Thoughts on Mobile Livesteam Production?

This is not the most practical setup, i know... but the goal is to be able to have a complete mobile studio setup that can stream live in a venue without internet, so over 4g.

Looking at using an ATEM, Macbook Pro, Livestream redbox, hvx200, 2 gopro's with widescreen flat lens, and the cables to connect them together. Using livestream.com as the streaming service? Do you think this could work? Any suggestions of im sure dozen's of potential issues with this?

People do this sort of thing all the time! Your only issue would be getting enough bandwidth. There are products out there that slave multiple Wireless data connections together to get better bandwidth.

While livestreaming Planetfest a couple of weeks ago from Pasadena, CA the convention centers 90mbps uplink went down for an extended period. I was streaming to the new livestream (using their producer software) from my 1ME via a desktop with an intensity pro card.

After the system went down it also took out my main streaming workstation (the outage included a big power surge that took out several other devices too and I needed to run a system repair on the workstation before it would boot up).

I had to use my backup TVS which was being fed the program out from my ATEM 1ME and a laptop. Just so happened another colleague had a Verizon 4G MIFI. We connected my laptop using that hotspot and the uplink bandwidth was over 6mbps. What's more the new livestream producer software showed the TVSs h.264 output over USB 2 as a certified input to its encoder. Within 5 minutes we had a truly stable stream from the TVS.

We used that stream for the next couple of hours until we had a break in the show and could reconfigure all my gear to new ip settings after their main Internet routers were reconfigured. My workstation with the intensity pro card then took over the streaming for the rest of the day.

So... The moral of this story is that I can highly recommend using a 4G modem and the TVS or Prorecorder to get your video streamed via livestream.

I've used an AT&T wireless card into a macbook pro. Using the ATEM 1 M/E's standard def output into either my Canopus ADVC-100 or my Sony DV tape deck via firewire and have streamed fine. I stream to gofightlive with FLME. Typically have about 48 dropped frames over 5 hours as long as wireless signal is 1MB. Only issues I've had was when I tried this in WV. The 4G signal just isn't set up in some states or areas.

Depends a bit on your budget. The best of class 4G stuff that I have worked on is the Teradek Bond. It takes multiple 3G/4G modems and bonds them together for 1 video. That means you can have one carrier blip or hiccup without taking your livestream down. It also means that you can combine the best off each carrier to help ensure a smooth production.

This piece of mind comes at a price though. $2,500 for the Bond box alone and you'll need a Cube to plug it in to (you can't just plug it in to any device, it must come from a Cube). Nevertheless, with a system like this you should have a pretty stable connection to a streaming service provider like Livestream.

If that's not an option, the Verizon 4G network is very, very good. Hands down better than any I have played with elsewhere. Coverage and performance varies based on region though, so check your providers locally and test, test, test and then test some more!

Thanks,

Benjamin