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New Livestream Hardware at NAB 2014

At this year’s annual NAB Show in Las Vegas, there was a lot to be excited about in the world of live Internet broadcasting.

Livestream at NAB

Livestream, the live Internet broadcast platform, had quite a large footprint this year to show off their new wares. Livestream is best known for their live streaming service, but increasingly is becoming a full professional end-to-end broadcast solution. This mean the introduction of a bundle of new beautifully designed video switching and encoding hardware this year.

Livestream Studio HD510 at NAB

Livestream has introduced new models of their Livestream Studio live production switcher. When Studio was introduced last year, the Studio HD500 was released as a portable PC-based plug-n-play switcher/encoder. This was followed by a software only version that anyone can run on their own off-the-shelf PC reference hardware with capture cards.

For 2014, Livestream has expanded their lineup with the HD51, HD510 and the HD1710 Studio models. All models are multi-channel HD live production switchers that squarely take aim at Newtek’s Tricaster. The HD51 and HD510 can take up to five HD-SDI or HDMI sources, with the HD510 including a touch-screen monitor built in to its portable form factor. The HD51, and more expansive HD1710, require external monitors. The HD1710 can take in up to a whopping 17 HD-SDI video sources that all can be displayed across four multi-view monitors and switched live. All models allow for multiple channel ISO recording in AVI MJPEG format. Not the best if your workflow is editing in Final Cut Pro 7, but plenty fine if you’re using Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro X. A Livestream rep told me Quicktime format support will be forthcoming.

Livestream Studio™ Tech Specs

The new awesome hardware doesn’t end there. Taking a cue from Apple’s industrial design department, Livestream has introduced a new hardware control surface simply called Surface. This control surface gives you an intuitive and customizable interface to all the controls of the Studio software interface. Every slider, knob and toggle of Surface is mapped directly to their software functions in Studio. Surface is actually composed of two modules, Core and Track. Core is the main switching control surface that works with up to 5 source channels. Track is the add-on module that gives you 15 more source channels to control, something you’ll want if you have a Studio HD1710.

Livestream Studio HD1710

Livestream Studio combined with Surface looks to be a formidable competitor to Newtek’s Tricaster line. Features such as multiple program outputs, graphic overlays and titles, downstream keying are all native to Studio. One thing I’d like to see better support for is expanded audio input connections. Livestream’s switchers have one or two 1/8″ mini jacks for audio, otherwise audio is expected to come in embedded over the HDMI and HD-SDI inputs. The specs on the HD500 and HD1710 do claim they can take up to four 1/4″ RTS analog audio inputs, though it looks like you’ll need to have a nest of breakout cable snakes to pull this off as these models use Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink Studio capture card for this. Tricaster does have the advantage here in that XLR and TRS analog audio input connections are natively hardware mounted across their line.

Livestream Surface

Another standout feature for Studio is the ability to mix in a variety of remote camera sources. Smartphones running the Livestream app, Teradek and Broadcaster wireless camera-top encoders and even Google Glass are all supported live sources.

As an encoder, Livestream Studio supports all major streaming platforms and RTMP destinations. YouTube and Ustream profiles are populated in the destinations menu. Though Livestream does include a year of their broadcast Platform service with their hardware, using it is by no means required. I’ve written about Livestream’s service offerings previously.

All told, Livestream is firmly carving out a beautifully designed, intuitive, end-to-end live broadcast ecosystem. We’ll be keeping our eyes on them as they grow.

YouTube Live Threshold Lowered to 100 Subscribers

YouTube Live

This is a bit of great news for those looking to live stream inexpensively (FREE) an event without annoying pre-roll or overlay advertising. YouTube, which has been experimenting with live streaming in various stages since 2008, has lowered the threshold to qualify to use their YouTube Live streaming service. As of Friday, YouTube account holders only need to have 100 subscribers to their channel and be in good standing to use the new live streaming features. If you can’t get 100 subscribers, then you should be probably just leave the Internet.

