The Last 24: Preparing and Troubleshooting for Successful Live-Streamed Events
The last 24 hours before any live-streamed event are probably more stressful than the event itself. We asked a range of experienced live event producers what they focused on during the last 24 hours, and to share some practices and techniques that allowed them to avoid, or workaround, problems that would otherwise derail an event.
SMP: How many streams are you outputting, and in what formats?
Feldman: We send the single 720p stream to Verizon (Edgecast), who converts it to HLS for iOS and Android. We have experimented with adaptive bitrate but haven’t implemented it because we’re not sure how much value it adds in our environment. At 1.5Mbps we think our live streams look great (our customers agree) and we get almost no complaints related to bandwidth.
SMP: What are your biggest “game day” concerns?
Feldman: On an average day, we have three or four webcasts. As non-technical as this is, our biggest concern is traffic and getting to the venue. All of our technicians drive new vehicles and are as connected as possible to navigate around traffic problems, but sometimes it can be very stressful. Weather is also an issue sometimes, so we have to plan around that as well.
SMP: What’s been your closest call so far?
Feldman: We have had some close calls but all of the planning and workflow refinements pay off in times of trouble. One policy is that we don’t try to troubleshoot anything prior to a live Webcast. If any part of the process fails, we go straight to our backup. In most cases we can switch any part of our solution in under a minute, most in under 30 seconds.
The single point of failure we live with is the internet connection at the venue; thankfully internet access has improved tremendously and we rarely have problems. But, last year we had a very high-profile webcast at a 5-star hotel in Washington DC and 15 minutes before showtime the internet disappears. A backhoe in the parking lot is all it took. We had around 300 attorneys watching worldwide so we knew it was not going to be a silent crowd. We checked our phone, and found full strength 4G service, so we tethered it to our backup quad laptop and we’re streaming at 800Kbps in just a few minutes. Not something I would count on, but it was a miracle this time.
Corey Behnke; Live X
Last 24 Hours: Pulling all the Pieces Together
Live X is a full-service design, production, and broadcast company based in New York City. Corey Behnke is a producer and co-founder. Corey recently served as director and technical producer for the University of Michigan, Signing of the Stars event (Figure 3, below), where football coach Jim Harbaugh, and guests like Tom Brady introduced the university’s sixth-rated signing class to 3,500 attendees at the event, and more than 200,000 viewers on YouTube (live and VOD) and Derek Jeter’s The Players’ Tribune website.
Figure 3. Corey Behnke calling the cameras at University of Michigan’s recent Signing of the Stars.
SMP: Give us a brief description of the Signing of the Stars event.
Behnke: The event involved multiple celebrities onstage, with some recruits present at the event, and some brought in via Skype. The format was part talk show, part recruiting analysis. Coach Harbaugh and his guests announced each recruit, followed by a highlight film, and a discussion of their strengths and weaknesses by ESPN analysts Lou Holtz and Todd McShay, and former NFL head coach Mike Shanahan.
SMP: What was your role?
Behnke: Live X was in charge of all the technical aspects of the production for our client Spacestation. Technical producer for broadcast is responsible for workflow, end-to-end, overseeing lighting, production design execution, audio, video, ingest, GFX, transmission, and screens. Once those elements were in place I actually called cameras live for the show.
SMP: Tell us about the technology that you used.
Behnke: It was a six-camera show, with one Steadicam rig, and a Reidel STX-200 Skype box, which inputs the Skype feed and outputs SDI which we input into a Sony MVS Switcher. Another cool add-on was a Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera with Lensbaby ultrawide positioned on the third floor of the theater and transmitted back to the mixer via a Teradek Bolt 600. We sent the mixer output to the University’s broadcast control room via fiber, and The Players Tribune team encoded for YouTube Live and embedded on The Players’ Tribune website.
SMP: What did you focus on the last 24 hours?
Behnke: Well, on load-in day, the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the building for almost 90 minutes. We ended up losing over 2 hours of rehearsal. What saved us was having a veteran team of people in the core seats, but we still had a lot to pull together.
During the last 24 hours we confirmed the script, finalized the run of show (ROS), printed the rundown, and spent two hours of rehearsal with the talent who were available. We rehearsed the open a couple times to get loose, started the recording, confirmed end-to-end stream, and waited for the show to begin. Overall, the show when great, with tons of news coverage and great reviews. Perhaps the best review came from Coach Harbaugh, who said in ESPN, "We wanted to do something different. We wanted to do something awesome. I think today did that. It was awesome with a capital A."