It does not matter how amazing your idea for a livestream is, if your camera, computer or internet connection is not up to standard, then all your hard work is going to equal unhappy subscribers. This guide will provideyou with the insight needed to begin your livestream journey and help you achieve the best possible outcome with the tools you have.
There are three stages in your livestream workflow:
The hardware and software options used in each of these stages are vast, there are hundreds of options to suit your budget.
The Coronavirus Pandemic has put webcam services like Skype,Zoom and Microsoft Teams on the tip of everyone’s tongue and everybody from schoolteachers to PT instructors are using these tools to teach and have highlighted that, often the webcam/microphone built into your smartphone or laptop are sufficient when it comes to conveying information, virtually. Having an external camera/microphone has the following advantages:
For $1-2K you can buy a GoPro or DSLR plus a pro-am shotgunmic or lapel microphone and instantly have complete control over your audio and video, independent of your computer. Modern DSLRs and action cams also have good quality 1080p-4K image sensors meaning you can also film at extremely high quality.
There are apps on the market, and even services pre-installed on our social media applications which allow people to stream directly from their smartphone, DSLR or GoPro direct to Facebook – these shortcuts are great as they bypass the need to have a capture card or computer and work well on mobile internet connections. But these are shortcuts and what you gain in convenience you loose in control of the look of your content, the number of cameras you can have and the complexity of your branding and other graphics.
To obtain full control of your stream to:
You need to run your stream through a computer and broadcasting software such as Livestream, XSplit, OBS or dacast. However, this requires you to have a mid-high end PC/Mac with at least 16MB RAM and a decent graphics card(Gaming PCs / Laptops are a good place to start looking if you need to upgrade your machine), a video capture card or device such as Elgato Cam Link or the many options available through BlackMagic Design, and a stable internet connection. The computer needs a fast processor and lots of RAM to process the video and audio AND manage the upload, often, if a computer does not have enough memory to manage your content and the upload, you will see either dropout or lag between the video and audio.
So you have your DSLR set to 1080p at 50frames, you’ve hooked up your Rode microphone, you have downloaded OBS and you can see and hear yourself on the screen, great. Now you just need to go live. But wait, regardless of what quality your audio and video is going IN, what comes OUT on the upload is determined by your upload speeds and the platform you are uploading to.
Bitrate is everything when it comes to uploading, how much data you can send into the cloud determines the resolution and how much complexity you can get away with The Bitrate you transmit at is set in your ENCODER in the ENCODING SETTINGS. The first pass is to determine your overall upload speed, the best way to work this out is to run a speed test.
Using your usual internet speed testing site, run a test under the following conditions:
If you have the time, it is best to try this test a fewtimes, over a few days/weeks to help determine an average upload speed. Once you have an average, you need to divide that number by 2 and THAT is your baseline for upload rate. So, if my speed test returns 10.8mbps, my upload rateis 5.4mbps. The reason you halve it is to ensure you have some redundancy in your upload for:
In the theoretical scenario in this guide, if we plan to upload at 1080p with good audio and multiple graphics, we want to our baseline to be about 8mbps, so we are looking at 16-20mbps upload. Fortunately, these speeds are much more achievable with the rollout of NBN in Australia.
The true test of whether your encoder settings are optimal is to test the stream. Don’t worry, you will know instantly if the bitrate is good or bad (data based on information provided by IBM and our experience). Note bitrates are often referred to in kbps (1mb = 1000kb)– the data below will be displayed in kbps. In all these examples, the framerate is 30fps (frames per second) and the bitrate displayed is the optimal bitrate (half your upload speed). So if you are only getting 2mbps upload then your bitrate is in the 1000kbps range.
500-4000kbps – Resolution between 480x270 and 454x480 (this resolution is about the size of a standard smartphone screen.
4000-6000kbps – Ideal resolution for 720p with stereo audio and some graphics – the more complex the stream the higher the bitrate required.
6000-10000kbps – Ideal for 1080p with stereo.
10000kbps+ - 4K territory.
These figures are a good rule of thumb but experience withyour own equipment and shooting locations will allow you to get a sense of what does and does not work.
Regardless of what you are shooting at or what you are uploading at, you can only stream as best as the platform you are streaming to provides. For example, Facebook only streams 720p so even if you are ENCODING at 4K on 20000kbps, your stream is only going to be 720p, the solace you can take is it will be 720p at maximum quality. Below is a list of the streaming settings on major platforms:
Twitch
1080p or 720p at 30fps or 60fps.
Twitch recommend the following bitrates:
1080p 60fps 6000kbps
1080p 30fps 4500kbps
720p 60fps 4500kbps
720p 30fps 3000 kbps
720p at 30fps at 4000 max bitrate – Title of stream must alsobe fewer than 255 characters.
YouTube
YouTube has scope for all livestreaming options, allowingyou to stream as best as your encoder will allow, but you must register to beable to livestream on You Tube beforehand.
Vimeo
1080p at 60fps. Note to livestream on Vimeo you need tosubscribe to Livestream Studio or a Vimeo Premium plan or higher.
If you want to embed your livestream on your own website, a simple way to do it would be to use a platform such as YouTube of Vimeo to host your stream and then follow the embed steps via those platforms.
There are many aspects to running a livestream from making it look more professional to squeezing as much out of your bitrate as possible by adjusting the specific video and audio bitrates, the best way to learn is to experiment with what works and what doesn’t.
If you are interested in livestreaming but are not sure howto begin, or are having issues with your stream setup, get in touch via our contact page.