So You Want To Broadcast?

Live Streaming is popular, so how can you get in on it too?

In today’s fast paced world with video being streamed from our tv’s, phones, computers and just about everywhere we go, you might be wondering if streaming is something you should be doing too. It might even seem like an easy thing to do. Plug something new in, a few clicks here and there and you’re ready to go. However, it may not be as easy as binging Netflix on the weekend. Here are a few things to consider if you want to start broadcasting your video content to your audience. ​

Your first move should be creating specific goals for what you want your streaming options to be. Broadcasting systems can range in price from thousands of dollars to millions, so having a clear idea of how you want to use your system is important. Who do you want to broadcast to? Will you be streaming from multiple locations? How will your participants access your video, and from what? Will you be recording large events? How often will you be recording? Will you require archiving video for future use or will it only appear once? Do you want to show a single camera, multiple cameras, and do you want to include graphics as well. Once you’ve written the answers to these questions our team can better help you find the equipment you’ll need. ​

There are a lot of questions you’ll have to ask if you want to broadcast. Among the foremost you should be thinking about your Network. This means both your internet connection and the connection from your streaming computer to your router. Typically, when you consider internet speeds, Download is important as you are bringing files from the internet to you, but with streaming it is Upload that is important. Even more important is upload speed dedicated to your stream. A normal building internet connection is shared with everyone in the building and usually, since upload isn’t used, there is plenty to go around. But streams are hungry!  ​

A good rule of thumb is 7mbps for lower definition and 15mbps for higher definition. Really, the stream only uses 3mbs and 7mbps respectively, but this gives you some room for the rest of the network to still function and for the stream to stay up. If you don’t have this much speed or more for upload you may need to look at an internet upgrade as a part of your streaming system. You don’t really need to worry about how many people are watching because most services take care of that for you. If you put the video on to a service like our favorite BOXCAST, they worry about the needs to get it to 5, 500, or 5000 viewers.  ​

As for the connection to your router, always look to get a wired connection as wireless doesn’t hold up well for dedicated streaming. Even if it works flawlessly for a test, it may not keep working after your event room is full of smartphone users.  ​

When it comes to saving and archiving your streams a lot depends on quality and what you want to use the videos for and if you want to edit them later. We suggest a dedicated hardware recorder to capture these in case your stream goes down so you can upload it later. The quality of your videos, how large the files are and how often you record will help evaluate what you need for streaming and for archiving options.

If you’ve been talking about streaming, then most likely you need to look into, cameras, lights, a switch, streaming box, and a director or operator. There are quite a few pieces to get to a good quality stream. You may feel like you have everything and you are ready, if that’s the case then there’s a good chance you are. Even still we’d love to meet with you and talk through available options to you based on your business capabilities and hopes, we may be able to point out a few pitfalls you didn’t think about or just help add some focus on content.