Streamline Your Portable Streaming System, Part 3: Switchers, Streaming Appliances, and Portable Encoders

Roland VR-50HD

Mobeon has also produced successful event streams using the Roland VR-50HD (Figure 5, below). True to its “all-in-one” billing, this unit can handle just about anything that you throw at it. It takes HD-SDI. It takes RGB and HDMI. It has a scaler built in. It also has an audio mixer as well. It has a touchscreen, so you don't necessarily have to bring a monitor with you when you're taking it to events. Also, the touch interface is just quite versatile. You can do a lot of events with it.

Figure 5. Roland VR-50HD

One thing the VR-50HD doesn't have is a streaming encoder. Again, my go-to encoder in most situations is the Mac Mini. Basically, we interface the VR-50HD with the Mac Mini and we have a versatile streaming system. We used the Roland VR-50HDs to switch all the sessions at Streaming Media West 2014.
The late-2012 Mac Mini (Figure 6, below) is my go-to encoding system, with Wirecast installed, because it has a quad-core chip. Apple cut the newer models at the knees by putting only dual-core chips into the newer models. Also the processors in the post-2012 models aren't up to par streaming capability, and they’re not expandable.

Figure 6. Mobeon’s go-to encoding system, the late-2012 model Mac Mini

If you can find a late-2012 Mac Mini, I recommend purchasing it for your streaming kit. Get the highest processing speed you can--I recommend 2.6gHz and above, quad-core, with maximum RAM. We stream 1080p out of our Mac Minis with no problems. We run these units nonstop, 24/7, for weeks at a time.

Teradek

Another device that I recommend adding to your kit is the Teradek Cube (Figure 7, below). They’ve proven to be rock-solid video encoders for events where we’ve used them. The minor drawback to these units is setup time. Depending on how your event is structured and how much prep time you have on site, you may find that you don’t have enough time to configure these units via software that you have to download through a computer. Also, you may have to configure it for a particular CDN, or for some events you’ll have to go in make those changes manually.

Figure 7. Teradek Cube

Teradek also offers the VidiU (Figure 8, below), which makes it possible to stream an event without a hardwired Ethernet connection. The VidiU connects via HDMI, and you can configure it with a single 4GLTE card and stream to various platforms like Livestream, Ustream, RTMP, and so forth.

Figure 8. Teradek VidiU

Another solution Teradek offers is the Bond (Figure 9, below), which combines the encoder and the bonding equipment in a single box. This allows you to take 6 USB cell modems and connect them, and then also bond that to send to another server. Generally, this interface is what they call a Sputnik server, and from there on it streams out to a CDN. It combines all the different 4G connections and provides a single solution to stream from.

Figure 9. Teradek Bond

Though the Bond has worked well for us in some situations, there are some drawbacks. In a lot of instances the cell reception that you’re relying on to stream isn't that great. Also, anything that's wireless or cellular-based is prone to interference, and that's something that you have to mitigate and be aware of before you stream at an event. That said, most of the time these Teradek solutions are rock-solid performers, especially in those situations where you don't have the Internet connection.