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Video Production > Featured Articles

Today's streaming productions scale from impromptu online broadcasts captured via webcam and delivered within a corporate firewall to massive professional multicam productions streamed worldwide. With tutorials,  reviews, and analysis from leading producers, the content on this page looks at preproduction, audio and video capture, encoding, and especially the gear and strategies essential for successful streaming.

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Review: Blackmagic Design ATEM Television Studio HD8 ISO, Studio Camera 6K Pro, and ATEM Microphone Converter

The Blackmagic Design Television Studio ATEM HD8 ($2,995) and HD8 ISO ($3,995) are all-in-one HD video switcher/broadcast control panels. On their own they are very capable HD video switchers suitable for studio installations and remote productions. The magic with these switchers is that when paired with other supported Blackmagic gear, they can unlock unique production workflow solutions that are easy to implement and go well beyond what you would expect a desktop video switcher to be able to do on its own.

Review: Magewell USB Fusion

The USB Fusion is a device that can be used in a production environment for local content feeds/sources. It can be used to input various sources such as HDMI devices, webcams, USB microphones, videos, images, screenshares, and other items. The USB Fusion is touted as a tool to make your online lectures and virtual events more engaging and to easily combine numerous sources into attractive live presentations for remote education, webinars, live streaming, and video conferencing.

Review: Skyglass: Movie Effects Camera App

Want to generate and produce videos in dynamic, detailed, and customizable virtual environments using nothing but the built-in video capabilities of your smartphone plus a single subscription-service app? Skyglass Movie Effects Camera App makes it possible, and IEBA Communications' Anthony Burokas explains how.

A Broadcaster’s Cloud Migration Primer

This article offers a primer on how a traditional broadcaster could start to move services to a cloud provider.

Review: GoPro Hero11 Black

Well-known as an action camera for capturing on-the-go video, the GoPro is popular with those involved in sports, underwater activities, capturing va­ca­tion footage, and a host of other use cases. However, the GoPro Hero11 Black can also serve as a high-quality webcam for meetings or online conferences using web applications like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and GoTo Meeting, and it can be deployed in production streaming workflows for YouTubers and video podcasters.

Streaming Media’s Trendsetting Products and Services of 2023

A detailed guide to Streaming Media's Trendsetting Products and Services of 2023.

Buyers' Guide: PTZ Cameras

Today's professional PTZ cameras are nothing like their security camera predecessors. Now you can find models with all the professional features, technology, and hardware that you find on professional camcorders and digital cine cameras. In this PTZ buyers guide, I'll explain many of these features so you can make informed decisions when evaluating PTZ cameras in your own video production workflows.

Buyers’ Guide: Cellular Bonding Solutions

Thanks to bonding and some of the other technologies discussed in this guide, the days of sending glitchy, buffering video to viewers should be behind us. Read on to learn about the many options available, at a wide variety of price points, to ensure that streaming professionals can deliver the best video possible.

The State of Education Video

Video's role in schools is taken for granted entering 2023, although we should expect to see changes, potentially disruptive, in the educational video market as schools continue to adapt to the aftermath of the COVID-19 state of emergency phase. Despite the widely held belief that video is essential to school operations, expect to see schools roll back their investments in video services, while educators seek out ways to go beyond the basics of video delivery, finding better ways to engage students both with synchronous and asynchronous video.

Buyers' Guide: Wireless Microphones

If issues arise with the video you capture, high-quality audio will go a long way to compensate for it. Viewers will often tolerate subpar video, but no one in the world will watch video with absent or poor audio. My advice to any streaming producer is to get the best audio setup you can afford for your video rig. It's always worth the investment.

Buyers’ Guide: Podcast Mixers for Live Streaming Production

Today's video producers are now able to leverage new technologies that can really help with the live streaming production—especially on-location. By utilizing what are commonly called "podcast mixers," streaming producers can deliver a bit more polish, while also gaining better flexibility in production.

Review: Videon EdgeCaster EZ (w/ LiveEdge Core 8.5)

This review will highlight Videon's EdgeCaster video encoding appliance and explore its unique LiveEdge Compute technology for encoding and delivery, as well as how it works with popular video streaming platforms. I'll also discuss why many video production and remote production teams will likely move to a tool such as this in the future for streaming delivery.

Lessons Learned: What the Pandemic Taught Us About Remote Teaching

Although failing to enter the popular lexicon as of yet, the term "emergency remote teaching" (ERT) is intended to avoid conflating what we'd now call "traditional" online education with the improvised adaptation of face-to-face lesson plans and classroom experiences to the synchronous videoconferen­c­ing platform available to any given school dur­ing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Review: Blackmagic Design ATEM SDI Extreme ISO and ATEM Mini Extreme ISO

Blackmagic has set a new standard for an affordable and professional all-in-one HD video switcher, and the biggest consideration is which model fits your workflows.

Review: Telestream Wirecast Gear 3

The newly released Wirecast Gear 3 combines a change from Intel to AMD CPUs and a rearchitected software engine that Telestream claims "uses up to 60% less computer resources than previous versions." In this review, I tested the new version of hardware and software to its limits and came away very impressed.

Review: Canon N500 PTZ Camera

At $5,399, the Canon N500 is a bargain compared to other 1" sensor PTZ video cameras. Featuring 4K/30P and NDI|HX2 support, it has a long 15x optical zoom lens and dual XLR audio inputs, and supports the low-power POE+ standard.

The 2022 Streaming Media 50: The 50 Tech Companies That Matter Most in Online Video

Welcome to the 2022 Streaming Media 50, our annual list that foregrounds the industry's most innovative and influential technology suppliers, service providers, and platforms, as acclaimed by our editorial team. Some are large and established industry standard-bearers, while others are comparably small and relatively new arrivals that are just beginning to make a splash. All set themselves apart from the crowd with their innovative approach and their commitment to serve the customer and advance the industry. It's the fifth year we've capped the list at 50 companies.

Event Stream Team's Jimmy Reid Discusses Live Production with a Customized Blackmagic Kit

Jimmy Reid of Event Stream Team talks with Streaming Media's Tyler Nesler about his company's improvement in live production performance thanks to their upgrade to a customized Blackmagic ATEM 2 M/E Constellation HD live production switcher kit and their transition to the Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve Studio 18 editing, grading, visual effect (VFX) and audio postproduction cloud-based software.

The 2022 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards Finalists

More than 1,600 readers voted in 22 categories. We'll announce the winners at Streaming Media West in Huntington Beach on November 16, but here's a tease—the top three vote-getters in each category. And you just might be surprised at the names you see.

Tutorial: Publishing HDR Video to YouTube

In this tutorial, I'll show you how to publish HDR videos from your iPhone to YouTube, with an intermediate step through Adobe Premiere Pro.