Test Everything: Lessons Learned from Live Video Production

If you're ready to move from on-demand video content to live video, you're entering a whole different arena, one full of new pitfalls and problems.

At the recent Streaming Media East conference in New York City, a panel of live production experts offered tips from their years of experience. The importance of testing, for example, can't be overstated.

"Test your bandwidth. Very, very important," offered Andrew Lipson, vice president of operations for Synaptic Digital.

"Test everything," asserted Mitch Jacobson, the author of Mastering MultiCamera Techniques. Do a dry run ahead of time and work out the bugs, he said.

Returning to bandwidth, Lipson told how problems could creep in at the last minute if bandwidth wasn't planned out carefully.

"Dedicated bandwidth is really, really important. It's one thing to say 'We can give you a T1 line' or 'You can get on our connectivity, it's all great.' It's not great once the rest of the people start using the network," Lipson said. "Make sure that you try to at least partition your bandwidth or make sure that you're testing at the same time you're going to broadcast so you know what the real-world environment is going to be before you hit Stream."

Is 4G wireless strong enough for live video streaming?, a member of the audience asked.

"It actually can work pretty well. You just have to make sure you're not trying to go with 500kb or higher if you're trying to do it over a 4G," Lipson said.

Jacobson wouldn't make 4G his first choice, but said that it's an acceptable fallback: "Mostly I use it as a backup," he said. "It's in my bag of tricks in case something may go wrong with the hard line. It's nice to have some of these options like the Teradek Cube or 4G just in case."

For much more advice on streaming live video, watch the full session below.

Troy Dreier's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net