Corporate Live Streaming: Getting Started

Hi all,

Hoping to harness the collective genius of everyone here to help me think through a setup for live streaming corporate training events. All of the training we have done to date have been pre-recorded so we are essentially starting from scratch in terms of hardware and software. I have used BMD switchers before but have not built my own setup before. I have been impressed with BMD so I would like to use their products if it makes sense.

For some background, we would like to use a 2-camera setup (currently have Canon DSLRs but want to use a different camera to save the DSLR's sensors since these will be 1-2 hour events. Open to suggestions). These will be broadcast to up to 1500 employees and clients about once a month starting in 2019. I would like the ability to live switch between the 2 cameras, a PowerPoint, and pre-recorded video. I would also want to record these trainings for later distribution.

I'm sure this has been done before so I'm attempting to avoid reinventing the wheel. Thanks in advance for your collective assistance and let me know what additional information would be helpful in order to provide a workflow recommendation. Thanks!

You can stick with a BMD workflow up to a point.
ie. An atem switching micro studio cams recording on to a hyperdeck / hyperdeck mini

Where you need to look elsewhere is in the streaming, and PowerPoint capture.
You could use a pc to stream with ur feed grabbed by a BM capture card, maybe even a webpresenter ( but IMO it lacks functionality,, tops out at 720 and doesn't seem to be overly reliable) I much prefer dedicated hardware
like teradek or vidiu.

Power point capture, if you can get a feed from the presenters pc you can make use of a decimator MD-HX to send an hdmi feed to the projector and a scaled feed over SDI back to ur Atem. The MD-HX is the goto scaler of choice used by many. If not get a copy of the PP and run it on another pc local to the Atem and mirror the presenters movements in switching slides. You'll also need to consider composition. Do you want PiP showing the presenter and the slides on screen together Atem's upto and including the 1me have only a very basic pip capability, the 2me / 4me has better abilities here using multi source, but if you want more with the lower spec Atem's you'll need to look at an external multiviewer to get the composition you want, some of which will cost more than the atem itself.

You'll also need playout software as the Atem can't handle 'true' video in its media players... but that's way beyond a few lines here. It could be a simple laptop running VLC with its hdmi out connected to the Atem, Casper CG outputting to a BMD playout card or anything beyond costing 1000s to acheive ur goals.

Anyways a few things to think over / plan out.

A.

Would I be able to output the main program signal from my ATEM HD switcher to the UltraStudio mini recorder and then into my laptop to stream my multi-cam setup through fb and youtube? I don't want to get the web presenter as from what I know the ultra mini recorder is the same thing just less inputs and would save quite a bit

BM would be a fine platform to build your live streaming production on. Lots of options for live switching depending on the overall requirements of your project.

Given the number of video sources, the BM Television Studio, Television Studio Pro, and Television Studio Pro 4k could all be good solutions for you. The TV Studio and Studio Pro both have 4 HDMI and 4 SDI inputs, which may be more advantageous depending on the output ports on your cameras. PowerPoint can easily be integrated from either a PC or Mac laptop, and then routed to an external projector or display using the AUX output port and using an inexpensive SDI to HDMI converter (assuming that your projector supports the video resolution that you're switching in). The TV Studio Pro 4k forgoes the 4 HDMI input ports for 4 SDI input ports (providing a total of 8 SDI input ports), but adds standards conversion on each port (meaning the you don't need a Decimator to standards convert your input source to your broadcast standard) and a much more advanced Fairlight-based audio control panel. All three of these vision mixers support PiP, but they do not have BM's 'Supersource' feature which would allow up to 4 video sources to be configured and displayed on-screen at the same time (this feature is only supported in the 2 M/E and 4 M/E vision mixers).

Playback and integration of video sources and be done using a laptop and a variety of software applications, such as OnTheAir Video / OnTheAir Video Express from Softron, PlayBack Pro from DT Video Labs (though personally I'm not a fan), Pro Video Server from Renewed Vision, and many others. These solutions provide a variety of options (such as auto-queueing next videos, auto-starting video playback when the video input is selected, etc.), and may require additional hardware to integrate (such as a BM decklink card and PCI expansion chassis).

Would I be able to output the main program signal from my ATEM HD switcher to the UltraStudio mini recorder and then into my laptop to stream my multi-cam setup through fb and youtube? I don't want to get the web presenter as from what I know the ultra mini recorder is the same thing just less inputs and would save quite a bit

Yes, providing the streaming software can 'see' the USMR as a source.
OBS, Wirecast, vMix should enable you to do that.