A quick rundown of the features that make YouTube Live so compelling:

  • Completely free live streaming with no advertising (unless you want it, then you can opt-in to revenue share)
  • Supports up to 1080p HD streams at 6Mb/s
  • Multi-bitrate transcoding – encode one HD stream and other bitrates are automatically generated and offered in player (1080, 720, 480, 360, 240)
  • Mobile/tablet support (Android & iOS)
  • DVR feature – automatically rewind to an earlier part of a live broadcast
  • Automatic recording of live event (up to 4 hours in length)
  • Detailed real-time analytics
  • Free desktop encoder software – Wirecast for YouTube

To get started, log into your YouTube account. Go to Channel Settings -> Features. Scroll to the bottom and you’ll see a line that says Live events.  Click the button that says Enable next to it. If you don’t see Enable, keep checking back as YouTube is rolling out Live gradually to handle the expected load.  See the YouTube Live Streaming Guide for more info.  Happy streaming!

YouTube Live enable

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Kicking off the Inaugural Meetup of SF Bay Area Webcasters and Live Streamers

SF Bay Area Webcaster Meetup

I started a Meetup group for webcasters and live streamers in the San Francisco bay area. We’re having our first meetup event this Tuesday, June 4th at 7pm. Check the Meetup event page for details. This is the first of what I’m intending to be a monthly series. Each meetup will have two or three presenters covering the gamut of live streaming.

For this first one, I’ll do a quick slideshow presentation of my experiences producing events for Ustream and Eddie.com.  Bram Cohen, creator of BitTorrent, will also give a high-level overview of BitTorrent Live, his latest creation. BitTorrent Live is a new peer-to-peer live streaming protocol that leverages peer connections to scale large live Internet broadcasts, potentially saving broadcasters a ton of money in distribution costs, while maintaining high reliability.

Since this is a meetup about streaming, we’ll of course stream the meetup. We’ll push to Ustream and BitTorrent Live. I’ll post the channel info here and in the group, check back or just come down and join the fun!

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Sony Anycast Touch All-in-One Live Video Switcher, Recorder, Encoder and Streamer at NAB 2013

In the all-in-one live production switcher and streamer category comes the Sony Anycast Touch. This looks to be a convenient portable solution, especially if you’ve already invested in Sony PTZ cameras.

Sony Anycast Touch

What’s unique about this guy is that it’s all about the touch screen. Everything is driven by either selecting shots and elements on the primary multi-view touch screen or the secondary smaller “settings” touchscreen.

Sony Anycast Touch

The Anycast Touch can take up to six HD inputs (4 HD-SDI, 2 HDMI). The HDMI inputs can be substituted for RGB inputs from VGA computer sources. It can also take 4 separate audio sources over XLR or 1/4″ TRS.

Program mix outputs include 2 HD-SDI, an HDMI and a VGA RGB connection. There’s also an HDMI port for duplicating your multi-view primary touch screen on a separate monitor. Also included are several USB 3.0 ports for importing content or exporting recorded video from the Touch’s internal 192GB SSD storage.

The built-in streaming encoder will encode your program output in H.264/AAC and stream to any RTMP based CDN or your favorite live streaming platform.

The Touch has CG titling capabilities, graphic overlay layers, transitions and the ability to create templates with these elements and camera picture-in-picture.

Probably the most compelling, if you already own Sony PTZ robocams, is that the Touch will control them. You can create scenes that lock in camera positions for easy dynamic switching.

At an expected retail cost of $20k, this unit will likely challenge Newtek’s TriCaster in some key markets such as schools, churches, corporate communications and amateur sports.

Engadget has a video of a Sony rep giving the rundown.

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Newtek TriCaster 8000 at NAB 2013

Newtek’s TriCaster is the current gold standard for a portable, live broadcast video switcher with all the bells and whistles that a live production might require. I use a TriCaster 455 and 855 for many events I produce and really have few complaints.

Newtek TriCaster 8000

The relatively new TriCaster 8000 (retail $40,000) expands on the feature sets of Newtek’s previous models. Like the 855, the 8000 can handle eight HD-SDI video sources simultaneously and record each ISO separately. The 8000 expands on their virtual sets, transitions, animations, media players and live streaming integration.

