Printable View
In 2 weeks, we will live stream our first high school football game and I just purchased Wirecast. I've watched nearly every video tutorial I can find to get ready for this but I have a question. I plan on streaming to Highschoolcube.com in 720p resolution. Should my cameras output 720p or would it be better to go to Wirecast in 1080p?
By all means do a dress rehearsal. You'll be surprised by all the things that sound good in theory, but don't necessarily work in the real world.
What's your internet upload speed from the stadium. You'll need at least 5mbps for 720p.
Will your PC support streaming @ 720p and recording at 1080p? Better to drop your resolution than your frame rate.
Do ALL your viewers have an internet connection that can see 720p without buffering? If not, then you'll need a second stream at a lower resolution/bit rate. Wirecast can handle that, but maybe your PC can't.
I've streamed hundreds of games from all sorts of venues at various resolutions with different PC set-ups. It's a lot of fun, but it can be very challenging. The last thing you want is to have lots of folks expecting a great broadcast and have them disappointed.
Holler if I can help.
- Tom
Thanks Tom, our IT guy tells me we should have plenty of bandwidth. We ran a fiber cable to the pressbox but we have to put the finishing touches on it so we can connect with ethernet cable to it.
It's my understanding that highschoolcube allows the viewer to watch in whichever resolution they choose. They also have a mobile app that you can watch the stream on as well.
Our setup includes a 27 inch Imac, 3.4ghz, core I7. We also plan to use a couple of Macbooks for desktop presentor. We have 2 Canon XA 10 cameras and will use BlackMagic MiniRecorders (HDMI to thunderbolt) to connect to the Imac.
The plan is to do a trial run with everything as soon as possible to check it all out. I was just wondering if 1080 camera output and streaming in 720 puts more stress on my cpu than doing 720 from camera and 720 streaming.
Thanks for your advice Tom, I've been watching your videos for several years and look forward to your advice and advice from anyone who has Wirecast experience.
If that's the case then High School Cube is re-encoding your video. I looked at some of their recorded streams and they had both 720p and 360p available as well as something called "Auto." Sometimes this re-encoding process can add 60-90 seconds delay to your stream. If you're planning to use a chat room with your broadcast, you'll need to remember your audience will be 60-90 seconds behind. Would not work well for a coach's show or call-in show.Quote:
Originally Posted by dfontz
Not doubt. But you can test that anytime. Just watch your CPU meter. Anything above 65% is questionable in my experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by dfontz
I would go with 720p. Less stress on the CPU / GPU.
IMHO Confirm your bandwidth rather than rely on second hand information without specific.
Check upload speed specifically
http://www.speedtest.net
I'd also recommend testing for packet loss. That's another gotcha. It should be 0% (no loss at all).
http://www.pingtest.net
Wirecast has an easy setup for High School Cube along with presets which are likely based on their recommendations.
Use the 1280x720 @ 2000kbps preset after creating your full setup and see what your CPU use is. Tom Sinclair's suggestion about 65% is good. You might survive up to 80% but in that range problems can start to happen.
If your cameras output 720 rather than 1080, that can help because the CPU doesn't have to do work to downscale. Don't forget to set Wirecast Canvas size to 1280x720.
Absolutely do a test and let it run for a bit to make sure your system and internet connection are stable.
Thanks a lot for the advice. I'm using Canon xa10 cameras and as far as I can tell, they only output in 1080i.
I'm having an audio problem I could use some help with. I'm using a Peavey 8 channel usb mixer for my audio. I can only get mono output through the usb. When I go to source settings on wirecast, it gives me an endless number of options but all of them are mono. Does it have to be stereo for Wirecast. Both Wirecast and my Imac recognize the mixer, but there audio levels don't move at all. When I connected the mixer with an audio cord to the Mac, the stereo option appeared in the source settings and it worked perfectly. Is that what I'm stuck with or is there a way to get the usb to output stereo.
Thanks again for everyone's help.
I would contact Peavey. It may be a driver isssue.
