How to Live Stream 101: A Complete Beginner's Guide

One of the most common questions I?m asked is ?How do I live stream??

Having attempted to answer this on numerous occasions in other forums such as LinkedIn I thought it high time I pulled my socks up and consolidated my efforts into an attempt at a ?one-stop-shop? 101 level instructional guide to Live Streaming.

If you?re interested in learning about the ins and outs of live streaming or you just want to keep me honest and add your own insights then please keep reading. ?

About this guide: ?Know Thy Enemy?

I suppose the best place to start is to tell you who this guide is NOT for.

This guide is not for streaming media experts.

It doesn?t dive into the nitty gritty of the advanced technical challenges in delivering massively global streams.

Nor does it spend any meaningful time debating the ins and outs of highly advanced concepts like codec and encoder optimisation or broadcast equipment selection.

Instead this guide is aimed at individuals who want to start learning about Live Streaming, how it might be easily leveraged for their business or event and, most importantly of all, help them get to grips with what it will take and start setting expectations around potential costs and required effort to deliver a successful live stream.

Reading the above (run-on) sentence it might seem like I might be aiming to scare away potential new comers to live streaming.

That is not the intention at all.

In fact I want to help educate by staring the ?beast? right in the eye; because after you do you?ll know its bark is much worse than its bite.

Why this guide? Why now? Why me?

I suppose the most fundamental motivation to writing this guide is to do my part and help grow the emerging live streaming industry.

I don?t have the mega resources of a Red Bull Media House, and I certainly can?t afford to put a friend into space all to show off the power that live streaming can deliver your business.

I can, however, afford a few hours of my time to competently consolidate my experience in delivering large scale live streams for the benefit of the masses.

To that point, and to answer the ?why me? question the best way I can sum it up is: I?ve planned, produced and delivered live streams for companies such as:

I will briefly note that for all of the above I was?privileged?to have an amazing team around me (some I staffed, others I inherited) that made all of them a screaming success.

Indeed that is Lesson #1: Get yourself a passionate, knowledgeable and energetic team around you if you want to succeed.

Right so down the rabbit hole we go?

A table of contents (sort of)

It?s not really a table, more of a order list but from here on in this is what I?m aiming to cover off.

Because it?s a long list, and this will be a long post, you can jump to the relevant sections if needed.

So lets jump in?

?The story of Live Streaming

A(n) (overly) thorough history of Live Video Streaming can be found at the ever useful Wikipedia.

I?m not going to try and trump them.

For this guide I?m going to keep it relatively simple.

• The first ?live stream? happened in 1993 by the band Severe Tire Damage on a private Xero Parc network
  
• In 1995 the first commercial venture of live video streaming was launched by Real Networks (remember them?)
• In 1999 Microsoft formalised a bunch of R&D tech into the launch of Windows Media Player 6.4
• At the same time, and not to be outdone, Apple launched QuickTime
• Then in 2002 Adobe launched its now?ubiquitous?and starting to die out Flash platform.
• And that?s where it all just sat for while because infrastructure was not where it needed to be.
• In fact for the next 7 ? 8 years all focus turned to online video on demand (commonly known just as online video) because that was much easier and cheaper to deliver.
• Then at the beginning of the decade (2010) infrastructure started to catch up.
• In fact, going back a year, it was in 2009 when Akamai (the industry leader in rich content delivery networks) launched its HD Network with live streaming part of its core.
• Since then we?ve been in an ?explosion of Live Video Streaming:
  • LiveStream.com, UStream, Justin.tv ? original social pioneers of live streaming ? were joined by YouTube in offering free live streaming services.
  • Brands made live streaming core to their content marketing strategy.
  • Big corporates started using live as means internal and private network communication.
  • Big sporting federates like the NHL and NFL live stream their games,
  • and broadcast TV is being live streamed.

Live streaming has come of age and soon will be as ubiquitous as its sibling: online video (on demand).

If you haven?t joined the online video party it?s still going but you?re past the fashionably late stage.

A business case for Live Streaming

So why should we live stream?

Interestingly on my first take of writing this section I found myself?espousing?all the virtues of the online video market: 4 Billion this, 3 Million that. ?Astronomical figures. ?Mind blowing and somewhat beside the point.