Newtek TriCaster 8000

I asked a Newtek rep what his favorite feature of the 8000 is and his response was the social media integration. You can apparently make quick clips of video or stills and push them out to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter all from within the TriCaster control interface. I suppose if you’re a lean operation and you’ve got one guy doing everything, then I guess this makes sense. From my experience, anyone who is directing and switching a live event, will have his hands full just doing that.

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Covering NAB 2013

NAB_Badges_BloggerI’m in Las Vegas for the next several days for my first NAB Show. I’m here seeing what’s new and interesting in the world of live video technologies, equipment and distribution. Traditionally, NAB is known for being a trade show for all things broadcasting. In the old days, that meant radio and TV.  Nowadays, Internet broadcasting is a big part of it. I’ll be posting updates over the coming days on what I find of interest that relates to my world, which is shooting and distributing live video across the Internet. And DRONES, because, well, DRONES! Know something I should check out? Feel free to point me there in the comments.

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Deconstructing The Deconstruction

The Deconstruction

This past weekend, I was involved in a pretty cool project call The Deconstruction, the brainchild of creative collaborist Jason Naumoff.

What is the Deconstruction?  It is a game about re-thinking the world as we know it, taking it apart, making a few adjustments, then putting it back together a little awesomer-er.  It’s a light-hearted competition, but it’s really more of a large-scale collaboration between friends, participants, and the public. The concept is to make the world a slightly better, more fun, and more interesting place over 48 hours.

Yes, that’s an aspirational tall order, but we pulled it off with the help of over 60 participating teams spread across six continents. The winners have yet to be officially announced, though one lucky team will walk away with a Full Spectrum laser cutter.

My role in the Deconstruction was to put together the live stream infrastructure and production. Similar to the Red Bull Creation project that I helped Jason with last year, this was to be a distributed happening. Each participating team was encouraged to live stream the builds of their creations and update their team page on the official Deconstruction site.

We setup a home base at the studios of Synergize Live here in San Francisco. Alan, who runs the space, already had much of the streaming infrastructure in place. A multi-camera studio set with a green screen, live video switchers, encoders, monitors and plenty of decent bandwidth.

The plan was to have our hosts here on set communicate often with various team members from around the globe throughout the 48 hour challenge. To do this, we needed to make a variety of technologies work well together. In the mix, on the video side, were Skype, Facetime, Google+ Hangouts, Justin.tv, Ustream, Livestream, Black Magic, Wirecast and Resolume Avenue.

Deconstruction 2013

We brought in several Mac Minis that would serve as media hubs for communicating directly with remote teams over Skype and Facetime. Based on our experiences with Red Bull Creation, we knew what we needed to do to make this work. We took the HDMI output of the Mac Mins and fed them into a live video switcher (a tower PC with several Black Magic video capture cards running Resolume Avenue) and did a little mix-minus magic on the incoming and outgoing audio feeds. This allowed our producers to make “calls” to remote team members and then bring them in live so the local hosts could communicate with them on the virtual set. It’s similar to what you might see on a newscast when anchors communicate with remote reporters in the field, though without expensive satellite trucks.

Remote teams could use whatever live stream platform they wanted, though we encouraged them to use Justin.tv if they didn’t already have an account somewhere. We made this choice because it’s easy for users to setup and stream for free. While free does mean Justin.tv inserts annoying pre-roll and mid-roll ads (as does Ustream) we were able to avoid seeing them by paying $10 for a Justin.tv Pro account. Ustream also allows for paid removal of ads, but from the broadcaster side at much greater expense. This gave us a way to inexpensively host team feeds and let us cut to them without having to worry about ads popping up mid broadcast.

We used Livestream’s “new Livestream” product for the main produced live stream which we embedded on the front page of the Deconstruction site. This worked reasonably well, though we weren’t happy with their text based chat system. While the new Livestream text chat looks good and is attached to the player, there is no way to embed it without the additional event page chrome. Also, their text chat requires a user to create a Livestream account and it censors links automatically, which sucks.

