You only get 1 chance in a live event, make it count!

This article will explore some of the issues involved with conducting a live webcast. Why you want to go live, bitrates, encoders, audiences, etc. You’ll have a better understanding of a live webcast and gain some alternatives to hiring an expensive CDN for a one-time event.

Why go live?

Why do you choose to have a live event? Is it because you want interactivity? Is it an event that happens that people need to see live? Or is it because your CEO said that he wants your quarterly address to be available to all 40 live employees when you give it out?

There are good reasons to offer a live event and there are bad reasons. Interactivity doesn’t really require a live stream. You can accomplish most things like chatting and taking surveys without it being live.

Know your audience

If it’s a corporate event, your attendees will probably need to attend. However, if it’s a concert or sporting event, make sure you know who your audience is and if they’ll be able to attend. It sounds great to have a live concert for a band on a Friday night, but consider this; Is the audience between 15 and 25 years old? If so, they’re probably going out on Friday night and won’t be home in front of their computers to watch a concert.

It would be better to offer the concert as a pay-per-view or VOD event that people can watch at their leisure.

Know your encoding options

First choose whether it is a Windows Media or Flash event. What about RealMedia (really, does anyone use RealMedia anymore?). What about QuickTime? It is gaining popularity because of the iPhone, the problem is that not many providers support Darwin live streaming (check with them for the next 6 months though).

Once you’ve chosen a format, choose an encoder. For Flash Live Encoding, you can use Adobe’s Flash Live Encoder and a high-end computer. This product is fine for most consumer applications. You are really limited to the power of your computer. There is no Mac version available, so you need to be on a Windows machine.

A better option for Flash Live encoding is On2Flix Live encoding software or the Sorenson Squeeze Live product. Both will offer higher quality video and more flexibility.

You are still at the mercy of your computer. So I suggest you get the biggest baddest computer you can when using a software live encoder. Throw away as much CPU, RAM, and video memory as possible. Use a SATA or Firewire hard drive that runs at least 7200RMP.

You also need to consider how you connect your camera’s source to the computer. Do not use a simple commercial webcam or an analog to USB device. These are fine for home movies, but for professional video you should look into a Prosumer HD camcorder or a high-end encoding capture card like the Ospry card.

For a hardware live encoding solution, check out Digital Rapids, Vbrick, or Newtek products. Digital Rapids has a cool new product called the TouchStream Appliance. It is a portable standalone hardware encoder perfect for field productions.

Windows Media/Silverlight Encoding

Try Windows Media Encoder or for Silverlight encoding try Microsoft Expression

For WM/Silverlight hardware encoding, choose a Vbrick, Digital Rapids (in some cases), or Tricaster device.

Watch your bitrate

Everyone wants everything in HD these days. There’s a compelling reason to stream at 1.5 Mbps or higher. But is it really necessary? Consider this about bitrate: many people can’t handle much more than 1000Kbps over a period of time. 3G wireless networks reach, at best, about 700 Kbps. You can get good quality full screen video at about 750 Kbps.

If you want to get a high bit rate, use some new technologies. Microsoft and Adobe have bandwidth sensing (variable bitrates). However, Silverlight now offers Microsoft Smooth Stream, which will dynamically change the video bitrate to match player-level conditions. Adobe FMS 3.5 also uses dynamic live streaming which does more or less the same thing. The important thing to know about streaming at a high bitrate is to make sure you have enough upload bandwidth in place.

Test before going live

You have to be at your arrival one or two days before. If you’re using a CDN, see if they offer any kind of live event monitoring service. Connect to your publishing servers and make sure you can maintain the necessary bandwidth for the event. If you have the option of multiple ingestion points, run ‘trace routes’ to the different servers and see which one is actually closest to you. The one in the city you are in does not necessarily mean that it is the closest

Talk to the venue’s IT coordinator, see if you can get dedicated bandwidth. My experience in conference centers is that the shared wireless internet on offer is often less than average. If you can’t get dedicated bandwidth, ask them what your usage is like during the time of your event. If it’s normally heavy, you may need to lower your bitrate to accommodate the poor connection.

Fire up your encoder and have people on different networks in different geographies watch your test stream. You only get 1 shot at this, and there are about a million moving parts that can break.

How do I get my signal out so people can see it?

You have many options. The first thing to consider is how big is my audience? Ultimately this will determine how much bandwidth and resources you will need. Use this equation:

(bit rate) X (seconds) *

————————

8

Take that number and divide it by 1000, this will give you your number in MB. Then multiply that by the number of viewers and you know how much bandwidth you use

* average number of seconds a person will watch, not the duration of the event

example:

500Kbps X 1800 (30 minutes)

———————————-

8

= 112,500 then divide by 1000 = 112.5 MB. That is the amount of bandwidth that 1 user will consume watching for 30 minutes.

If you will have more than 50 viewers, it makes sense to look for dedicated servers or use a CDN. If you plan to have more than 1000 viewers, then a CDN is almost a must.

But for those events with just a handful of spectators, look into free services like

Mogulus and Ustream. Or look for low-cost options like Amazon cloud computing with Wowza servers. Also consult Influsis, who can host your FMS server for you.

A one-time live event from a tier 1 CDN like Limelight or Akamai will probably cost you around $5000 or more, or they’ll ask you to sign an annual contract somewhere in the neighborhood of $12,000 or more.

That’s a wrapper!

There are many options for doing live webcasts. Watch WebEx, iStreamPlanet, On24, Multicast and more. Ask the sales rep how many live events they have hosted. If your answer is not “so many I can’t count”, then consider moving on.

Thank you,