I don?t think I need to spend time convincing you that online video is here to stay and must be a core tool in your digital marketing and/or operations kit.

If I do I suggest pausing with this guide and heading over to some other resources to get to grips with that first. ?Crawl before you can walk.

If you?re interested in some this fanciful reading you can get most of the highlights on YouTube?s press page.

So what about Live? ?How does that fit in?

Well first off Live, on a whole, tends to cost more per minute operationally than a video on demand to deliver.

That?s pretty much the expectation you need to set yourself when looking at this from a business perspective.

Since most live events are one-off you don?t typically get the economies of scale you would in a mass production and reuse environment.

As well since Live equals Real Time Content you have to put in more checks and balances to make sure things don?t go wrong.

More to the point that when things do go wrong (and they will) that you are prepared to react.

So with the cost as a gating factor in mind what are the potential benefits?

Well first and foremost as a live stream is the transmission of a real time event, done right, in return you will get a highly engaged and?synchronised?audience.

Engaging your audience is the sole objective of (content) marketing. ?They need to know you exist and want to be your friend.

Adding in?synchronicity across all viewers takes things to a whole new level.

Everyone watching you at the same time as everyone else watching you.

I sometimes call this Crowd-Swell: ?A self perpetuating force that exponentially increases your audience, and your control of it.

So on the one hand you have higher financial costs and risk exposure using live but on the other hand if you can get it done right you can drive an incredible return for your business that far outweighs the cost.

You don?t have to look any further than Redbull?s Live Space Jump experience: 8 million people tuned in, 1 Million tuned out once they realised he wasn?t going to die and RedBull is forever known across the world.

How much would you pay for the brand uplift similar to Redbull?s?

Ok I know a space jump event is of the utmost rarity and most examples of live streams are plain jane in comparison but that doesn?t preclude any real return at scale.

For example take a conference, here you can easily forecast the potential uplift:

If you run a conference and have 200 delegates attend that?s pretty good. ?But if you then added a live stream of the proceedings to the mix you could easily double that.

Heck in today?s market maybe 10% of potential delegates end up attending? ?So you could even increase reach well beyond double.

If you put a paywall in front of that (see Advanced?Techniques?- Monetisation) that?s money in the bank and an extended audience.

So it works for conferences.

What about corporates?

Well in today?s Information Society companies large and small need to deliver real time messages about all aspects of their?business?to customers, investors, employees etc.

Live Streaming allows for this message to travel far and wide, without losing control and offering a full context experience ? they say that 90% of what we say is via body language.

Special Events, Conferences and Corporate communications are just 3 examples that show quickly how Live can be deployed as a critical business tool.

What?s important for all of these and any Live Stream project is is to identify this goal line BEFORE you start out.

In today?s world Live Streaming is more about expectation management then it is about technological challenges.

It?s more a Should I Do It question rather than a Can I Do It.

Bottom Line: If you have content that you believe your audience would want to see immediately after creation then live is for you.

A Quick Word Regarding Business Risks

As with any business venture Live Streaming does not come without its risks.

Every implementation carries its own unique operational risks ? specifically around facility management and available infrastructure (no one ever checks the upstream bandwidth capability of the venue?s internet connection!).

Discussion of these risks are threaded through out this guide.

However it?s worth explicitly noting some of the more material risks to your business:

Undersubscription of Feed

If for whatever reason you can?t get the numbers of audience you?re after you will run at a loss.

It?s a nature of the beast that you do everything right and you still don?t get people to tune in.

Unlike on demand video where you can run ad?infinitum?to pull in enough viewers over a much greater slice of time, with Live Streaming you get them in or you don?t.

Of course you can create an edit and convert a Live Stream to a VOD asset (and ?you should do this) but you might still very well be out of pocket.

There are plenty of best practices and tips/tricks you can deploy to increase the probability of subscription (see Advanced Techniques) but again nothing is?guaranteed.

Just prepare yourself mentally for this?eventuality?and don?t give up on the first hurdle if it does happen.

Oversubscription of Feed

At the opposite end of the spectrum and somewhat counter?intuitively?you can get an over subscription of a feed and be out of pocket.

Although not discussed at length in this guide the costs ?for live stream production includes the need to deploy a delivery channel (typically a CDN).

