Red Productions running a livestream with Cancer Care Services.
Livestreaming is everything these days with the COVID-19 pandemic keeping everyone at a distance. If you’re a business owner, there’s a decent chance you’ve tried to livestream an event yourself. And for those of us who’ve never done it before, we quickly learned — it is not easy.
Thankfully, the professionals at Red Productions — who’ve done quite a few of these over the past few months, including the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce’s annual meeting — are dropping a few tips for upping the quality of our livestreams.
Determine the best platform for your audience. If it’s to be public facing, the easiest and most accessible platforms for live video are Facebook and YouTube. If you have multiple remote locations that you want to be able to cut to in the livestream, then consider a platform like streamyard.com or vmix.com, which offer a lot more control to the host, including the ability to add graphics and premade playback videos.
For the highest quality, try to avoid streaming over WiFi. Ideally use a computer that has an ethernet port plugged into your WiFi router. If you’re on a laptop, you can buy a USB-to-ethernet adaptor on Amazon for $15 to add that port option to your laptop. If WiFi is your only option, then try to set up near the router and ask others on the same WiFi network to limit their data use during your stream.
Set up the camera for optimal lighting. Avoid windows directly behind your subject, and ensure the background meets the tone you’re going for. Arrange some sort of lighting on the subject’s face, which will help increase the quality since web cameras typically do not do well in low light.
For audio, a pair of Bluetooth headphones like Apple’s AirPods are fantastic. They get the mic near your mouth and help cancel out background noise.
Test, test, test. Then test again. Take your stream fully live on a hidden or nonpromoted page. If it’s your first livestream on a YouTube channel, then YouTube requires 24 hours before you can start streaming, so request that permission from YouTube 24 hours before you want to test. When testing, have someone on a separate computer pull up the feed and ensure that the camera angle and lighting look good and that audio is coming through clearly.
Create some type of a countdown or download a templated countdown video file that you can play 5 – 10 minutes before your scheduled live time. This allows users to log on early and ensures they have everything all set for your start.
Do not playback or embed music from songs you don’t have proper rights on. Many streaming sites have automated systems in place that will detect this and shut your feed down.
Or, just hire a professional. Of course, if people don’t want to do all of this on their own, we’d be happy to work up an estimate for them at no cost through Red Productions. Or they can use our sister company, Backlot Studio, to shoot their own livestream with their own gear or rent ours.