A-Z Streaming Made Easy Tutorial 101 - New to Streaming Setup PDF

What steps for hardware and software do I need to get started with Live Streaming?

A-Z 101 - Getting started with Live Streaming

This article is designed for the “New to Live Streaming group” starting from both a Shoe-String budget heading towards full implementation. Seasoned users will also find tips that will add to their streaming knowledge.

The information is based cumulative experiences, making for the best type of instruction, coupled with YourHost.com streaming services, you will learn how to setup, prepare, and run your first successful live stream. 

Most important, you will bypass the learning curve. 
There are two streaming camps, Flash and Windows (Windows Media and Silverlight ). We have chosen Flash and HTML5 as the main streaming platform for several reasons. One reason we chose Flash is that currently reaches the most viewers, with the least amount of issues and barriers in compared to others. A key reason is that Flash does not require a computer restart when installing it for the first time or during upgrades.

In preparation for Live Streaming, there are a few important steps you can take to make for good viewer experience.

Step 1. How is your Internet Connection where you plan to streaming from?

Check your Internet connection speed and reliability. Your Internet connection is one of the first and foremost Key components of your Live Streaming system.

Start by going online to find out your actual speeds or bandwidth limitations. After testing, you might have to call your ISP (Internet Servce Provider) to upgrade your services. This is a process that can take time, so we suggest that you plan ahead and call them now. Once you know that the upgrade is in progress, you can continue to move ahead in this article and your connection issues will more than likely be resolved by the time you are ready run your production live stream.

In learning what your actual bandwidth and internet speeds are, you can adjust your Live streams ecnoding speeds for maximum performance. In the beginning minimize your encoding speeds you send out until you know you will not get jumpy pictures, sound and picture delays, causing people to leave and maybe come back another time. Remember, test, test, test. When your done, test, and test more.

How is your Internet speed connection measured?

Your connection speed is measured in Upload and Download speeds.

Your Upload is defined as what you send from your computer to the Internet, like email.

Your Download is defined as how fast you get your web page, images, and other information from the Internet. This is reflected in your webpage speeds or how fast you get your email, or even how fast your YouTube or video streams come up and function.
It is a good idea to check your speed at various test sites and one popular one is SpeedTest.net. Test your speeds randomly over a month or so to get a good idea of what your average speeds are.

When streaming, you will be only UPloading or pushing your Live streaming to the Internet and ideally, you want to have a minimum of 500kbps to 5MB or higher.

If you have cable it will be from 380k + or higher or fiber connection (like Fios), your speeds will be much higher than the 500kbps.  If you have low speeds or wireless conditions, you can stream with 220 or 300-400kbps, but expect intermittent issues caused by lack of Bandwidth or speed Headroom.
Headroom means the residual bandwidth you have when your bandwidth allocation varies and can vary from day to day and hour to hour, with many Internet Service Providers, (ISP)

Download speeds are not as important at this time. Your download speeds are always faster then your upload speeds.

A very important component that many people overlook their bandwidth conditions when Live streaming.  Make sure you do not have any other of your Office Internet connections open to the public.  Make sure that others are not on the Internet at all during the church during services, including wired or wireless users, as you can greatly suffer your streaming performance.

***More and more organizations are investing in a dedicated streaming connection, which makes your Live Streaming performance steady, and will not be affected by others in your facility.

See the sample below which is a very good speed and these high speeds are typically associated with fiber optics service allowing for high download speeds.

Step 2. How to pick out a camera?

This step is where you will have to decide on how much you want to spend on a camera. You can’t lose by starting with a simple consumer camera, which you can always use somewhere else when you graduate to a commercial or a more professional camera.

The key feature for streaming from your camera must have is a 3.5mm or separate external microphone plug that you connect to your mixer board or directly into you’re your streaming tool, PC, Mac, or TouchStream tool. if you are not using a simple audio mixer, your sound will not be as clear and I do not recommend. The thing is that you cannot lose by trying it and learning from your trials. 
Note that many startup-churches find the funds to purchase or have donated a wireless microphone and a small mixer board that allows for better audio. This would mean that the external Camera Microphone is not as necessary and you only need to pull video from your camera and audio comes directly off an output from your mixing board.

We are in contact with many well established churches that are open to assisting others with any streaming technical challenges. Give us a call and we can get you together with a church or organization that will glad to help.

Camera System Range of cost - $250-$1,800

Option I - Canon Vixia small handheld- $250-300

If you are on a tight budget, this consumer starter camera or one like it that has a microphone plug, is around $250-$300 At the time of this article, you choices in choosing the starter cameras are limited to Canon, under the "Vixia" model, if your running the audio and video wire from the camera to your streaming area, the longest wire you can run is around 150-200 feet... (actually, others have gone further, but it is not recommended) You can stream in h.264 with this camera. Ideally, you will want to run the microphone into the mixer and then out of your camera into your streaming device.

