IAM Tech: Live Streaming - Cheap & Easy

For the past 9 months, we have been streaming nearly every service at the ROC live onto the internet.  Everything that occurs at the ROC is out there for anyone, nearly anywhere to watch as it happens.  And from all that we’ve learned, I want to tell you that it is not at all difficult or expensive for you to do yourself.  In fact, if you can surf the internet, then more than likely, you will be able to do what is needed to do to start broadcasting live every day.

Lets go through what you’ll need to do a basic live broadcast:

1. A high-speed internet connection (your upload speed is important here)
2. A video camera that has some way to connect to a computer (most of them do these days)
3. Registration with a live streaming service (we use a company called www.Mogulus.com - its free)
   

Wow, well, that was a short list.  Maybe this is easier than I thought.

Now, here’s the steps you need to do to get things working:

1. Basically, once you have a computer, preferably in the back of your meeting room, hook that video camera to the computer.  These cameras can be anything from a professional device costing thousands of dollars or a $300 Wal-Mart special (again, as long as it has a way to hook directly up to a computer).
2. Next, go to Mogulus (or your provider of choice) and sign up for the service.  Again, nearly all of these companies who provide live streaming - you can Google more - offer them for free.  From here, let the website tell you the steps that it needs to get you broadcasting.  Once your camera is on and connected to the live streaming service provider through your computer, you should be good to go!
3. Finally, tell people where they can go to watch your service and when they need to tune in.  We have people watch from Finland, Singapore, Australia, and different time zones across the US, so make sure they are aware what time zone you’re in so that they can adjust their viewing times.
   

Note that the majority of these sites give a web address on their site where your broadcast can be seen - for example, ours is http://www.mogulus.com/rocwired.  But these sites will also let you embed the broadcast into your own site - i.e., http://www.rocwired.com.  If you haven’t messed with that before, be sure to let the person in charge of your website know what you would like to do - it should be very easy for them to figure out.

Thats really all there is to it.  Of course, there are things you can do to refine your broadcast such as hooking the camera up to your soundboard so that you can get the sound from that instead of using the mic on the camera.  In the future, you can even start to expand to using more than one camera and using a video mixer with effects.  The possibilities are endless.  Joseph Patch and I (IAMedia) are here to help you out if you have any questions or run into any problems.  Just give us a call at the ROC - (813) 385-2973