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suggestions for streaming a live sports event

djsound

djsound

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 4, 2006
791
17
First of all I hope this is the correct forum. I have been asked by some clients that I do web design for, to show an upcoming event of theirs on their website. Live video stream. At that time I will be using a JVC HD camera with a Macbook Pro so I will be portable. I don't really know much other than that on this subject hehe...I was told that Quicktime Pro can help stream or something? Can you guys help with any suggestions? It would be GREATLY appreciated. I guess I would have to have a network cable going to the area of the event (it is outdoors) to get the video onto the web but wouldnt that only allow me to stream to about 10 people without dropping out? Would I need to use a big server?......I am clueless.. thanks in advance for ideas guys.
 
You might check into Yahoo Live, from what I know it uses your webcam (just set the JVC as your webcam) and streams it live. It should bear with a fair amount of people.
 
Sounds cool I will look into that thanks. Problem is, it has to be on this companies site...
 
Live Stream

djsound said:
First of all I hope this is the correct forum. I have been asked by some clients that I do web design for, to show an upcoming event of theirs on their website. Live video stream. At that time I will be using a JVC HD camera with a Macbook Pro so I will be portable. I don't really know much other than that on this subject hehe...I was told that Quicktime Pro can help stream or something? Can you guys help with any suggestions? It would be GREATLY appreciated. I guess I would have to have a network cable going to the area of the event (it is outdoors) to get the video onto the web but wouldnt that only allow me to stream to about 10 people without dropping out? Would I need to use a big server?......I am clueless.. thanks in advance for ideas guys.
Click to expand...


I actually did a lot of research about this particular subject a few months ago when a client inquired about the same thing. Granted I am no pro at this, but here is what I discovered. Also it should be noted that I researched how to do this using windows based tools, so it may be easier on a mac.

In generally doing a live stream will involve having your video and audio signal sent into a computer where the signal is processed, encoded and compressed using some software (search windows media encoder, quicktime pro may be able to do this).

Then that processed video needs to be either a) pushed to a media server, or b) pulled on request. In most cases you will push the media to server that displays the video or sends it to a specific port/address. (For instance I streamed my video to a specific ip address and port number. Then in windows media player I just typed in that ip and port and the video came up. I know that your situation is a little different but just giving you an idea of how it works.)

I would imagine that your computer is not also acting as the server, because it is very difficult to have a computer process the video and act as the media server. SO, assuming you use a hosting company I would contact them and see if they also have a media server. This way you could send your content on to their server and simple place a link on the clients site to load the video.

I hope this helps. Just search live video stream and you will get a lot of information. I would also contact your website hosting company to see if they could help or know of anything.

Good Luck and message me if you have a question you think I might be able to help with.

-Chris
 
Thanks for the input Chris. I guess it would be pretty straight forward. My problem is that this event would have a pretty large number of viewers (maybe a thousand) so I guess that I could not use my encoding computer as the server. I would have to use some other server. At this point that is basically my only problem. I do not know of any servers. I'll do some looking around online and if I find anything I will let you know..So the video I shoot would go from my camera to the computer....gets compressed...then to the server...then to the people....I wonder how much lag/delay there would be for that whole process...any ideas?

thanks again
 
The lag would be a few seconds, but the video and audio would all come through to your end user at the same time. Its just like how they push back live tv. Well...not just like...but pretty much the same.

Oh, and sorry about the Yahoo live thing, I missed the bit where you said it was for clients.
 
djsound said:
Thanks for the input Chris. I guess it would be pretty straight forward. My problem is that this event would have a pretty large number of viewers (maybe a thousand) so I guess that I could not use my encoding computer as the server. I would have to use some other server. At this point that is basically my only problem. I do not know of any servers. I'll do some looking around online and if I find anything I will let you know..So the video I shoot would go from my camera to the computer....gets compressed...then to the server...then to the people....I wonder how much lag/delay there would be for that whole process...any ideas?

thanks again
Click to expand...
something like stickam would work for you. IF you want a example check out twitlive.tv when the camera is on. They stream 25 hours a week and have over 2000 viewers at one time. what you need to do is use stickam or ustream and place the web player on the company's web page. the cost for either one is nothing its free. Hope this helps :cool:
 
comptr said:
something like stickam would work for you. IF you want a example check out twitlive.tv when the camera is on. They stream 25 hours a week and have over 2000 viewers at one time. what you need to do is use stickam or ustream and place the web player on the company's web page. the cost for either one is nothing its free. Hope this helps :cool:
Click to expand...