When scaling up this cost against viewer numbers you don?t get any really meaningful economies of scale.

This is is because the nature of the internet currently is such that for every viewer you need a new stream from the server.

You can?t yet pass ?bits? between viewers and therefore you have to pay for every bit transferred.

This means that if your event goes off the hook you can potentially be presented with the extremely hard question of What to Do?

On the one hand you can turn off / reject new viewers at the risk of a massive social media backlash;

On the other hand you can let them all in and risk having the ?house burnt down? with a massive, uncontrolled bandwidth bill.

Occam eat your heart out.

The Mis-set of Stakeholder Expectations

Everyone wants to succeed.

The more the merrier.

If RedBull got 8Million viewers we should get 9Million.

A real risk to the growth of live stream initiatives within any business is the mismanagement of expectations of the stakeholders.

This can be very tricky and all I can say is work very hard at understanding the informers and motivators behind any expectations and quash them as quickly as possible.

Number #1 misset expectation?

Number of Viewers. ?People see all sorts of news around videos online getting millions, billions of views and that becomes their yard stick.

In Live Streaming take it down a stratosphere ? where an online video on demand can get a million views in a year, if your live stream gets over 1000 viewers you?ve done very well indeed.

A good KPI to use in your business case development is number of viewers/minute.

That way you can say: If I can get 2 viewers / minute that equates to 1 Million views a year.

So over a 60 minute event if you get 120 viewers you?ve done so at the same rates as a video on YouTube that?s gotten 1 Million views in a year.

It?s a bit of a fudge but it does help people understand we?re dealing with much shorter time scales and therefore help (re)set their expectations properly.

As an aside RedBull?s ?8Million viewers for a 15 minute live event equates to 280 Billion views over a year (might want to keep that one to yourself)

?

?A basic framework for delivering a successful live stream

So we have the business bought in lets get going on delivering your stream.

The simplest way I think of a live stream delivery project is broken into five distinct phases of:

• Production Planning
• Source?Acquisition
• Content Preparation
• Stream Delivery
• Audience Experience Interface

Although some of those terms seem a bit abstract and fluffy it does give us enough room to add in our own flair.

It also will help if you think of this as a supply chain problem with the unique aspect that everything has to happen in parallel.

Like a cascading waterfall you can only turn on the next step without the preceding step up and running, and if one turns off all following steps will turn off as well

Get Started with ?Production Plan and Brief

Everything leads from a planning session.

So first thing to do is to create a Production Plan and Brief.

In this document you?ll aim to capture all information you?ll need to prep, deliver and report on a successful live stream.

Done right the Production Plan becomes a common reference point for all team members.

Even if you?re a team of 1 it helps to draft up this document just to make sure you haven?t missed out anything.

Each Production Plan can be unique but as a common starting point I always include:

• An introductory description to the event (from the angle of a live stream) ? the Why and What;
• A Goal Line statement and KPIs to identify what success is;
• A Cost Line + Budget to help manage expectation and spend;
• A Monetisation Model to make sure it?s worth your while;
• A Content Strategy section outlining where production efforts will be focused Pre, During and Post the event;
• Audience Distribution Model to understand what device and?geographical?territories?we?ll have to cross to get this content out there ? (Note this typically is the response : ?to anyone who wants to watch?)
• A Site Survey Checklist and Audit documenting that your site has everything needed and it?s all in great condition;
• An Event Timings Table outlining the sequence and duration of proceedings;
• A Required Shot List that makes sure if you do nothing else you capture the key moments;
• Camera Structure section detailing how many cameras are needed and how;
• Operational Team Structure section listing all the roles and responsibilities;
• Technology?Integration Architecture that shows how content will be shuttled from camera to viewer using the various platforms;
• Stream Configuration Table outlining stream profiles required to reach your audience on their devices;
• Experience Requirements to create a sticky and rewarding user experience;
• A Marketing Plan to figure out how you?re going to let people know to not miss out!;
• A Call List table of the contact details of all the team?involved.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. ?It should be viewed as a starter pack to get you going.

Just remember this rule ? if you?re asked a contextual question that can?t be answered by reading the production plan you haven?t put enough in it.

Step 1: Source Acquisition

This first step is where the rubber hits the road.