We did have the intention of making use of Google+ Hangouts and Hangouts on Air as our primary way to communicate with remote teams, but we ran into several roadblocks.  The primary problem being that Hangouts wouldn’t recognize our capture card in the live encoder. Hangouts is really meant to work with webcams and doesn’t give you much control over input options. A second big issue is that if you push a Hangout to a Hangouts on Air, which is essentially a live YouTube feed, there is no persistent URL. Also, Hangouts are limited to 4 hours. We worked with our friends at Google to try and make this work for us, but the product just isn’t ready for the type of event we wanted to pull off. We’ll revisit Google+ Hangouts next time.

All told, we pulled off a successful global decentralized, multi-participant fun live event using an assortment of disperate technologies. Have a look at some of the final videos of what people built over those 48 hours.

 

In With the New Livestream

While at Streaming Media West last week, I checked out some new offerings from live streaming service providers Livestream and Ustream. This post focuses on Livesteam, I’ll cover new stuff from Ustream next.

Livestream has evolved considerably over the past few years. Originally called Mogulus, Livestream rebranded itself in 2009 to their current, more memorable name. Earlier this year, Livestream took another evolutionary step with the release of what it calls New Livestream. The big difference between old (or original) and new is focus has switched from the notion of “channel” pages to what they are calling “event” pages. Channel pages were akin to TV channels, in that a producer could broadcast any number of events over time to the same channel. Though one can create multiple channel pages, many producers would set up one channel and call it a day.

The New Livestream event page switches focus to a particular scheduled event. The idea being, each event has its own URL that lives on as an archive once an event concludes. Event pages are also much more dynamic than channel pages in that producers and viewers can post text, photos and video updates that flow down the page in a familiar timeline format. The primary event video, whether live or archived, always lives at the top.

Another excellent feature that you will find with New Livestream, is DVR functionality built right into the live player. If you look at the screencap above, notice the << DVR icon in the lower right corner. Clicking this allows the viewer to rewind to any point in a live broadcast. Missed the first 5 minutes of a keynote? No problem, just scrub the slider back 5 minutes and you’re watching it from the beginning before the talk has concluded.

Pricing has also changed with New Livestream. No longer is ad-free broadcasting based on the number of viewer hours. You can now use New Livestream totally free, without ads being inserted into your content and for unlimited amounts of time in HD. That’s a pretty sweet deal. Anyone who has ever watched any amount of streaming will know how annoying and irrelevant pre-roll and mid-roll video ads are.  The caveat with free is that your viewers are required to register with Livestream (also free) before watching. For $49/month they do away with that requirement, as well as give you unlimited archiving and Google Analytics integration. For $399/month, you can embed your event channel on your own site. That might seem steep, but it’s not out of line with what old Livestream used to cost for ad-free viewing with a 3000 viewer hour cap.  No viewership caps on the New Livestream.

The other nice thing about the New Livestream is seamless integration with their Livestream Broadcaster product. This iconic red camera-top device, created in partnership with Teradek,  allows a producer to encode and stream directly to their event page without the need of a computer. If you’re doing a single camera shoot with an HDMI compatible camera, this is a pretty sweet way to go. The Broadcaster can stream over ethernet, wifi or a single 4G cellular modem. Just select the bitrate profile you want from the menu UI and you’re ready to go.

The newest and probably coolest thing that Livestream has added to their aresenal, is the Livestream Studio HD500 production switcher. If you’ve ever used a Newtek TriCaster before, you’ll be familiar with what this box does. It’s essentially a portable, five SDI input, HD, digital switcher and encoder. It’s positioned to compete nicely with Newtek’s TriCaster 450. The HD500 hardware is your basic Intel i7 Quad Core processor based Windows 7 machine with a Blackmagic Design DeckLink Quad video capture card and LCD monitor integrated into a luggable design. It does most of what you’d expect from a Tricaster; transitions, DVR playback, stills, titles, lower thirds and assignable audio sources. The encoding and streaming piece is handled by Livestream’s integrated Procaster software, with support for multi-bitrate streams.

