Here at Echo Video we are a full service video production company. What that means in practice is that whatever our clients throw at us in terms of requirements for different projects we can normally accommodate. Whether that’s a specific technique, use of a particular piece of equipment or even an obscure filming location – we’ll do whatever we can to help you create the video you want. That’s what’s so great about being a small company, we’re agile enough to challenge ourselves and our clients to find new and interesting ways to get their message across. It might be that it’s a case of bringing in outside expertise for a particular job or we simply have to go out and buy some new kit, whatever the case we love the variety of stuff we get to work on. This blog will look at one of our newer services and the equipment we use for web streaming.
Why should you consider web streaming your next event?
Organising an event, whether it’s a conference for a large multi-national, an industry event or some type of publicity stunt, can take hours of organising so it seems a pity to limit the number of people who can attend by room capacity or geography. Certain events will provide really helpful insight for people working abroad or even in different parts of the country who might struggle to justify the cost and time to come to the event in person. That’s why filming a live event can be so important. It gives the client greater reach and opens up the content to a far greater number of viewers.
What live streaming also gives you above simply filming the live event and publishing it at a later date, is a level of interactivity. Viewers watching the stream at home, at work or even on the bus are able to join in the discussion, leave comments and ask questions of the speakers as well.
Our in-house live web streaming solution
The key aspect for our live event streaming setup was that it needs to be able to scale up or down to accommodate the different events and budgets that we deal with for not just one client but any client that requires this service. It may just need to be a single static camera filming a vodcast or it may need to be multiple cameras, multiple audio feeds and a Powerpoint presentation. However, we also wanted to find a way to incorporate this service into our current workflow and, where possible use equipment we already own. There are two benefits of this – firstly we are very familiar with our own shooting kit and therefore are confident we can get the best results from it. Secondly, this would make it far more cost effective for our clients as we’re not having to hire in or buy loads of new kit.
Therefore we devised a setup using the equipment list below:
- Upto 8x HD cameras such as Sony PXW-X200, Sony FS7 or similar depending on the production
- Blackmagic Smart Videohub 20×20 if cable runs over 70m are required
- Blackmagic ATEM Television Studio HD (4x SDI inputs, 4x HDMI inputs)
- Atomos Sumo19 19″ monitor and mixer
- Atomos Shogun Flame 7″ program monitor
- Sync generator
- AJA U-Tap SDI capture device
- Blackmagic Up Down Cross Converter
- Asus laptop
- VMix streaming software
- OBS streaming software
- A load of XLR and SDI cables
- Talk-back system for the camera operators and vision mixer
Additional Kit
- Multi-WAN or cellular bonding routers running on 4G/5G networks
- Electric generators which are silent and emissions free. 2kW, 5kW and 20kW sizes available.
To the untrained eye this may look like a lot of equipment but trust me when I say it really isn’t. The Atomos Sumo19 is an incredible piece of equipment which greatly reduces the amount of equipment we need compared to if we were using a more conventional setup.
We can film with up to 4 cameras (plus a Powerpoint input from another laptop) and multiple audio channels. The Sumo19 allows us to mix the feed before sending it to our program monitor and then onto the laptop via The AJA U-Tap SDI card where we can be broadcast using OBS to any live streaming platform such as YouTube, Facebook live, GoToWebinar and Twitch.
As we work across the UK, whether it’s a local job in Sussex, or slightly further afield like Portsmouth, London or Birmingham the setup has to be simple, easily transported and can be operated by a really small team if necessary. Obviously there are certain aspects of streaming that you can’t be certain of, mainly the quality of a locations internet infrastructure. But we’ve got you covered there as well. We partner up with a mobile internet provider who can setup a private network for us to use for occasions such as this.
If you have an upcoming event that you need streamed live over the internet or just want to find out more about our web streaming services then please get in touch on 01273 911345 or drop us an email.