1. Hands on Guide to Webcasting
Streaming Media East

2. The Goal
Live at noon
Audience participation
yes, that means you

3. What We Have To Do Planning Execution Testing programming production
network infrastructure
web presence
Execution
a/v production
authoring
encoding
Testing
everything – twice.

4. Rough Schedule Initial discussion (10 mins) Planning (1 hour)
basics (who/what/where/why)
Execution (1 hour)
a/v production setup
a/v testing
encoding setup
encoding testing

5. Why Webcasts are Tricky
They’re live
No second chance
Additional hardware requirements
Additional personnel requirements
They test the limits of your streaming infrastructure
Bandwidth
Server architecture (web & streaming)
They’re expensive and therefore can be hard to justify

6. Are you ready?

7. First: Make the Business Case
Who
is the audience?
What
are we webcasting?
Where
is the location suitable
When
is there enough time to do it right?
Why
is this the best way to address the need?

8. We need a crew. Executive Producer Audio engineer
Videographer (camera op)
Encoding engineer
Host
Guest(s)

9. Planning Location Signal Acquisition Equipment Crew Presentation
Size, power, access, union fees
Signal Acquisition
On site connectivity, satellite
Equipment
Usually best to work with a partner
Crew
May come with equipment
Presentation
Talent, Pre/post show, technical difficulties
Network Infrastructure
host, bandwidth usage, encoding specs

10. Setup
Production area
Stage
Audio
Video
Encoding

11. Audio Setup Avoid ground hum Ambient mics Tape down loose cables
Placement or extra equipment
Ambient mics
Absolutely for musical events
Tape down loose cables
Use compression
Test!

12. Setting Up A Gain Structure
Make sure each piece of equipment operates in its optimal range
Start with first piece of equipment and work through the signal chain
set the input and output gain for each
Peaks at -3dB for analog, -10dB for digital

13. Audio Production Tips Compression “evens out” audio levels
Protects your equipment from “spikes” in level
Attenuating loud sections enables overall signal gain
“Fattens” audio
Hardware compressor is essential for webcasts

14. Compression Illustrated

15. Video Setup Tripods (heavy duty) Risers if available Lights
3-point?
Flat wash?
White balancing (shading)
Test!

16. How Video Codecs Work Intra-frame compression Inter-frame compression
Just like a .jpg or .png file
Inter-frame compression
Differences between frames are encoded
Key frames
Entire frame is encoded
Uses a lot of bandwidth
Difference frames
Only differences are encoded
Use relatively little bandwidth on low motion content

17. Video Production Tips Avoid unnecessary motion/changes Framing
Use a tripod, use a tripod, use a tripod
Avoid moving objects in the background
Avoid special effects
Simple edits are best
Keep the number of cuts to a minimum
Framing
Smaller screen, so frame tighter

18. Video Production Tips G-I-G-O Use good video engineering practice
If you don’t know, hire someone
Good equipment, proper technique
If you don’t own it, rent it
Lighting is essential
Nearly impossible to correct using software
Low-light = no light

19. Video Processing Techniques
VGA vs. Television displays
VGA screens are far more detailed
Traditional video tends to look dark & washed out
Adjust Brightness
Add gain to match screen to a TV monitor
Be careful if you’re going back out to the broadcast world!
Adjust Contrast
Adding a small amount is good; be careful though
Too much contrast adds grain (bad for codecs)
Color
Increasing saturation a bit can be helpful

20. Encoding Setup Bit rate Resolution Capture card? Encoding software?
Local Archive?
Push vs. pull encoding
Redundancy is key
Ideally redundant connectivity
Extra equipment
Multiple stream solutions

21. Authoring Link to webcast page from home page
Always offer a metafile link
If embedding, keep it simple
Test!

22. Authoring Problem: browsers don’t stream Solution: metafiles
Browsers don’t understand RTSP or MMS protocols
Browsers download entire file
Solution: metafiles
Small file delivered via HTTP
Contains information about streaming file 1
Web Server 2 4 3
Streaming Server 5

23. Authoring - Metafiles QuickTime .qtl files RealSystem .ram files
Windows Media .asx files
<?xml version="1.0“ ?>
<?quicktime type="application/x-quicktime-media-link“ ?>
<embed src=“rtsp://your.qtserver.com/YourStream.mov" />
rtsp://your.realserver.com/YourStream.rm
<asx version="3.0">
<entry>
<ref href="mms://your.wmserver.com/YourStream.wmv" />
</entry>
</asx>

24. Distribution Techniques
Redundancy is key
Robust load balancing required
Use multicast where appropriate
Usually best to work with a partner
TEST!

25. Distribution Methods Unicast/multicast to servers
Unicast/multicast to local clients

26. Countdown Test the audio Test the video Test the encoder(s)
Test the link(s)
Go live at least 10 minutes before event begins, preferably 30 minutes

27. Liftoff?

28. Q & A
Thank You
Steve Mack