***There are several audio configurations choices and just keeping it simple in the beginning and learn as you go for your particular.

Note that many startup-churches find the funds to purchase or have donated a wireless microphone and a small mixer board that allows for better audio. This would mean that the external Camera Microphone is not as necessary and you only need to pull video from your camera and audio comes directly off an output from your mixing board.

Option II - Canon Vixia - $550-800

Advantages - You can run HDMI single cable output, with the mic plug, from the camera to your streaming system several hundred feet. You can stream in h.264 with this camera.
** Important point – Pennywise and Pound foolish – Recognize and live with the issues that come with a starter camera. The starter camera will require you to have better lighting. Put up with it until your ready.  Know that the money you would invest for better lighting can be made up for in spending that money for a higher end camera. I assure you that the money you spend on a higher end camera will be far less than lighting bill.

Note that many startup-churches find the funds to purchase or have donated a wireless microphone and a small mixer board that allows for better audio. This would mean that the external Camera Microphone is not as necessary and you only need to pull video from your camera and audio comes directly off an output from your mixing board.

Another thing to note is that these particular cameras do not have remote on-off controls so you will need to manually turn them on each time you wish to use them. We are going to identify a few cameras that have both good outputs and a remote that will allow for remote camera on and off features.

Link to the site for the Vixia HF 200 -

Camera Specs from the HF 200 (sample on what to look for)
Inputs (must have on all streaming cameras)

1x 1/8" (3.5mm) Stereo Mini

Outputs

1x USB 2.0
1x Component Video (out)
1x Composite Video (out)
1x Mini HDMI
1x A/V
1x 1/8" (3.5mm) Stereo Mini
1x LANC Terminal

Option III - Panasonic – Sony - $1,200-$1800

Panasonic and Sony are the commercial and high-end consumer cameras of choice. You will be happy with SD HD Composite or S-Video for non-sports choices. You can run an average of 150-200 feet max cable length from the camera to the board and sometimes you can push this if you need to.

You may consider SDI HD where you can run your Audio and Video through one BNC cable up to around 700 feet plus.

The advantage of this type of camera will be that you can shoot in lower light and they will not require spending as much on lighting as you would think. Clarity and details will be greatly improved with this type of camera.

 Step 3. Choosing a Video Encoding device, PC, Mac, TouchStream

This is an area you can also start out on a low budget. Everyone has a PC or Mac computer lying around. This is a inexpensive first move, to get a feel for you’re your particular needs are.

If you are going to use an existing computer, you will have to deal with the hardware capability when selecting your streaming video card. If your computer Video card has a video and audio input, you can try to see if the Adobe Live Encoder Software recognizes the card when you look in the Adobe configure area when the software project is open. 

If the Adobe Live encoder does not recognize the, A/V, HDMI, camera or USB device, then I suggest that you do not waste any of your precious time trying to troubleshoot a fix, driver, or tweak, as it will more than likely cause some sort of compatibility issue.

Here are some Guidelines in Streaming with a PC or Mac

• Purchase or convert a High-end desktop or Laptop, 2.0-3gighz minimum
  (Most Mac or Windows laptops are USB only streaming, poor quality)
• Preferably with Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 (Vista and maybe Windows 7can add to your pain level)
• You can use a Mac or Windows for Streaming Download Windows or Mac Adobe Live Encoder and they are both Free.
  Find it by typing in Google - "Adobe Live Encoder" Download ONLY from an Adobe.com site. The Adobe download links can change from time to time but you can try this one PC or Mac Click here You may have to register with Adobe, but it is worth it.
• Ram should be 2-3 gigs of ram Recommended 4-6gigs with Vista
• Your CPU should be a Dual or better yet a Quad. A single CPU will work but it may have limited resource issues causing choppy or lagging video output.
• For your PC or Mac, you need a good video capture card that will allow you to input Video and Audio. Good capture cards are, The "Osprey" or "paradise card", Video PCI and up are best from Paradise or
  The Beginner Tried and tested Osprey 100 Current Link $130-$140
  BTW, USB capture is the worst way to stream and any issues quality issues can probably be attributed to using a USB capture device.
• A USB device is an inexpensive device and is a last alternate solution as a starter streaming tool. See a USB capture solution.
  Using a USB device for Live Streaming will produce poor performance and is not recommended but it is a choice ONLY if you are on a tight budget.

Word to the wise – Early adopters, Pinnacle - Dazzle is a popular consumer streaming card available at most box stores, and we recommend you stay away from it for many reasons. It has been the discussion of many compatibility issues since it came out.