Great idea from the above poster. I was just thinking from a business point of view you may not, and your customer may not feel comfortable with some other companies branding, but whatever works.

Regarding lag: This is going to relate to the speed of your upload connection, which is normally slower than your download, and the frames per second (fps) that your video is to run at vs. what kind of bandwidth your website hosting company provides. I am not real sure as to how sickam or ustream (I have heard good things and would lean towards ustream before stickam) embed into your webpage and how the streaming would affect your bandwidth, but I would recommend that you contact your webhosting company first to make sure you know everything prior to telling the client "YES" and then getting a big bill or find out you can't do it. Either way, the amount of lag in most cases on good connections is only a couple seconds. (Think online radio announcers for the live game.)

Lastly, since this is a paying gig, it is my general thought to pay for the pro's to help in a situation like this, even if it is just a consultation to learn the in's and out's, in order to keep the customer happy, coming back, and to educate myself.


Just my opinion, and some things I have learned in my trails with live streaming. Good luck with it and keep us updated. I would like to know how you did/do it on a mac.
 
download quicktime broadcaster (free) from apple's site. Read up on it, theres tons of documents online. It's pretty simple to setup, and clients can view as long as they have quicktime on their computer. It allows you to create a quicktime streaming file, link it on their website, let people see it. I've used it for streaming on a local network and it's flawless (to both macs and pc's). Just read up on your specific situation in the manual.
Also check out the (also free and open-source) darwin streaming server from apple. It will stream mp4 as well as quicktime
 
Someone else recommended stickam too, but unfortunatly I can not use that on this companies website. They do not want anyone elses name/logo on it. It is very corporate ;) They want it to look nice. I was on the mac site reading about the mac servers and I think that would be great . To bad I dont have $5000 for that hehe...

To foshizzle...even with Quicktime Broadcaster wouldn't I still need a dedicated server? I need to stream to more then 10 people =)

I dont know if it is related or not but I love the videos Mac has on www.apple.com. Thier tutorial videos are SO nice...great quality and they do not need to preload it seems...but they are not streaming so I doubt you could get that good of quality while streaming live?
 
Broadcaster can handle a pretty heavy load, but if you need to you can download darwin streaming server and run it on another computer to stream out. Darwin streaming server is based on the code that apple uses in Quicktime streaming server, which ships with OS X server.
 
interesting. i'll have to check them out. thanks..

I wish I knew someone that had a server.. =/


edit - so Darwin is actual code?? I would have no idea what to do with that.. im scared haha
 
..so I have been home for a couple hours now and read a lot about Quicktime Broadcaster and Darwin and they seem to be what I need. One thing I like is that I would also be sticking to apple products..Id rather not use outside products if not needed. SO at this point my only probably is that I have NO idea what to do with Darwin...I am defiantly not a 'coder' hehe. You really have to know that stuff to use Darwin? If so I guess I am out of luck and have to try and find something else... =(
 
Ideally this is what you want to do:

You will run quicktime broadcaster on your local machine. This will handle your incoming video/audio, compress it and send it to your server.

You will run Darwin Streaming Server on a dedicated machine (does not have to be OSX server, especially since OSX server has QT streaming server preinstalled.) The streaming server will take the stream from your laptop and 'reflect' it out to your users. It is fairly easy to setup, if you read the tutorials from Apple. Basically, you install DSS on your server, create a .sdp file from QT broadcaster, put that file in the correct folder on your DSS and you're good to go.

If you have 2 macs you can test this out fairly easily. It works very well as long as you mind your bandwidths.

This will probably get you going:

http://www.iupui.edu/~nmstream/live/howtoquicktime.html

And for more info:

http://homepage.mac.com/a.burt/3g/mlearning/how_to/qtb.htm

Good luck, and remember, run lots of tests beforehand and don't try to stream crazy bitrates!
 
Ya I will need to do ALOT of testing haha. So lets say I used a core 2 duo 2.33ghz imac for the server and a top of the line macbook pro for the Encoder..you have any idea how many people I could stream the video too from the site?

p.s. thanks for the sites
 
so Ive done a few things. I got Quicktime Broadcaster and set that up. Now I am just wondering how many people will be able to stream to with Darwin on the Macbook Pro. If it is not enough I have been looking at other options for a server. Would something like this work do you guys think?

http://www.forest.net/services/shared/streaming.php

the thing is I would only need it for 1 day...
 
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