Review: Teradek VidiU Mini

Setting Network Settings

You should get the network setup first, because you can’t connect to your service provider without connectivity. As mentioned at the beginning of this review, I came prepared to broadcast via my iPhone, but I ran some comparable Speedtest runs with my 4G and the Rex’s Wi-Fi, and found the latter much faster.

Though I had run the same tests a few days before during the workday, as you know, results will vary based upon time of day and day of week, particularly because both resources were shared; the 4G with other Verizon subscribers, and the Wi-Fi with Galax city employees. Not surprisingly, at Friday night at 8:00 PM, there were more Verizon users on the network than Galax City employees on the city network, so Wi-Fi proved much faster, though neither came close to matching the 5 Mbps I was hoping for.

Let me give my standard speech: Shared connections are anathema to live-event producers, and should only be used as a last resort. You simply never know when another user will come in and steal your bandwidth. In the Rex’s favor, the Wi-Fi password is not shared with the audience, so even though the connection is technically shared, I’m pretty convinced that there were few, if any, other users during the event. I should also say that I prefer a wired connection over wireless, but an Ethernet cable was not available and the VidiU didn’t have an Ethernet port. So it was Wi-Fi or 4G, and that was that.

OK, lecture over, back to the narrative. When you click Wireless in the VidiU Settings screen (Figure 5), you’re taken to Network screen shown in Figure 6 (below).

Figure 6. The VidiU app Network screen

Click Wireless to setup the Wi-Fi connection, which takes you to a standard Wi-Fi selection and configuration screen (Figure 7, below). I’m writing this from my office after the event, which is why that network is shown.

Figure 7. Choosing and configuring the Wi-Fi connection

Prior to the event, I tested the 4G setup in my office to make sure that would work. Rather than describing that for you, I’ll point you towards a useful Teradek tutorial that we’ve embedded below.

VidiU Mini Live Link from Teradek on Vimeo.

Choosing and Configuring the Service

Once you have connectivity, you can choose and configure the service. Click Broadcast in Figure 5, and you’re taken to a screen with two buttons: one for Quality, the other for Platform. Choose the platform first.

Once you click the Platform button, you’re taken to the screen shown in Figure 8 (below), which contains a number of presets, with Wowza Media Server accessible by scrolling down. With any of these platforms, you sign in with your username and password. With the Manual selection, you have to enter the server URL and stream name directly, as well as any username and password, if required. You can save these manual entries as profiles, so you should have to enter them only once.

Figure 8. The available platforms, with manual available for non-listed platforms

Once you’re logged in, you’ll have to select a channel, or event, or whatever way the platform differentiates between the various events you’ve configured into the system. With Ustream, that’s by channel, and my account has two, one for the Streaming Learning Center, the other for concert (Figure 9, below). I choose the concert channel, which the system applies, and then takes you back to the Settings Screen (Figure 5).

Figure 9. Choosing the right Ustream channel

Click Broadcast > Quality to get to the screen shown in Figure 10 (below).

Figure 10. Choosing the quality level

If you click Suggest Quality at the bottom, the unit will run a bandwidth test and suggest which quality you should use. After running that, the VidiU suggested HD, which is what I punched in for the concert. Then I clicked apply, and clicked back to the main control screen shown in Figure 4. Click the round green button below the preview, and you start the stream. Click the Stats button on the lower right, and you’ll see the bandwidth graph shown in Figure 11 (below).

Figure 11. The bandwidth pushed during the event