into the venue internet for a more stable connection, but thus be at the mercy of the venue internet should something happen and then you of course will get the blame?
Or do you bypass the venue and set up your own connection? But if it's wifi, the number of people present with their cell phones may present a wifi intereference mess and thus compromise the whole thing.
Or maybe there is another way
Ideas?
Actually for the live stream part I'd probably only use one camera angle to simplify that part of it.

This is the bm web presenter
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/sear...ciBzby9h5zivJ8mbtOLAKmbfgTjtG2lxoCeggQAvD_BwE
 
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I am faced with this situation as well. The other problem is what are you going to stream to? If it is Youtube or Facebook then the music might throw up red flags.

I do not have a lot of confidence large venues will want to let you use their internet access. More than likely you will be out on your own with a MIFI hotspot. The whole thing just sounds scary to me and forces us professionals to act in a more consumer sort of way. I can see the situation where your feed has an issue and somebody comes up and says - "my phone can stream, why can't you get it done?". Bla bla bla...
 
Definitely not my particular field, but I've personally been looking into an iPad Pro with service and private playback on Vimeo.

The feeling I'm getting from some conversations is that quality is less important right now as long as everything is stable and sounds good (mostly meaning there is sound that you can make out and it's not annoying).

Mileage may vary depending on product and some people's standards.
 
firehawk said:
but my question centers around the actual delivery of the video stream to the viewing audience.
Do you attempt to cable into into the venue internet for a more stable connection, but thus be at the mercy of the venue internet should something happen and then you of course will get the blame?
Or do you bypass the venue and set up your own connection? But if it's wifi, the number of people present with their cell phones may present a wifi intereference mess and thus compromise the whole thing.
Or maybe there is another way
Ideas?
Click to expand...

Use them all -- send the best signal you can, distributing bits over wired Ethernet, Wi-Fi, cell phones, etc. To do that, you need something like a Teradek VidiU Go maybe. I think Teradek has at least one device that will let you bond 4 cell phone channels (numbers, SIM cards, however you like to think of it) together so you can create your own big pipe to the internet.

An alternative is perhaps Streamer Pro. No doubt there are others. Search for "bonded network" or "bonded cellular" or however you want to play it.

None of this comes cheap, but if you're the guy who always gets his signal to go through, that might pay for itself in the end, yes?
 
Firehawk, I used to stream a lot in various situation for live events before COVID-19. What I would strongly recommend is that you talk to the venue and find out what their connection fees are, and of course what their upload speeds are. If you do a site inspection, bring a laptop and do a speed test preferably around the same time as the event. Wired connection is almost always preferred. If you have the funds a Teradek VidiU Go would be ideal. You could connect with the wired connection and have the bonded cellular network as a backup.
 
Thanks everyone. I'm going to look into the things you said when I get off tonight. This sounds more difficult than I hoped. I was hoping I could plug my BM device into my laptop with OBS and connect to internet from there.
I forgot about the blasted music. Will that flag problems on a stream? They will use a bunch of commercial songs I'm sure and youtube flags you whether you have the proper clearances or not as they don't know. The entire thing probably rests on that.

Yeah I can do it from my phone why can't you do it with your fancy gear is certainly a possible question to come up


Waiting on call back from venue
 
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That Teradek VidiU Go looks like it accepts ethernet and other connections like modems and smart phones.
So, if I understand correctly I could connect ethernet and a couple of phones and it will leverage them to try to provide the best feed it can?
"Combining the bandwidth from Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and up to two 3G / 4G / LTE modems help prevent your stream from dropping, or use several iPhone and Android smartphones as hotspots for even more bandwidth redundancy."
Even though this event won't justify the cost I'm ok spending $1300 on a Teradek VidiU since I plan on doing this more. But is that enough or does it need more to bond to phones? Those other systems cost many thousands more.

I still haven't heard back from the venue about availability and cost of hard wire connection but I do have two iphones so I am hoping to use both.

Would private playback on vimeo solve the music problem?
 
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firehawk said:
Would private playback on vimeo solve the music problem?
Click to expand...

I haven't streamed anything on Vimeo to know, but the way it worked many years ago for regular uploads is if you publicly uploaded a video with a very popular song the system would automatically flag your video (if it recognized the audio), and the video would be replaced with a message from Vimeo about the music (and you couldn't play the video).

But if you uploaded the same video privately, it processed and played.

I haven't made any public videos with any popular songs in years so I don't know if it still works like that. Especially allowing the private videos to have it. (I'm pretty sure I sometimes see/hear Vimeo videos with major label songs in them, but IDK...maybe it depends on the song and/or if there are any options to "fair use".)

