Like a Mighty Stream: Webcasting Rock Shows with Ryan Bodie Films

Webcasting With TriCaster

The other key piece of equipment in the Studio 26 live webcasting arsenal is—surprise, surprise—the NewTek TriCaster Studio. Somewhat surprising is that the TriCaster model Bodie owns does not support HD output, but he says 7 out of 10 shows he produces are not streamed in HD.

As for HD models such as the TriCaster 300 and 850, Bodie says, "I rent them probably about four or five times a year and they're amazing, I love them. The 300 will do an HD and an SD stream and both record those streams with the clean output or with the program out simultaneously and separate. All my gear is compatible with them, and running the show is the same except for the HD output. I have a client coming up that wants the HD, so I'll rent the 850 or the 300 for their gig."

Usually Bodie will generate all graphics and titles with the TriCaster, although on larger shows with significant IMAG components, he'll use an additional computer for CG and text. "We do a couple of big events a year where we'll have 3 20-foot screens and each screen will have the same or different images on them-sometimes text, sometimes video, sometimes a satellite feed from somewhere else in the world. And we'll also be sending up our signal somewhere else in the world. And so with stuff like that it's just when you go to do the text, I'll just have another computer actually running the graphics, but it still comes through my system real clean."

Crewing events is a lot like streaming in SD or HD—it depends on the client and their budget, and the tendency is often to go smaller in the tough economy. "Typically we run our live events with at least two people, but for the most part I like to have three. And then what I'll do to save the client some money is if we need that fourth, fifth, or sixth person, a lot of times I'll have the client supply them because they might have somebody that would cost them less than it costs me. And I'm not looking to make money off of every single person I have there. Once we have our set base of what we're charging, my sole focus is how to make this look the absolute best it can within that budget. And so if they can bring in people that I don't have to pay I'll use them. They can be my cable pullers. They can run my IMAG that comes in to me from outside, or they can control basically the Extron, which will send the signal to the three different screens. And they'll be on headsets. We'll be directing them, but those are pretty simple tasks. They just require a person to be there to do them."

Getting Audio Right

Another key issue for Bodie, as for any webcaster who does a lot of work with concert events, is getting audio right. "If it's a music gig," Bodie says, "we push to have our own audio guy come in and take their board and take submixes out of their board so that we have full control over all of the audio going to the live stream."

Part of the reason having your own audio tech is so important, Bodie says, is that there can be a world of difference between a mix that sounds good in a live venue and a mix that works in a webcast. "What happens is, when you're mixing for a room there's a lot of variables involved. There's acoustics and links and how many people are in the room. A lot of times, when you mix for a room, you have to bring up the vocals a little bit and you might bring down the instruments a little bit in order to get a good mix.

"The problem is," Bodie continues, "if you take that mix and stick it on a CD or out on to the Internet, the vocals are super-loud, and the music isn't as loud, because you don't have that room ambience happening any more. So the vocals are loud. It makes it sound uninteresting and unprofessional. So when we do stuff like that we like to bring our own audio guy. We'll take some mix out of every one of their channels, run it into his, mix it like he's recording for a CD instead of an in-house event, and send that feed to me."