Max Haot, Livestream’s CEO, told me they’d be releasing a software only version of the HD500 in the first quarter of 2013. I asked Max what the impetus for this is and he answered that they wanted to get this into as many hands as possible. The software version will be free for use with Livestream and a paid unlocked version will also be available that can be used with any streaming provider or CDN.

Taking a cue from Apple, Livestream is clearly moving towards an ecosystem approach, owning each critical piece of the live streaming experience. At the same time, they don’t require that a producer use any of their software or hardware, but doing so can certainly eases the pain while maximizing the gain.

Best Practices for Planning Your Live Streaming Event – Liveblog Notes from Streaming Media West

I’ve been in LA for Streaming Media West the last couple of days, checking out what’s new in the world of live streaming. This morning’s panel session Best Practices for Planning Your Live Streaming Event was a good overview on what to think about when planning to live stream your event. Here’s my notes.

C201: ROUND TABLE: Best Practices for Planning Your Live Streaming Event

Moderator: Jon Orlin, Executive Producer, TechCrunch
Speaker: Alden Fertig, Product Manager, Broadcasting, Ustream
Speaker: Howard Kitto, Group CTO, PERFORM
Speaker: Adam Drescher, Partner, Suite Spot
Speaker: Jeff Varnell, EVP, Business Development, Livestream

Q: What did Ustream and Livestream do during Hurricane Sally?

Jeff V: We set up an event on Livestream. We combined user feeds. 2 million streams to all Sally content

Alden: Ustream combined national news feeds w/user feeds. Lots of viewers. Giants World Series post-win mayhem was interesting to watch.

Q: What are things you need to ask of clients before doing a planned event?

Adam: Find out what clients expectations are. Do they just care about numbers of tweets vs viewers? Location, location, location makes a big difference on what can be done.

Howard: What is the expected the production value? PERFORM does lots of downstream broadcasts of satellite feeds. Logistics as well.

Alden: Is this content that should be live vs on-demand? Is this the right event for live? Lots of aspects to live. Workflow, promotional structures need to be put in place.

Jon: Tuning into a 3-minute event probably isn’t best to do live. Just getting people to show up in time is hard.

Howard: Sports and news are best for live.

Jeff: What is the goal of the live stream? Pre-production is everything. Once live is there it has be to perfect. Only one shot to do it. Timing is important, need 2 to 4 weeks to plan things out right. Livestream has gone to event pages now, rather than channel pages. Allows us to extend campaign, mix in photos and updates.

Adam: Fashion industry also. Gucci saved money not having to fly in execs from Milan to NYC.

Q: How do you deal with producing a live event from a place with crappy Internet?

Alden: Ustream broadcasters age from home internet to fiber, satellite to dedicated bandwidth. Bundled cellular stuff is popular. It’s really good, we like it a like. We use LiveU. News and sports attract a lot of people so challenge can be that cellular networks are overloaded in those areas due to number of people present.

Jon: We’ve used bonded cellular solutions. Testing a week beforehand before people show up isn’t a good test. CES is an example.

Alden: We drove here from SF with a LiveU, didn’t lose our stream down the I-5 at all.

Adam: Test from the viewer locations is important. You don’t want customers congesting their own network while trying to watch the stream. You don’t want a surprise doing a live stream.

Howard: Old-school satellite is rock-solid, tried and true tech, works everywhere. Expensive.

Jeff: We all expect TV. Challenge is in the transmission business. 99% of importance is the encoding/uploading on the ground. Always recommend a dedicated connection on the ground.

Point-to-point internet, we can get that working in many places in the US. If budget allows, satellite. We use All Mobile Video. We are fiber-linked from the switch to our New York HQ as well.

Alden: Buy more time than you need for satellite. Recent example, Apple product announcement event went over time and got cut off right in middle of announcement. Was watching the feed and it switched immediately to bars and tones with satellite provisioning information slate.

Q: What bandwidth do you need typically?

Alden: Rule of thumb 2x what you want to stream. Really hard to say sometimes. Is it shared connection? ISPs throttle people. Might be 20Mbs all day then 400k for a few minutes.

Jeff: 2x is about right. We can do up to 4 bitrates in our player. Make sure you stream in lower-quality too.