Maybe one way to test it (although you'd have to pay for a streaming membership unless there are trials) would be to stream yourself with random popular music playing in the background.
 
I spoke with my engineer partner and when we bring in our own Internet, it is with a Peplink Bonded Router. This gives us a distinct advantage over someone just using a Teradek VU type device that only takes a video and or audio input. You can plug almost anything
into our device. We have four different redundant services available off of the router, Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint so if one services stream is down or slow, it automatically kicks over to the next service that is reciving a stronger, faster signal. The wireless
router was about $4k and the redundant, cascading wireless accounts add up to about $250.00 per month. And no matter the situation, we still ALWAYS prefer an Ethernet connection. We are live streaming our next fund raising auction this week and we will
be hard wired to an Ethernet access point with the wireless router hooked up so that it will kick in immediately if for some reason the client's hard wired ethernet connnection goes down.

In live streaming, YOU, yes you will be blamed for any point of failure anywhere along the signal path, incoming from remote shoots to outgoing to the end users. Live streaming isn't for the faint of heart or for those just dabbling. If you don't have multiple
redundancies with engineered reliable solutions, you will end up with customers who are furious at you and who will make it their job to bad mouth you and destroy your business reputation. I predict we will see a huge migration for those who are in video
production and decide they want to dabble in live streaming with their ATEM Mini Pro and will quickly run into issues that take a webcast engineer to solve. These videographers will find themselves experiencing that live streaming is a lot more involved
and more expensive than they thought it would be to do it on a professional level for demanding clients.

It really helps if you have a background in live broadcast TV, it's essentially the same thing but you have to do it all with much lower budgets and smaller resources and crews. One man banding live streaming is a recipe for disaster. We always have at least a two
or three person crew and for larger jobs up to 10-15 crew. In our opinion, you always must have a webcast engineer whose job it is is to do nothing but watch measure and react to the outgoing stream.
Lately we are each doing two or three jobs ourselves because of social distancing and it's difficult. When your stream/ethernet/wireless goes down, if you are alone, generally you are screwed.
 
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vertigoanton said:
I learned this the hard way when I epically failed during a job. Revisiting that experience now is giving me anxiety! Ha!
Click to expand...

Yeah, it can be nasty. I can count several jobs where it was just a two person crew and at the end, I've said to myself, "Wow, if I was working alone, we would have just totally crashed and burned." That live aspect, when you get it right
is just as much of a thrill as live broadcast, but when you get it wrong, you don't fail a little, you fail spectacularly.
 
puredrifting said:
It really helps if you have a background in live broadcast TV, it's essentially the same thing but you have to do it all with much lower budgets and smaller resources and crews. One man banding live streaming is a recipe for disaster. We always have at least a two
or three person crew and for larger jobs up to 10-15 crew. In our opinion, you always must have a webcast engineer whose job it is is to do nothing but watch measure and react to the outgoing stream.
Lately we are each doing two or three jobs ourselves because of social distancing and it's difficult. When your stream/ethernet/wireless goes down, if you are alone, generally you are screwed.
Click to expand...

Haha, I pretty much always do 'one man banding' of my live streaming.
But I live in a small town and don't usually get big budgets for live broadcasting
I would not recommend it, i can pull it off, but it's pretty tough. I did also have
a background in broadcast TV. I worked at a small commercial TV station where
I literally was the chief videographer/editor and the producer, and director
for 12 live newscasts per week. Our studio camera operator was the son of some
'big shot' at the station and would randomly just not show up for the newscasts
if he didn't feel like it. I remember running down to the studio during commercial breaks
to move the studio cameras from 'news anchor' positions to the 'weather and sports' positions.
I had between 1:30 to 2 minutes to get down there, get them moved and
set up in the new positions, and get back up to the booth. There used to be a joke about how many jobs
I really had at that station. When I moved on to a bigger station, I did sat truck ops and lots of lives from
that side of things as well as shooting and editing. Then later on, I worked directing live events using
systems like the Sony Anycast. So I have a ton of experience doing it, and really 'one man band
lives' are only feasible (even if not advisable) for certain things. For example, conferences are fairly
slow moving, maybe a couple cameras, one locked on a wide shot and another tighter one following the speaker.
Then a power point input. You've got your 'crash' shot you can always cut to on the wide, and you must
pre make all the graphics and lower thirds. Sports is pretty much a no go as there is too much fast movement.
Of course, being a dummy, I have produced and live broadcast an entire 5 day (16 hour days) basketball tournament by
myself. It was high school, not pro so there is that. Also, I had two wireless cameras one on each baseline, a wide
shot, and a 'follow' camera which was sort of a 'whichever half court the ball is on ' type shot.
Other than the follow camera, the other 3 were stationary. Every once in awhile a team would send
me a student to help and I'd give them a little wireless camera to go jump in the huddles during timeouts,
but basically it was just me. I'd never try this on a large budget client. Doing it by yourself means
there will be corners that have to be cut. Plus as you say, you don't have any backup for
when things go sideways. I usually have to have backups.....my iPhone as a hotspot has
saved me in the past when the venue's internet went down. But that is not ideal either
because too many people in your location get on their iPhone's it can bog down the stream.
There are honestly so many things that can go wrong, having backup solutions is pretty
much required.
 