The camera lens is the beginning of the supply.

This needs to be turned on and working before you can do anything else.

The number of cameras, positioning and capabilities are all decided as part of your Content Strategy development.

Before you dive into the questions of How many cameras and other implementation questions make sure you fully answer the What you?re trying to capture and the Why you?re trying to capture it.

These more abstract questions will inform all your implementation decisions so spending enough quality time on them is paramount.

In the most simplest of forms when it comes to source acquisition all you need is one capture device, be it a webcam or a mobile pro HD camera.

With that atomic setup you can capture your content and you?re ready to go.

As you scale up scope, quality and dimensions of the capture ?then things get more complex quickly.

Probably the most practical setup for a quality shoot is a 2-camera configuration.

This is the minimum amount of cameras you need to provide ?angle-stimulation? in the feed (i.e providing abrupt visual changes that keep our subconscious brain engaged) without the need of getting in advanced ?vision mixing? software.

Step 2: Content Preparation

Content Preparation should be viewed as a?transformational?step.

Your job here is to take the raw feeds from the cameras and other capture devices and make something worth watching.

Directing this step is as much an art as it is a science.

Conceptually you are taking in 1 ? many feeds, mixing them real time and then feeding them into your encoder for compression.

The glue between those components is a human (you, your director, anyone) and the tools you use are either a software package that can mix feeds or a specialist piece of kit like a vision mixer.

How you direct a killer show is one of those boundaries of this guide.

People spend a lifetime learning and relearning how to this.

Rule #1 for me though? Mix the stream into something that you?d want to watch. ?If you enjoy it then chances are the audience will as well.

Rule #2? If in ANY doubt of your abilities call in the professionals. ?This is money well spent.

So the artistic mixing is the first half of the Content Preparation stage . The 2nd half is data crunching ? the encoders.

These little beauties are best thought of as magical black boxes where you put in an uncompressed stream of visual and audible content and it pushes out 1 ? many streams of highly compressed digital video to be consumed by any internet connected device that has a screen.

There?s a lot packed into that statement so just make sure you read it enough times so you?re getting it all.

Encoders come in all shapes, sizes and costs.

They are specialist components that do their jobs very well.

They consist of two layers: 1) Hardware and 2) Software.

The Hardware layer can be as general as your laptop or as specialised as custom built rack mounted kits.

The Software layer is typically much the same as they are just wrappers for the CODEC that do the heavy lift. ?(Another boundary hit ? for more info on a CODEC have a look here.)

Together these two layers form your encoder.

You can get free encoders and paid for encoders.

You can get physical onsite encoders or cloud based encoders.

They come in all flavours with price typically increasing on:

• Quality of hardware
• CODEC support
• Stream output support
• Brand name

There is a lot we can discuss about encoders on a whole (and indeed some of it is touched upon in the Best Practices section) but I?m going to leave it with this:

You get what you pay for: the more you can put into your encoder the less risk you?ll be introducing to your supply.

Step 3: Stream Delivery

What comes out of your encoder is a stream of digitally compressed content.

You now need to get that stream to your viewers.

In today?s world that requires 1) a streaming server and 2) a delivery network.

Unless you?re uber geeky, in which case you?re probably not reading this guide, you can consider this step as one whole component.

Quite simply you need to upload your encoded stream to an ingest point on a streaming server hosted in a delivery network.

That server will then present you a publishing URL that you can give you to your viewers via your player.

That?s a bit idealistic.

In the real world what you?ll need is an online video platform and player that will take the guess work out of the technical connections.

For such you can use Brightcove, YouTube, Ooyala, Livestream.com, UStream, Amazon Cloudfront and many more.

The free services will make their return by leveraging your brand power and replacing your experience with theirs (think YouTube).

The paid for services will give you complete control and premier support services.

Which you go for is a decision around budget and control requirements.

As well your Audience?Experience requirements.

Step 4: Audience Experience Interface

Although operationally everything starts with the camera, conceptually everything should start with the audience.

If you don?t create content that your audience wants to watch then you?ll fail fast.

As you become prolific with live streaming you?ll start finding yourself going in the opposite direction proposed by this guide.

You?ll start finding yourself asking questions around your Audience, what makes them tick and how you can best?capitalise?on them.

