tech.faħmu.net

Folks have asked how we did our wedding stream. Well, I’ll tell you.

(More pictures on Flickr)

First, here are the raw ingredients:

1. Something to stream.
   • I used a yellow rubber duck as a test subject. The ultimate goal, of course, was to stream a wedding.
   
2. A way to get video into the system:
   • For testing, I connected a DV Camcorder directly into my Mac.
   • For the actual wedding, we used a wired feed from the church’s existing remote camera/switcher into a Canopus AVDC-100, a slightly older but high quality S-VIDEO to DV (firewire/i1394) capture device.
   • One could use a USB (or firewire) webcam also, but beware of distracting autofocus.
3. A way to get audio into the system:
   • Ideally, you would use the audio component of the video input. The Canopus box, for example, supports locked audio, where the audio is synchronized exactly to the video in the firewire stream.
   • If you are using a DV camcorder (or USB/firewire webcam) it may have its own audio source.
   • However, there was/is a bug where Flash for Mac couldn’t handle DV audio without crashing. So, I ended up using the “Audio In” input on the mac, and later a separate USB Microphone, to work around this. And, in the case of the USB Microphone, to provide better audio input for a mobile/handheld operation.
4. A service (server) to stream the video.
   • I used ustream.tv – it worked quite well, and in the free mode shows only minimal ads. There are probably other services out there.
5. Don’t forget a network connection!
   • I used the church’s ethernet connection in these two cases (including our own wedding).
   • I used my verizon EVDO modem as a back-up.

Now, let me give some recommendations.

#1 Have an outside contact. Find someone who is willing to be online during the rehearsal and wedding, and (if applicable) to be the “moderator” for the live chat.

#2 Test, test, test. This one bears repeating. Test at home with a rubber duck. Test early on the day of the rehearsal (by streaming to someone actually , to see if it works at all or if you need to run out to Radio Shack for the elusive “one more connector”. Test by streaming the entire rehearsal to someone (not everyone!!). Start the stream early at the wedding, to see if everything’s working.

#3 Check your bandwidth and connectivity. Make sure to test throughput, and be aware of bandwidth/transfer limitations on your plan or device. One friend’s wedding I wasn’t able to stream because even though there was a connection through either Verizon and AT&T modems, but the available bandwidth to the server wasn’t enough to support streaming. So, it was a wedding that wasn’t streamed live. Some of this you won’t know until you get to the site.

If your streaming service lets you make choices on video/audio bandwidth vs quality, you might tune those for yourself and your viewers. Decide your tradeoffs for audio vs video. Don’t send more data than your stream/service provider can handle. Don’t send more data than is comfortable for your viewers ( on cable, DSL, dial-up, …??).   

#4 Consider audio quality. If you can get a feed from the sound mixing board, that’s going to give better sound than through a camera microphone, but you need to make sure the input level is good- not too high to overdrive, not too low to be inaudible.

#5 Decide who the audience is. Are you going to stream for a few friends? For anyone who happens by? Are you going to post the stream on the web such as on a blog post? If so, does the video player embed properly?

#6 Only have a public online chat if someone will moderate. Don’t let the wedding stream turn into a free-for-all if it has public access.

#7 Have backup plans. If possible, have a couple of ways to get online, maybe a couple of different computers to use.

#8 Enjoy the wedding! You’re at a wedding! It might be more important to sing along with the hymns and watch the bride’s entrance, than to check on the latest viewer stats. If it’s important, get someone off-site to be the “concierge”, hosting the chat, fielding technical questions, etc. It might be good to have a non-family member non-friend actually running the stream during the wedding, if possible. But, it’s definitely possible to enjoy the wedding even from behind the console.

If anyone has more questions, feel free to post a comment here, and I’ll try to reply.

See more pictures on my Flickr photostream