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puredrifting said:
In live streaming, YOU, yes you will be blamed for any point of failure anywhere along the signal path, incoming from remote shoots to outgoing to the end users. Live streaming isn't for the faint of heart or for those just dabbling. If you don't have multiple
redundancies with engineered reliable solutions, you will end up with customers who are furious at you and who will make it their job to bad mouth you and destroy your business reputation. I predict we will see a huge migration for those who are in video
production and decide they want to dabble in live streaming with their ATEM Mini Pro and will quickly run into issues that take a webcast engineer to solve. These videographers will find themselves experiencing that live streaming is a lot more involved
and more expensive than they thought it would be to do it on a professional level for demanding clients.
Click to expand...


See, I'm glad you said this and that I'm not crazy. Back in 2010-2012, I did a number of live streaming events for my old small town agency using the Tricaster Pro. Luckily nothing catastrophic happened, but it was immensely stressful every time. So many people seem to be jumping on board with live streaming as if it's no big thing. Frankly I'd probably consider a non-video job over streaming if I really need the money soon. My hat is off to anyone who can tackle it, but I know it's not for one man bands who think they can jump in overnight.

You are right, you will absolutely will be blamed when the venue's crappy internet connection goes out.
 
Thanks everyone. I spoke with the venue and they offer a hard wired ethernet connection that no one else will be using during the time and at no charge, speed of 15up/30down.

Client says the streaming part is only a courtesy to parents with no guarantees and at no charge to them so if it doesn't work then "buy a DVD."
It's a really good client who says they totally understand that the internet connection is out of our control.
The event is almost 2 months away.
The whole "it's your fault" when anything burns is why I haven't pushed into streaming yet. I bought switchers, cabling, wireless camera units etc a couple years ago but still haven't gotten into it.
After reading your posts it seems that for around $4000 more I could get the bonded hardware I need for redundant backups which is necessary for success plus the montly fees. But I think you guys are right and this is a field for those who like heavy stress.

I love the wrap for the night and you're done vs wrap for the night and now you have 2 weeks of post though.

With the recent "crisis" I expect a lot of video guys will be trying streaming which will mean a bloated competitor market and they will be doing it for cheap, and also hit or miss with high chance of crash and burn. Do you want to go in with higher overhead and a more reliable product and try to compete with those guys? How many of you do?

So back to the original scenario. The good client wants to offer it and I "should" but it is a risk and I do not have a backup to the hard wired ethernet besides a cell phone....
I do not have a bonded hardware solution with the connected services available.
If I say no, disapointed client. If I say yes and it works, then everyone's happy. If I say yes and it crashes, then...? Some people are not happy and it's "my fault" but I do think the client will not be unhappy with me, in this particular scenario only.
 
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Here is my view - if doing the live stream takes away from YOUR camera work or production value then try to avoid it. You will end up dumbing down your product just for a few folks who will turn on the streaming feed while they do something else in the background. Plus, everybody is so jaded nowdays that they will tire of the limited production value.

If there is a real need = budget, then do it. Hopefully live streaming will wear off like a fad. Is it worth it to pull your hair out for a small number of folks to tune in? No. I think it would be better to use the switchers to do a mini live switch, go home with a shortened post time, make it look pretty and upload it the next day in high quality. Tell the client you can have what they used to get in weeks in a day or two.

I do not buy the client's view of it being a courtesy. Once it fails they will probably form an opinion and possibly not buy anything from you. Also by that time the event is over and they have moved on to other things. A "courtesy" at your expense.
 
One solution I'v seen a lot of lately is that since most of these streams are meant for limited audiences anyway, people are turning to services such as Zoom or GoToMeeting. You can have up to 50 people without a fee and many more for a modest monthly cost. The host can set everyone else's feed to mute so that only the stream output is heard. Using these systems the question of copyrighted music is avoided completely. The services even offer recording.

Just make sure to test your gear beforehand to make sure that it is compatible with the service being able to detect it as a camera source. I used to do this all the time via GoToMeeting but now Zoom is the preferred service (better image and ausdio quality).
 