For a viewer everything is down to experience.

Is it worth their while engaging in your Experience?

In this case Experience equates to the Content + Accessibility + Interactivity.

The Value of this to the viewer is how balanced those three are for any given event:

• Is the Content relevant to what I?m after?
• Can I Access the content where I need to?
• If I want to can I Interact with the Experience in the way I need to?

From a Supplier (Your) side you need to know:

• Does the Experience allow my Viewers to access the content in a way that works for them?
• Can I report on their usage in a meaningful way?
• Can I implement my required monetisation requirements? (think Paywalls, Advertising)
• Am I leveraging the power of live by letting my simultaneous?viewers interact with each other and me?
• Am I getting my content to all the right devices?
• Am I providing an experience that warms up and down my audience (no viewer will tune in at the exact time you want them to!)

All the answers to the above questions will lead to requirements for your viewer experience.

You can spend alot of cash here pimping out your player or you can just get some off the shelf templates and plugins.

My advice is to ease into this stage over a series of live events.

Get the fundamentals right and build from that stable platform.

Getting too top heavy and wasting time, money and effort here will deflate your budget quickly and lead to a poor overall project delivery.

Over time you can implement some fun things, just ease into it first.

Tools & components of the trade

You will note that in the list below I do not include video production tools.

It?s not that I want to be incomplete but more that that space is well covered.

By all means however if you want to suggest some good kit for source acquisition please do so in the comments section.

Encoders

There are many encoders on the market but here are 3 for various price points:

Adobe?s Live Media Encoder ? Price: FREE
website:?http://www.adobe.com/products/flash-media-encoder.html

This is a great software tool to get up and running with live streaming.

It is a powerful tool that works with any compatible device connected to your PC and can push to most streaming servers.

It?s best feature is its price: it?s FREE.

You?ll need to have a bit of tech savvy to configure it and understand its various knobs and levers but its stream profiles can get you out of the gates quickly.

It is slightly hampered by its limit of only 3 stream outputs but that?s enough for a simple event stream.

The down side is you need to provide your own hardware and a typical laptop won?t be good enough to crunch the program.

You also don?t get any visual mixing controls so multi camera management is a no go.

Telestream?s Wirecast ? Price: $500 standard ?- $1000 pro
website: http://www.telestream.net/wirecast/overview.htm

Telestream?s Wirecast is like Adobe?s Live Media Encoder but on steroids.

It?s a software-only offering but makes it a no-brainer to get up and running with live.

Turn key integrations with many streaming providers and easy to use configurations make it a breeze.

It also has multi camera mixing capabilities, something not available on the Adobe offering.

The downsides include the fact it?s software only and so you need to spec in appropriate hardware.

It also has limited stream outputs.

You have to pay extra for HD capabilities ? nothing should be broadcast in SD these days so this is a bit chincy in my opinion.

?Zencoder Cloud Based Encoder ? Price: see website
website: http://www.zencoder.com

If not yet, hopefully by the time you?ve read this Zencoder should have launched its live streaming offering.

This is a great solution for people who don?t want pull in a heap of computing kit to encode on site.

As well for locations with limited upstream bandwidth this is also a good fit because you just have to upload one stream.

Pricing hasn?t been announced so I can?t opine on it?s value for money.

And it?s a new service so beware early adopter gremlins.

Cisco AS Range (formerly known as Spinnakers) ? Price: $25,000 or more
website:?http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps11804/index.html

Cisco AS Encoders are the top of the line in encoder technology.

They are standalone units with their hardware customised and optimised for one job only ? encoding your stream.

They offer up to 8 output streams, have turn key integration with top delivery networks and you can configure every aspect of the codec (advanced users only).

If you can?t risk anything going wrong then this is the encoder for you.

OVPs

Life?s too short to build it yourself.

OVPs have come along way in the last 7 ? 8 years since their inception.

Indeed the biggest of the lot: YouTube, is a corner stone of the entire Internet itself.

The pros and cons of various OVPs have been discussed in the Framework section so this is more of a list to consider:

YouTube: Free to use but you can end up lost in the crowd ?and paying the price with your brand affinity.

Livestream.com: Is a specialised YouTube aimed specifically at YouTube. ?It has infrastructure and tools galore ? but same brand costs.

