Live event streaming software?

[Starr T.]

We recently had a "catastrophic failure" with our booth PC system just prior to a live major event we were to stream. It involved LiveStream, and though we thought it was rectified, it failed as the event was beginning. We had a failsafe on the the camera set-up, but are looking for options for the future. We cannot have a Graduation missed due to program updates or incompatibility issues. What do others use?

 

[spiwak2005]

We recently had a "catastrophic failure" with our booth PC system just prior to a live major event we were to stream. It involved LiveStream, and though we thought it was rectified, it failed as the event was beginning. We had a failsafe on the the camera set-up, but are looking for options for the future. We cannot have a Graduation missed due to program updates or incompatibility issues. What do others use?

We stream graduations to our YouTube educational account.

 

[Amiers]

Set up multiple redundancies.

Ustream
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook

All handled through OBS. It can be set to not update like most software.

 

[Milt Hathaway]

We stream graduations to our YouTube educational account.

Same here, except it's Ustream.

 

[NickVon]

In the recent past we've used LiveStream to both record and Broadcast our Graduations to a remote viewing location. Tt was less then ideal. We paid the 100$ for the upgrade to HD and the ability to embed the livestream on our own website. We also recorded to SD card at the camera as a secondary backup. (it was usually a 2 camear shoot)

This past year we tapped our Athletics department and used their license of "Wirecast" (which they've used to stream basketball games to a specialized broadcast services) "Wirecast" is Excellent! We did a 3 camera shoot plugged in additional SDI/HDMI capture devices. Created Lower 1/3's for our Valedictorian, presenters, guest speakers, etc. We simultaneous streamed to our Athletics Website, and the College YouTube channel, and the Colleges Website (via Embedded YouTube player) and straight to HDD The 3 of us that worked on the stream (from concept - setup - execution) where super pleased with the result as was Staff/Faculty and Admin. And with the Lower 1/3s and title screens there was very little post production work to do for the final archival video. (We still captured to local SD on each Camera as well)

I can't speak more highly of Wirecast as a software based multistream/multicam software solution. Pair it with a USB controller or StreamDeck and it becomes even better. Managing Audio into the program is such more more refined and detailed then Livstream which was another trouble point with us using Livestream. We could easily layer audience audio, playback music and feature direct podium audio at the press of a button. It was great!

 

[NateTheRiddler]

Set up multiple redundancies.

Ustream
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook

All handled through OBS. It can be set to not update like most software.

Going to second the OBS option here. I use it regularly for streaming in a variety of roles, personal and professional. Considering that there are a plethora of physical switching devices that can use macros or shortcuts to communicate with OBS, and the ability to regulate and monitor OBS’s performance and behavior, I would say it’s a great choice (and free).

OBS usually doesn’t eat PCs for lunch, incidentally, which should lower your risk of low-end PCs biting the dust from the encoder workload. Guess it depends on your source -> output conversion. 1080p60fps will murder even mid/high-range PCs when trying to stream at quality bitrate. Just remember that as long as you’re driving a service through a PC, you still have to consider the PC a point of failure, a nearly unavoidable risk, particularly if the PC is old/underpowered.

 

[macsound]

I regularly use Wirecast to livestream to youtube. Its fantastic because the operation of streaming is completely free for everyone and I'm able to create the Youtube event ahead of time so PR can email or post the link. Then after the event, the video is saved like a normal youtube video and since everyone is used to using youtube, its super easy for people to navigate and share.

I usually use a hardware video switcher when there are multiple sources, but have also used the switcher built into Wirecast.
I've only ever used the $9 paid version of wirecast which seems like an amazing price to me.

This past weekend however, I had wirecast at a church I mix at fail to authenticate to Youtube. I tested to make sure it was wirecast and not the youtube account and ended up downloading and configuring OBS to use in place of wirecast.
This is the first time in the 4 years or so I've been using wirecast to stream to YT fail on me.

 

[kjones9999]

There is only one software for this purpose, and that's vmix. Also, if you have never used NDI, imagine a monitor anywhere on your network -- although most software will do NDI.

 

[NickVon]

There is only one software for this purpose, and that's vmix. Also, if you have never used NDI, imagine a monitor anywhere on your network -- although most software will do NDI.

Well that is a little 'matter of fact' I've never used Vmix, though in glancing at it there lower tiers seem competitive and workable for a basic setup like the OP suggested. Though the full versions of Wirecast also support NDI and IP streaming, and other instances of Wirecast can stream between each other as well.

The Wirecast "Play" Youtube verision for 9$ seems like a steal! That must be new since last May 2018

 

[kjones9999]

Well that is a little 'matter of fact'

Sorry I did make it fairly declarative... I have used Wirecast, OBS and Tricaster -- and have settled on vMix (although I use OBS for supporting productions) So after 120 live broadcasts without one single issue, I am a little partial. I will also say restream.io has been a godsend -- send one RTMP stream and they distribute.