This weekend I stopped by the Food Bank RGV Sort-A-Thon to experiment with livecasting the event.
It was partly an experiment and partly my way of helping the Food Bank RGV share the experience with the public.
The experience was pleasant overall; my daughter even volunteered a few hours.
Before going into the geeky stuff, let me suggest you volunteer some time or donate to the Food Bank RGV. They do good things for the community; they could always use your help.
Normally, I would tell the whole world about an event way in advance; I mostly kept this one on Twitter due to the experimental nature.
My setup for the livecast was a laptop, a webcam, a wireless router, and my Android phone with the Qik client installed.
The services I tried are Qik.com, Livestream.com, and a little bit of Ustream.tv.
You can see the Qik videos at http://qik.com/groups/5993.
You can see the Livestream videos at http://www.livestream.com/foodbankrgv where you can view the archives on a continuous loop.
Or you can click on the On-Demand button to choose the segment you want to watch.
You can watch the Ustream recording at http://www.ustream.tv/myvideos/1/1868113.
Technical Problems
The first day of recording was great, except there was no audio. I discovered the problem at home when I was reviewing the video. This makes for a boring stream.
The next day, I worked on addressing the problem.
For some reason, my laptop refused to mix the audio and video together on one stream using Livestream's Procaster, their Webcaster, or their Studio.
I finally tried the Webcaster through Internet Explorer and that seemed to work. The problem is not Livestream, it's a problem with my laptop.
Areas for Improvement
- A more powerful computer. The laptop was underpowered. I would not rule out carting a desktop computer around if that's what it takes. One computer per camera.
- Test the stream in advance. I would have discovered the audio problem prior to the event and skipped the laptop altogether.
- A second computer. Having a second computer to monitor the stream, preferably on another Internet connection, could alert you to streaming problems.
- Stay still while recording Qik video. Mobile video is naturally lower quality, especially in low light. Mobile video does not handle motion too well.
- 802.11n wireless. I have not been satisfied with the performance of 802.11g wireless with streaming video. It worked well enough with my mobile phone stream, but suffers with high quality video.
- Long ethernet cables. I always prefer wired connections over wireless. I should stock longer cables so that I can move closer to the action when necessary.
- Additional cameras. It doesn't hurt to offer different camera angles on a live stream. Of course, this would also require more computers and a bigger Internet pipe.
If you are thinking about live streaming your events, I hope my experience helps your streaming much better.
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