Ustream: A competitor to Livestream and YouTube differentiating on tool kit.

Amazon Cloudfront + JWPlayer: A DIY ?kit? that is easy to configure and deploy, for more advanced users it can give you great pricing and control. ?Support suffers though

Brightcove: The industry leader and proclaimer as the inventor of the ?OVP?, gives you everything you need from support, service and platform. It costs though.

Ooyala: A Brightcove clone ? offers similar features, pricing is the determiner here.

(got another one? ?add it in the comments and it could be added here).

A brief word about service providers

If you?ve read this far down the guide you?ll now have a first degree appreciation for not only the risks that come with live streaming but also the complexities of delivering a feed for your next event.

This is why a whole service industry exists to support live stream.

The benefits can be massive but the ability to reduce costs and minimise risk is a well?practised?art.

Suppliers (just Google them ? or indeed contact us for details on our Live Stream Services) are worth their weight in gold.

I might be a bit biased but I?ve been a buyer as many times as I?ve been a seller.

For what might seem a relatively high upfront cost you will get a return on that and much more.

Remember if in doubt get in touch.

Right back to the guide

A basic live streaming setup

Ok so here?s the brief:

We have a speaking event of our CEO ?we want to live stream.

She?ll be giving a 30 minute review of the current business climate and performance.

Our audience will be employees, investors and anyone interested in our corporate affairs.

We?re a relatively social company with a strong presence on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.

Success for us is at least 100 people tuning in and at least 10% commenting, asking questions via social network Twitter.

To be honest the last sentence about the success statement is not typical.

Customers very rarely have any clue what success really means to them, let alone quantifying it into easily?measurable?metrics.

But for the sake of this exercise we?ll assume a rather sophisticated customer.

So opening up a new Production Plan (see above) we get to work:

• We have our event description, in it goes to the document;
• We even have our success statement (way ahead of the game now!);
• Budgets? ? let?s ask ?How much do we have to spend??
• No more than ?2,000 ? Ok this will be tight but doable
• Monetisation / ROI? ? lucky for us it?s just reach and not advertising, paywall stuff ;
• Content Strategy? ? content will come from a single speaker from a single position and will be a statement followed by Q&A;
• Audience Distribution? ? need it on mobiles, Facebook and our investor web page;
• Site Survey? ? we have a dedicated 10Mbps upload and hard wired Ethernet access (you will need to work with IT though for proxy issues);
• Event Timings? We?ll start at midday and run through to 12:30 ? run long if Q&A is fruitful;
• Required Shot List? Just need to make sure the power point slides are supplied in the stream;
• Camera Structure? 1 HD camera with top 1/3 of presenter, face on;
• Operational Team? Just you;
• Tech Integration? We have a Brightcove OVP account configured for Live;
• Stream Configuration? We?ll need 3 x HLS streams for Hi/Mid/Low
• Experience Requirements? Need to have it posted in Facebook and it would be awesome if the Twitter feed could scroll lower screen.
• Marketing Plan? We?ll email our database, post on FB and Twitter and send a reminder before the event.

Obviously this is highly idealistic and in the real world it can take some time to come up with all the answers to all the questions.

However this process demonstrates how much you need to investigate, query and consider when planning out the production.

So now we need to structure this out.

We?ve got the camera as the client?s facilities department already bought one.

Given the high upstream bandwidth and the ?talking head? format we can go with a software-only encoder and run it on our laptop.

Because of budgets we?ll use the free Adobe Live Media Encoder.

This is also suitable because we only want 3 output streams. ?ALME can handle that.

So we configure the encoder, plug in the cameras, switch on the cameras and we get a feed in the Preview.

Next we setup our Brightcove account to accept an in-bound Live asset (different OVPs will have different configuration instructions so refer to their documentation).

Luckily Brightcove handles the Facebook support, the player across devices support and analytics.

But now we need the Twitter scrolling ? well apart from our time we haven?t spent much of the ?2,000 budget.

We could get a custom dev or look to sites like vapplify for a plugin, or we could push back.

It?s a nice to have but with this added complexity we?re pushing ourselves and increasing our risk profile considerably.

So we talk the client down and instead focus attention in the most left out piece of live streaming: Marketing.

