Streaming Live Video over the web.

[Dareos]

Ok, just a bit of background info. I play pool, Blackball rules, not World Rules, and I play in various events around the country as and when I get the chance.

Now there are a number of tours, some extremely professionally run, others not so, and others that are up and coming, including a yearly (4 years now) trip to Tenerife to play some Ex Pats and a Bi Annual event (well, looking that way) in Cabo Roig in the Costa Blanca.

Some of the well established events have a live feed using Ustream, setup with a camcorder and a laptop, but the streams are not always that high a quality and sometimes drops out for ages at a time, so my question would be..


Is a 3G connection good enough for this kind of thing, obviously we have skype and facetime and apps like that available that run over these connections, but how reliable that would be in Tenerife and Mainland Spain I have no idea, plus data charges would be rather prohibitive I think.

Secondly, is anyone aware of a better service than Ustream for this kind of setup. Its not exactly professional gear we will be hauling to spain, as tbh, its a bunch of lads on holiday, having a few beers, loadsa laughs, another few beers and a fair few knock backs (but hey we try). We dont want to be losing expensive equipment to the ravages of drink or some light fingered tourist/local. (more than likely drink).

A friend of mine asked me about it today, he runs a tour that has been going for several years but feels that its being overshadowed as people that cant attend dont get to see the quality of play, whereas they can with the streamed tours (I also get the feeling he doesnt really get on with the other tour organisers so hasnt asked them whats needed). I have little to no experience in this field and although I think it should be fairly simple to setup, wasnt sure if there were any complications.

[ntrik]

3G connection is going to be unreliable. It might work but I wouldn't expect too much. If available, try using the local wifi?

As for streaming, justin.tv/twitch.tv is popular streaming service. Xsplit is a popular broadcasting software and is free!

[peterb]

There are a number of products for live streaming. Live stream do a product - simple box that takes an HDMI fees and then uploads it to the livestream website. It is called livestream broadcaster

Have a look at this site that demonstrated it.

http://www.studiotech.tv/stl48/

This website covers internet broadcasting in depth.

www.ttfn.tv

[Dareos]

thanks guys, i'll look into these, being the tech head of the team i'll probably end up setting it up tbh, just not my area of expertise at all

[Dareos]

Aarrgh that presenter is sooo annoying

[peterb]

Aarrgh that presenter is sooo annoying

Which one?

[LeviathanPT]

Thanks for the links!

[Dareos]

The one that was attempting to explain what his box did, the whole walled garden speech. This walled garden will allow you not to access the internet or some such, seriously, allow you not to??

nice little product tho, might be worth a look.

Will have to sit down with the lad thats interested in doing it and find out a budget and so on

[peterb]

The livestream broadcaster that was featured is locked down to work with the Livestream website and streaming service. That means that it is extremely easy to set up and get working, but the limitations are that it only works with Livestream, and you need (iirc) a subscription after the first three months.

The alternative is the Terradeck cube (i think the 155) , which is very similar (!) which gives unrestricted streaming capabilities, but you then need to sort out your streaming host, and it isn't usable straight out of the box.

You can stream over a 3G network. Terradeck make another product, the Bond, which takes up to 5 USB 3G modems. That can be streamed back to your server where some free software (Sputnik) takes the 3G connections and stitches them back together. It will work with one, but obviously at reduced frame rate/quality. Two is the recommended minimum. It is also recommended that you use no more than two modems from the same service provider, so if you are using 3 or 4 modems, you need at least two service providers.

The Terradeck Cube and Bond are neither cheap to buy, no run, but does give maximum freedom. The Livestream broadcaster is inexpensive, but locked down.

The website I linked to earlier (www.ttfn.tv) has more information about video production and streaming.