Estimated Cost of PC or Mac for Streaming conservatively - $2,00-3,500 

NOTE - If you have to buy a computer then we suggest you stop now and Call our Development team and have them show you our Digital Rapids TouchStream system.

You will spend about the same dollars on a PC or Mac and TouchStream system will run circles around any PC or Mac, as they are not specifically Not designed for Live Streaming.

Important point about PC and Mac - At some point you will want to Live stream more than just Flash.
At the time of this article you will want to stream Flash and the Iphone / Ipad and other codec’s or streaming formats. A PC or Mac will not allow you to run multiple live codec’s and you can only do that with a TouchStream system.
The alternative is the Digital Rapids TouchStream Cost of encoder (not required to by get started, this is only a good choice and is around $4,995)

Here is a PC, Mac Comparison to the TouchStream System by Digital Rapids

Step 4. Live Stream Setup – Once you have steps 1-3 done, then setting up live streaming host is easy. Of course, we recommend using YourHost.com’s Live Streaming system; YourHost.com is affordable, reliable, and most important, user friendly.

Note: If you are not certain You can skip most of this part, download your Adobe Flash Encoder and YourHost.com tech team will be happy to assist you in setting up your first stream. They will also assist in generating your player code that can be embedded on your web page in 5 seconds, all for Free of charge.

Once you are given a Login, User name and Password, you can setup your Live Streaming event or it is sometimes referred to as your “Mount or Publishing point”

Login: http://Manage.YourSreamingHost.com/ 

1. When Logged in Select “Live Event”
2.  Inside the Live Events page Select “New Live” Event, open a Live Event Wizard
3. Stream Name - Enter a simple, but relevant name (no spaces), like "Our-Organization-Live-Stream. This name will be included in the URL or path you will have to copy in, so keep it simple. Do not use spaces between words, or it could potentially break your stream.
4. Scheduling Field - default is to be on indefinitely. Select if you need to have times. Always allow for a hour over just incase, unless you are a pro.
5. Encoding Field - the format example at this time is for Live Flash Encoding Your bitrate or stream speed is what you will set here and also within your Adobe Live Encoder configuration area.  As you are using our streaming system you will see that the closer to the stream rate matches your encoder streaming rate, the cleaner the stream.

The Default streaming rate is 350Kbs. When calculating your stream bandwidth usage, always add 39-48kbps in audio. For some reason, these calculations are left out but the Adobe Live Encoder does mention note it in your configuration window.
(You should allow 20-30% of your internet connection and make sure you lock it down so you are the only user when streaming)

Download the Flash Live Encoder Here, use only Adobe site for downloads
Try this Link for PC or Mac Click here for the current free download

Print this for Reference PDF - Pictorial Quick Start for Adobe Flash Encoder Setup

Select “Next” and follow to the end. Note, there may be a delay of 10-30 while the media encoder goes out and check the point. Be patient. 
You may have to press the "Start" broadcasting buttons.

Troubleshooting -

1. If your stream fails to connect, Double Check your configuration entries are all filled out like the same pictorial quick start PDF YourHost provides.

2. If you have done everything, call support, or generate a New Live Event in the streaming system, wait 10 minutes for it to propagate, and re-test.

3. Remember..99% of streaming issues come from issues with Your Local Internet Service Provider (ISP) or your interactions in your Local Network.
4. Call us if you need help.

Have fun!! Call us if you need assistance -
714 842-8511   Ask for Support or Option 2 
 
NOTE: Unless you are using the TouchStream system, It is recommended that you Do Not run any other programs on your PC or Mac, like Mail or because the computer your streaming from on a PC or Mac requires all it’s resources to function at its best.

Newbreed Streaming tools - (backpack ready)

 USB AD/V converter by Canopus - Support Tested Info  Apple Forum on Canopus

Choice 1 - Analog input ONLY Canopus, Mac and PC compatible $174-200

Choice  2  - Digital and Analog inputs - Canopus 77010150100 ADVC110 Converter  $219-400

Low-end Video Camcorders used as Streaming Cameras
(external mic input is mandatory and canon vixia is the only model with mice inputs)

1. Starter camera BHPhoto HF 300 with Mic input  $349-360

2. Mid-priced best value camera BHPhoto HM F30 with Mic input  $399-400

Cables you should buy if running on a Mac even if you do not think you need them at this time  -

Amazon has the best prices on these items.

Belken Tested - Firewire 800 to Mac 9pin Firewire $17-20

HDMI to Mini HDMI - $12-20

Mini DV to 9Pin Mac Firewire $ 5-12

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Professional Camcorders used as Streaming Video Cameras

1. $1,499 Sony - HXR MC50U

2. $1,599 Panasonic - HMC40