We create an email blast and get the word out there that this is happening.

Oh-oh, for those who were paying attention we missed something.

We need to show the presentation slides in the stream as well.

Ok we can still take a feed into the laptop but now we need to upgrade our encoder to Telestream so we can mix the source feeds appropriately.

Phew glad we didn?t spend unnecessarily on the Twitter plugin. ?Telestream will set us back some.

So now we?re ready.

Well not quite. ?What about the basic Audience Experience and the concepts of Warming Up and Down?

We need to create some contextual holding cards (JPEGs) so people understand that if they are early to the stream they will need to wait for it to start.

It will also let us gracefully exit by letting people know the event is over.

Indeed in an advanced production you?d create a Stream Transmission Error slate as well in case your source feeds get cut.

NOW we?re ready.

We don?t need the call sheet because it?s just you.

And the event goes ahead swimmingly ? people tune in, you?re watching twitter and feeding the questions in.

No surprises ? happy client, happy audience, happy life.

Oh hopefully you pressed record at the start to make an archive asset of the present for VOD :)

Done!

From this point on you should have a good grounding in the ins and outs of live streaming.

Now we?ll be moving on to more advanced concepts.

If you?re leaving us here thanks for tuning in and any questions please don?t?hesitate?to ask in the comments or get in touch.

Advanced Techniques

So now that we know how to run basic live streams what advanced techniques can we use to take this to the next level?

In this section I?ll explore 3 of the more common areas:

• Monetisation
• Experience Design
• Marketing

Monetisation

In many cases it?s good enough to just get your stream out there and watched.

The numbers will be small enough that delivery costs won?t factor in.

However for bigger events you might need to consider direct revenue streams to make a profit

3 such streams are: PayWalls, Ads and eCommerce.

PayWalls

A PayWall is quite simply a process in which a viewer must pay before watching your content.

This technique is fast becoming popular with conferences and other special events like concerts.

Putting up a PayWall is non-trivial and really best left to the experts.

The minute you take money from someone you?re upping the game materially.

You had better deliver or suffer from Refund-Hell.

But if you do deliver then PayWalls can generate some serious revenue per stream.

A paywall provider I?ve worked with before is Invideous.

They take care of fulfilment, customer care and player integrations.

Ads

Ads are the traditional method of making money from online video.

There is problem however when dealing with Live Streams.

Advertisers typically buy ?placement inventory? on a weekly and monthly basis.

Your live stream will last hours max.

So all of a sudden standard ?Ad Buys? don?t compute.

Not only that, if you run a very successful live stream (i.e many, many, many viewers) you become at risk of blowing through your Ad Buys in a hurry and suffering from ?Overspend? leaving you out of pocket and with unmonetised streams.

Now that?s the bad news.

The good news is that if you use a top range encoder you can inject cuepoints into your stream and run midroll ad placements.

That means you keep monetising the stream as your viewers keep watching.

If you do the hard yards up front with advertising (or indeed sponsorship) this can be a ?very lucrative model.

eCommerce

I worked on a Burberry lead project where they live streamed their Catwalk show and in real time at the end they presented an eCommerce experience to buy just what was seen.

Although a specialist scenario this ability to offer your viewers a merchandising experience could be a real revenue driver.

This does, however, require specialist kit and expert knowledge so it ain?t cheap to deploy.

Experience Design

Content isn?t everything and when it comes to audience engagement there are plenty of things you can do to spice up your stream and keep your viewers glued to the screen.

Community Viewing

One of the more important things to do with Live Streaming is to avoid ?Empty Restaurant Syndrome?.

No one likes eating alone and no one likes watching alone.

That doesn?t mean everyone wants to chat either.

What it means is that we seek Social Proof that what we?re watching is worthwhile.

Showing your viewers that others are watching is an incredible way of building engagement as people then don?t want to be the one to ?miss out?.

Social Integration

Following on from Community Viewing is a more deeper Social Integration.

Social Media is part of our fabric now so make use of it.

Use the publicly?available?hooks to allow users to connect your stream to their social presence.

Give vapplify?s SOCIALISE! plugin a try.

If you?re content is worth watching your audience will self organise and self promote it.

