Hands-On Guide to Webcasting

Internet Event and AV Production

Steve Mack, Dan Rayburn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781136034251
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

In "Hands-On Guide to Webcasting, " industry experts address the fastest-growing application for streaming media - broadcasting live audio and video on the Internet. Used in all industry verticals from corporate to entertainment, this book provides an end-to-end technical overview of the webcasting process. Providing you with step-by-step instructions from audio/video production, encoding and authoring to delivery and business issues, this guide provides both the depth and breadth necessary for mastery of the subject.

CHAPTER 1

Quick Start

Instructors always want students to understand the theoretical basis of what they’re teaching because that’s the type of knowledge that sticks. Pushing buttons in a prescribed order is the type of thing that you forget. However, students don’t learn if they aren’t excited. Bearing that in mind, this chapter is for those of you who can’t wait to get your fingers on the buttons.

It’s time to roll up your sleeves and fire up your first webcast. This chapter offers a tiny bit of background, and covers:

• Getting Ready for a Webcast

• Your First Webcast

Getting Ready for a Webcast

Webcasts run smoothly if and only if they are adequately planned and prepared. With proper preparation, any minor problems that arise can be solved quickly and simply. Ninety-five percent of the work involved in a webcast is done before the actual event.

Since this is only an exercise and not an actual broadcast, no planning is involved. It’s instructive, however, to go through the process to see what’s involved in an actual broadcast.

Business Considerations

If this was an actual webcast, you’d want to find out who the audience is, whether the webcast is absolutely necessary, and how much it will cost to produce. This could be balanced against the perceived return, whether financial or goodwill.

In this instance, the audience (you) is very excited about this webcast. It’s absolutely necessary that it be live. The cost is relatively low, and the return is projected to be an unbridled enthusiasm to read the rest of this book. So in this case, a live webcast is justified.

The first thing to do is to start planning. The way to plan for a webcast is to consider every step of the webcast process and figure out what is needed. You’re going to need equipment, software, crew, and Internet connectivity.

Planning for your Webcast

The webcasting process can be divided into five steps. In this instance, some things have been taken care of for you, but it’s instructive to note the planning process, since every webcast you plan will replicate it, if only on a larger scale.

Production is where the bulk of your equipment and crew requirements are. You need enough of both to successfully execute the webcast, along with spare equipment and crew—just in case.

Equipment You’ll Need — At the very least, you’re going to need an audio and a video source. For the purposes of this chapter, you can encode off a CD, a webcam, or anything that provides you with audio and/or video.

For an actual webcast, you’d need enough audio and video equipment to produce a broadcast quality signal. This equipment can be purchased, rented, or hired from a third-party production house. You can hire third parties to produce the audio and video for you. For now, figure out what your source is going to be, and have it nearby.

Computer Hardware You’ll Need — Thankfully, most multimedia computers these days have enough horsepower to run webcasting software. However, most computers do not come with a video capture card, so if you want to encode a video stream, you’re going to need either a video capture card or an external video capture unit.

Software You’ll Need — Each of the major streaming platforms has software to encode the webcast. Encoding is converting the raw audio and video feeds into formats that can be streamed across a network. For this exercise, you’ll need the Windows Media Encoder and the Windows Media Player installed.

If you do not have these already installed, both are available as free downloads from the Microsoft website (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmedia).

Inside the Industry

Mac vs. PC Unfortunately, there is currently no Windows Media Encoder for live broadcasting on the Mac. Mac users may therefore feel slightly short-changed by this chapter. Now is as good a time as any to address this issue. While this book attempts to be as platform-agnostic as possible, the reality is that there are a number of cross-platform issues. The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate the webcasting process as quickly and simply as possible, for the largest percentage of the audience. The rest of this book uses examples from a variety of streaming media platforms. Windows Media was chosen for this chapter because: • The ubiquity of the Windows platform • The tools are free • There is no free QuickTime live encoding tool • There is no free, simple Flash live encoding tool Throughout the book a number of streaming technologies will be showcased. Occasionally cross-platform issues will arise. For the most part, however, the information in this book is high-level and applicable to any webcasting application.

Encoding Planning — For this exercise we’ll encode a single stream, in a single format, to a single server. We’re going to encode this stream at a moderate bit rate, which determines the quality of the video and the Internet connection required to watch the stream. Don’t worry too much about the terminology at this point; all this will be covered in more detail later on in the book.

It is worth remembering, though, that for an actual webcast the audience should be considered, and formats and bit rates chosen accordingly. You may need to provide streams in a number of formats, and at varying bit rates. This would impact the amount of computer hardware required.

Authoring Planning — For the purposes of this exercise you will be linking directly to the stream. However, for an actual broadcast you’d need to consider what method you’d be using to showcase your stream. Will it be rendered in a pop-up player or embedded in a web page? Will a software load balancer be needed?

Distribution Planning — The projected audience size directly impacts the amount of distribution you require. Small webcasts may utilize only a single streaming server; large webcasts may use large, geographically distributed server farms. It’s important to work with your network administrators and/or your streaming service provider to figure out how to satisfy your distribution needs.

Crew Planning — Many small companies have small multimedia departments that handle all the company’s media needs. A single person might be in charge of shooting video, editing, encoding, and posting files to the servers. This isn’t possible during a webcast, because everything happens simultaneously.

The preceding few pages should give you an idea of the type of planning that is required for a webcast. In reality there are many more things to consider, for instance legal issues, transportation, and many others. The key is to start early. For actual we...