What are the essential skills and tools for live video streaming production and delivery?
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Live video streaming is a powerful way to connect with your audience, showcase your expertise, and deliver engaging content. But it also requires some skills and tools to make it work smoothly and effectively. In this article, you'll learn what are the essential skills and tools for live video streaming production and delivery, and how to use them to create a successful live video streaming experience.
Planning and preparation
Before you go live, you need to plan and prepare your content, your equipment, your platform, and your audience. You need to have a clear goal, a compelling message, and a structured outline for your live video. You also need to choose the best equipment for your budget and needs, such as a camera, a microphone, a tripod, and a lighting kit. You need to select a platform that suits your audience and goals, such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, or Zoom. And you need to promote your live video in advance, using social media, email, or other channels, to generate interest and anticipation.
Encoding and streaming
Once you have your content and equipment ready, you need to encode and stream your live video to your platform. Encoding is the process of converting your video and audio signals into a format that can be transmitted over the internet. Streaming is the process of sending your encoded video and audio to your platform's server, where it can be distributed to your viewers. You need to use a software or hardware encoder, such as OBS Studio, Wirecast, or a dedicated device, to encode and stream your live video. You also need to adjust your encoder settings, such as bitrate, resolution, frame rate, and audio quality, to match your platform's requirements and your internet connection's speed and stability.
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This article very briefly glosses over “encoder settings”, but it will likely require you to read a few articles, watch a handful of videos, and perform some experiments to find the settings that work best for your hardware and internet bandwidth. There are no “one-size-fits-all” settings and you will probably be constantly tweaking them going forward.
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Many social platforms also have their own live streaming encoders built in. If your using platforms such as OBS studio, Streamlabs OBS, Wirecast or vMix look into devices such as Streamdeck which can help with stream lining operation and control of your live streaming.
Monitoring and troubleshooting
While you are live, you need to monitor and troubleshoot your live video streaming performance and quality. You need to keep an eye on your encoder's dashboard, where you can see your live video preview, your streaming status, your CPU usage, your network activity, and your error messages. You need to check your platform's analytics, where you can see your live video metrics, such as views, watch time, engagement, and feedback. And you need to be ready to fix any issues that may arise, such as buffering, lagging, freezing, or dropping, by adjusting your encoder settings, restarting your encoder, or switching to a backup plan.
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Some streaming platforms have actually changed my PC's sound settings the first time I used them, so it is always the safer bet to run tests every time something new is introduced. The last thing you want is to be digging through your audio settings on air.
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Monitoring a streams health is very easy to do when things are going well, but it can quickly become a broadcast-stopping problem if things go wrong. Until you have a few streams under your belt, you should always do a practice stream to a dummy account in order to iron out the kinks. Examples: - An ad video provided by a sponsor is too high of a resolution, overwhelming the software and causing the stream to crash - Someone left the stream software configured for “local recording”, causing it to stutter and skip from a lack of bandwidth - Audio is coming through the wrong microphone For these reasons and more, it’s important to monitor the stream from its endpoint (e.g. on YouTube, LinkedIn) and not just from the streaming software
Interaction and moderation
One of the main benefits of live video streaming is the ability to interact with your audience in real time. You need to use the chat feature of your platform, where you can see your viewers' comments, questions, reactions, and suggestions. You need to acknowledge, respond, and engage with your audience, by greeting them, answering their queries, asking for their opinions, and thanking them for their support. You also need to moderate your chat, by setting rules, filtering spam, blocking trolls, and encouraging positive and respectful behavior.
Recording and archiving
Another benefit of live video streaming is the ability to record and archive your live video for future use. You need to use the recording feature of your encoder or platform, where you can save your live video as a file on your computer or cloud storage. You need to edit and optimize your recorded live video, by trimming, cropping, adding captions, titles, thumbnails, and tags. And you need to upload and share your recorded live video on your platform or other channels, such as your website, blog, podcast, or social media.
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Switchers are great tools. Most of them record isolated files of each camera to an SSD, as well as a recording of your live edit.
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It’s also worth noting that for more professional endeavors, it may be worth the time and effort to invest in an encoder that lets you export your stream into multiple tracks (rather than a flat video). This way, edits can easily be made to fix mistakes, rather than facing the decision to leave them in or cut them out entirely.
Evaluation and improvement
After you finish your live video streaming, you need to evaluate and improve your live video streaming performance and results. You need to review your platform's analytics, where you can see your live video statistics, such as reach, retention, conversion, and revenue. You need to collect and analyze your audience's feedback, by using surveys, polls, reviews, or testimonials. And you need to identify and implement ways to improve your live video streaming quality, content, delivery, and impact, by learning from your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
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As hard as it is to watch yourself on camera, it is the absolute best (if not the only) way to improve your production. Take small notes of the things you need to improve and keep that list handy before your next broadcast. Small things like “umms” and “uhhs” are never apparent in the moment, and eliminating them is the easiest way to improve your performance.
Here’s what else to consider
This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?
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There are two important points that are absent from this article- 1) In many cases, you will need to produce all of the media files (graphics, video, music) ahead of time. This can range from brand logos, to title cards, to transitions, special effects… anything that isn’t a flat camera shot of your subject. And practice using these elements in your streaming software ahead of time. 2) The acts of hosting the stream, operating the broadcast software, moderating chat, and troubleshooting issues (there will be issues) are all necessary, and difficult to do for a single person. If you plan on presenting a professional image, you will need 1-2 additional operators to run the stream. Their exact duties will vary based on your individual needs.