Offline/Online Connection

Allowing the real person behind the ?viewer? to engage with your stream is an incredibly powerful motivator.

The Internet is the mother of all two-way streets so use it as such.

In your dialogue and script make sure you reference the viewers and encourage them to get in touch with the show.

Live radio shows do this all the time.

It works.

Do it.

Warm Up and Down

Because your stream will be event based and not ?always on? you will always have early arrivals.

Giving them a satisfactory experience when they come early is key to holding them.

Simply use holding cards to tell the user that they are in the right place and to hold on to their seats.

More advanced uses would be to do what the movie theatres do: advertise and show trailers.

Host a pop quiz to collect data for your show.

Get creative to warm up the audience.

Then let them down easily ? don?t be harsh and just cut the stream.

Easy them off your drug.

Marketing

There is a very strong case to take this out of the Advanced Techniques section and put it in the core of the guide.

But I haven?t.

Letting your audience know you?re live streaming is critical to success.

It is NOT the case that if you stream it they will watch.

Announcing

Get the word out about your impending live stream as soon as possible.

Include a date, time and URL.

Provide a calendar invite.

The Build Up

Frequently and regularly talk about the upcoming stream.

Give highlights and trailers.

Tell people all the exciting features.

Get them pumped!

Reminding

All the best will in the word will still lead to people forgetting about your stream.

We are awash with instant messaging. Use it.

Remind people that you?re on and that you?re missing them.

Thank You

It?s self explanatory.

Say Thank You for viewing.

It will do wonders for repeat viewing.

Best Practices

Right so now we?re into the real nitty gritty.

This section is about the best practices I?ve learnt through delivering my live streams.

If you have any yourself add them to the comments.

RoI Statement

Get this done early, get this done right.

The costs of delivery will be well known.

Figure out what you need as a return from this.

State it clearly and measurably. ?Then make sure you measure it.

Whatever you do, do no equate the numbers you see on YouTube with the numbers you are hoping to get.

Plan, Plan and Plan

Here we go with some?clich?s:

• The beginning is the most important part of the work ? Plato
• Plans are nothing, planning is everything ? Eisenhower
• By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail ? Franklin
• There is in the act of preparing, the moment you start caring ? Churchill

We talked about the Production Plan document.

Get in the habit of doing it for EVERY event.

Don?t disappoint Plato,?Eisenhower, Franklin and Churchill!

Site Survey Checklist

The things you need to check off:

• Camera locations
• Content sources
• Internet?availability
• Control positions
• Cabling requirements
• Power
• Washrooms
• Closest food stall
• Out of Hours Access
• Parking

Audience Assessment

Always start with your audience and work backwards.

What does your audience want from your live stream?

What are they willing to pay for it?

Where do they want to view it?

How do they want to interact with it?

Just four questions.

Ask them, answer them and behold.

Device Compatibility

Luckily for me that at the time of writing the device fragmentation around video support has settled down some.

What you need is:

• 3 streams: Lo (200Kbps or less), Mid (600 Kbps) and Hi (> 1Mbps);
• Video CODEC/format: h264/mp4;
• Audio CODEC: aac;
• Protocol: HLS

That will get you onto any device that matters.

Real Time Analytics

If you?re going to keep control of your stream you better know what?s going on at any one point.

Make sure your OVP / Delivery network provider offers you suitable real time analytics.

Make sure you check them (if I had a?nickel?everytime someone didn?t).

Make sure you?re ready to react to surges.

Because of Real Time Analytics I was able to see a massive surge when the Pie Hit Murdoch?s face and scale capacity accordingly.

No one was hurt.

Real time analytics will also let you?understand how much you?re spending on bandwidth for delivery at any given moment and, if necessary, provide you with the cut off points to keep your risk under control.

Business Metrics to Care About

This is subjective but for me:

• Number of viewers who started the stream
• New viewers per minute
• Total viewers per minute
• The average time they spent watching the stream
• What bitrates they watched
• What devices they watched from
• Where in the world they were
• Did they share the content
• Did the start/stop

?

So that?s it.

My take on a 101 Guide for Live Streaming.

I hope you enjoyed it!

?

? Cameron Church

?

Source: http://www.streamfoundations.com/1044/how-to-live-stream-101-a-complete-beginner-guide

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