Good observations here. Live streaming has many niches. Right now, most of our booked jobs are remote live auction fundraisers. These are not for the dabbler at all. We have between four and eight remote cameras set up in various locations around LA. The last one we did a few weeks ago,
we had five remote cameras feeding us, we had 20 roll in commercials, and after each one, we would have to go to the auctioneer who would auction off a vacation, parking space at the school, stuff like that. Hi dollar stuff as many items went for $25k to $50k. You think puts a little stress on you?
Our actioneer we set up with a green screen and used a virtual set for him that had a monitor behind him so we could put the live tote board with names and amounts being bid and then after each segment we would have to show a master tote board that tracked the overall money raised to that point.
Then we would go to reaction segments with the talent. Had a few live segments with Kelly Clarkson singing, segments with Tim Allen, Ray Romano, etc.

We had to invent a virtual green room where we could put the talent into so we could talk to them and give them direction, we didn't have a way to communicate (IEM) with the talent while on screen so we used the green room and it worked well
although talent wouldn't want to spend too much time in the green room as they wanted to watch the performances and segments. The audio routing, muting and unmuting was incredibly complex and the timing was challenging. The budget actually
wasn't commensurate with the money that live stream raised for the client, but we need demo reel material and it was a learning experience. This run of show at over 200 cues and roll ins, you have to create all of your one up, two up, three up and four up
PIP/quadrant builds beforehand, you build in the cues for the roll in segments, so when the live show gets side tracked a bit as talent improvises, that can become REALLY stressful because you begin to wonder where in the run of show and cues you are.

Doing a simple live stream with a couple of cameras at a conference or event is easy. Doing it all remotely with dozens of sources, hundreds of cues and almost a million dollars in fund raising on the table, resting solely on the success or failure of your gear,
your timing and your "performances" as producer and director was nuts. At the last minute, one of the talent's Internet at home was glitching and causing us grief so we had to rush over across town and relocate that talent and their setup to another place
that had much faster, more solid Internet. Even the bonded multi source wireless is to be avoided. Wireless, especially relying on a phone connection is to always be avoided, it should always be a last, desperate Hail Mary.

I predict a lot of video production dabblers are going to fail at live streaming and fail spectacularly because it is a tightwire walk. But with what's happening in our world, I don't think it's a short lived fad. There is a TON of opportunity out there
and even once life resumes into the new norm, people are going to want to use it much more than they have in the past.
 
The only seamless streaming gigs I've had (and I don't do many) were using LiveU for network and large-market stations from out of town, using their package.
But seamless- inside stadiums, locker rooms, etc.

But now that I read this, I realize it wasn't streaming, it was backpack broadcast "uplink", haha! Nevermind...

Though I think maybe it's possible to use it for FB and YT... maybe?
 
DBP said:
See, I'm glad you said this and that I'm not crazy. Back in 2010-2012, I did a number of live streaming events for my old small town agency using the Tricaster Pro. Luckily nothing catastrophic happened, but it was immensely stressful every time. So many people seem to be jumping on board with live streaming as if it's no big thing. Frankly I'd probably consider a non-video job over streaming if I really need the money soon. My hat is off to anyone who can tackle it, but I know it's not for one man bands who think they can jump in overnight.

You are right, you will absolutely will be blamed when the venue's crappy internet connection goes out.
Click to expand...

I jumped in overnight to do a one-man band 3-camera concert livestream last year, only livestream I've ever shot. I ran a C300, GH5 and GH4 through a SlingStudio connected to the venue's ethernet. I ran around with the iPad controller, repositioning/operating cameras and switching between feeds at the same time. It only worked because nothing went wrong, but that was the type of budget they had anyway. I don't recommend it, although SlingStudio is a very easy system to learn and use.
 
Glad this thread is active because it poses the dichotomy (had to look up the spelling on that one...) we are faced with - Streaming is guaranteed fail for a OMB but the budgets are so often barely enough for video production, let along extra crew for streaming.

The other aspect I do not like is the reality that we are asked to be a broadcast entity for 1/100th of the budget. Let's "play" NBC... All of us have spent our careers leaning how to do video and is there room on out tool kit to be experts in networking and internet technology as well? As Dan states, there will be a lot of opportunity but it is kind of out of my wheelhouse to confidently book higher paying work around the weak link in the chain.

A lot to think about. For me, the end user is showered with awesome media these days. So whatever you create in a livestream better be pretty polished or folks will not be impressed or hold on through it. Plus everybody Zooms now, so that raised the bar from the bottom a bit. More questions than answers...
 
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