Howard: 2-5Mbs is what we normally do.

Q: How do you make a webcast look like TV?

Adam: Work with professionals, people who have done this before. Work with broadcast directors, work with people who have broadcast industry experience. We’re working on a new climate reality project we are doing with Ustream. We have the director from the Red Bull Stratos event with us on that.

Cameras have gotten cheaper. Technology is out there that helps to make it look like a million bucks. Graphics is important, other content that can be cut in. Proper lighting, audio. Good graphics go along way.

Jeff: Most interesting is that people creating content exclusively for the web. Our Livestream Sessions in NYC – bands come in and do a live show with fans interacting with them. Kids today want to interact in real time.

Alden: It’s not TV. You have the luxury of extra time. You do want to turn on early so people can tune in and get ready. Don’t just put up a slate. Use video clips. Use a dynamic shot, maybe a wide shot of venue, slightly blurred.

Adam: Two-way conversations is key. People want to participate.

Jon: At our event, we have a GoPro to let people see behind the scenes.

Q: Sometimes the before is more important than the during?

Jeff: Live blogging element of Livestream platform lets fans socialize before event goes live. Can happen weeks before event. Add pix, videos, comments. Cool way to add content prior to event to build hype,fan interaction. Create highlights live to add VOD clips. After event, it’s all about analytics. All clients want that.

Howard: Our ultimate case study. Our live content goes our on betting sites prior to going live. People are betting prior which builds interest. Filipino Basketball is one of our biggest events. Tons of betting. Tennis as well.

Adam: Post-production is important. We did a 3-minute sizzle reel for Macy’s, over a million views.

Alden: Get VOD up as quick as possible. Right after is when it’s still hot, people still showing up.

Howard: Our stuff has to be up straight away. Adds logistical challenges.

JON: Let’s take some questions from the audience.

Audience Q: Do you use portable satellites?

Howard: We use almost exclusively. One camera + satellite.

Audience Q: What can we do before end around the player, with the player?

Alden: Social stream is big for us. Talent can request tweets.

Audience Q: What is your take on a simulated live event?

Howard: We do some of those. We will do a full match replay at a certain time broadcast as live.

Jeff: Our preference is always live content. Good social experience around a live event.

Audience Q: How do you deal with an event that went horribly wrong?

Jeff: Most common is Internet connection problems at the encoder. We had a concert where Internet was fine for 3 hours leading up. When it came to event time, it died.

Alden: We did an event with American Idol. Building lost power. Took a long time to get powered back up. Internet was down, but We had a LiveU cellular pack on-hand.

Howard: Lots of logistical things… audio track switching. Power failure, weather.

Jon: One user complaining might not be accurate. Validate that it isn’t just a single user problem.

Adam: Make sure a backup plan is in place. Backup plan with audio, video and Internet.

Audience Q: What about insurance for problems?

Adam: Buy production insurance. Find out what are they trying to insure against. Is it for the production or media side?

Who Broke Today’s Live Streaming Record, YouTube or Akamai?

Today was the day that Felix Baumgartner set several records for ascending to 128,000 feet in a balloon capsule and jumping to earth 4 minutes and 20 seconds later. An epic day of achievements for Red Bull Stratos for sure.

Red Bull Stratos | YouTube screenshot

YouTube is also claiming a new record of serving up more than 8 million concurrent live streams for the “most concurrent views ever on YouTube.” Also amazing to be sure. The previous record for this achievement goes to Akamai for serving up close to 7 million concurrents during Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration in 2009.

What’s interesting about this is that Akamai also served up a good chunk, if not all, of the live streams for today’s event. What a lot of people don’t know is that YouTube often relies on Akamai’s large footprint live CDN to handle big events. It’s not uncommon for live stream services to off-load capacity to third-party networks if an event is bigger than their own network can handle. YouTube has stellar capacity for the on-demand videos we all love, but when it comes to live events, they often extend their reach by using Akamai’s live streaming network services.

This begs the question, if Akamai served up all of YouTube’s live requests for today’s record breaking event, did Akamai just break their own record from 2009?