Ps. web presenter is a good idea in concept, just a shame it won't work pass 720p Res. and still very buggy in use.
If you need a USB capture device, IMO magewell and Aja solutions work great, get recognised as uvc compliant and give good results with many streaming and recording software.
Although my personal preference is always to use hardware devices in these roles

Hello!

I've also come into the world of Blackmagic recently at my job. We also do training videos and live events from our studio. Currently, we have the ATEM Television Studio HD and 2 Canon 5D Mark III, and 2 Canon XF cameras. (All at 1080i 59.94)

We run our PC to the switcher as a camera source and extend our desktop to that screen (Just have to match the resolution and frame rate to the ATEM). We're able to play video and share powerpoints on that source and broadcast that out.

For streaming, we use Go To Webinar but I'm sure any platform would work. We go from the SDI Program out to an SDI to HDMI BMD mini converter, then from HDMI to USB 3.0 via another converter. The computer we stream out with recognizes that as a camera/webcam source and keeps the resolution.

We are looking into the UltraStudio Mini Recorder as a way to record onto our computer through Adobe Premiere. (We'd prefer not to use Media Express since it's crashed on us in the past)

I'm new to this too so if you need/want to bounce ideas off me, I'm more than happy to share our set up and see what I can do to help!

Here are some things I've used and learned in the past, and what I'm using now.

In my experience, it's always better to use stand-alone products to stream or record rather than using a computer with software. With a computer, there always seems to be something that slows it down. Screen savers, other programs running, failure to reboot, automatic updates, etc.

If you can afford it... For recording I've had great success with the BMD Hyperdeck Studio mini and the BMD UpDownCross converter. I use the UpDownCross to convert to 1080p and record H.264 on the Hyperdeck mini. Saves a lot of hard drive space.

A cheaper solution is a stand-alone game recorder like this Hauppauge HD PVR Rocket Portable HD Game Recorder. $128. Records on USB stick. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... ocket.html
I input an HDMI signal from my ATEM switcher (converted SDI-HDMI) and it records audio and video. I set up the PVR first with my Windows machine and set the record data rate and anything else needed in the Hauppauge software. Then after that, it's a stand-alone recorder powered by USB. A cheap solution that's been very reliable for us. I use it at our church to record the sermon only for upload to Vimeo as an archive. We stream our entire service, but I only record/archive the sermon.

I do record a clean feed of the entire service with an AJA card on an old MacPro. I use this video for any internal needs like year end videos, or if I need to re-edit a service for some reason. The AJA Kona LHI card records to an internal RAID. I've had a lot of problems with dropped frames even with the RAID. I'm recording to a ProRes Proxy and each service consumes about 40gb even at the proxy setting. I wish the Hyperdeck Mini was around when we purchased this system in 2010.

For streaming we've previously used OBS or Wirecast through our iMac. We had a lot of problems because we needed to use the iMac for other things too. We ended up going with the stand-alone Teradek VidiuPro. It also records H264. A bit pricey ($995) but we've never regretted it. Hooks directly to our network with an ethernet cable, we start the stream from a browser.

As far as streaming destinations I've gone direct to YouTube, Facebook, Ustream. I've also used Restream.io. I send the stream to them and they push it out to up to 30 platforms (if you set them all up). It's mostly free to the main destinations like YouTube, Twitch. They charge extra for Facebook or any custom RTMP that they don't provide. They also charge for transcoding your original stream. So if you are streaming in 1080 and want to go to Periscope, then you have to transcode that to 720. Or send your entire stream to them in 720 and every platform gets 720 (if they support it). I hate to have 1080 available and then knock it down to 720 but you have to ask yourself, "is it that noticeable to the end user?" What are your streaming goals?

For live titles and lower thirds we use a laptop with PowerPoint and the SimpleSupers.com app. This has been a great inexpensive addition. We are able to key all of our worship lyrics on the live stream, as well as the sermon lower thirds and split screens that we build just before our service. Animated lower thirds for names and other shimmers are retained and look great. The setup is an ASUS ROG laptop. I send 2 display outputs to HDMI to SDI converters, then input both of those in the ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4k. This gives me key (alpha channel generated by the SimpleSupers app) and fill that I key using the DSK on the ATEM. I play my intros and outros (with audio) for the Vimeo archive out of my PowerPoint file. This same file also contains my lower thirds and lyric graphics. Easy to change and adjust on the fly.

I also built my own tally light system using RJ45 surface mount boxes with red LED lights. I ran cat 5 cables to each camera location along with my sdi home runs. I've done this for 3 clients and it works extremely well.

Happy Streaming,
kc