Tutorial: Boosting Your Streaming Signal with the Teradek VidiU Pro via ShareLink

In this tutorial, we’ll look at a solution to a problem shared by many live event producers. When Ethernet and WiFi aren't available, how do you get a high-quality signal from your encoder to your streaming server? The solution: the Teradek VidiU Pro, featuring a new service from Teradek called ShareLink.

Teradek VidiU Pro (Figure 1, below) is the latest encoder in the VidiU series, and the first to offer cellular bonding technology usually reserved for much higher-end and more expensive units for reliability and performance.

Figure 1. The Teradek VidiU Pro

It’s got inputs for HDMI audio and video, stereo audio, and a headphone jack for monitoring (Figure 2, below).

Figure 2. Inputs on the rear of the VidiU Pro

You drive the unit via controls on the panel, or via the VidiU app for Android and iOS, which you can see in Figure 3 (below).

Figure 3. The VidiU app for iOS

Streaming with Sharelink

The unit can transmit to a number of integrated services, like Ustream, YouTube Live, and Wowza (Figure 4, below), or you can manually enter the necessary addresses and credentials to connect to any RTMP server.

Figure 4. Built-in streaming services support

VidiU Pro can connect to the internet via Ethernet, WiFi, a USB modem, or using the bandwidth from your mobile phone, or it can use several of these sources via ShareLink (Figure 5, below).

Figure 5. Click the ShareLink option to combine your signal sources.

When one source isn’t sufficient to get you the bandwidth you need to get a high-quality stream onto the web, ShareLink lets you combine the bandwidth of up to four iPhones, in addition to Ethernet and a separate cable modem. With most 4G services, this should boost the combined bandwidth to levels sufficient to carry a full-resolution 1080p signal.