In this episode of 5 THINGS, Michael pits the LiveU Solo against the Teradek VidiU Pro.

If you need to stream via Wi-Fi, 3G/4G cellular, or a hard Ethernet line while you’re on the go, what’s the best portable unit? Which unit has more features? Which is most reliable when live streaming? In this episode, we test the LiveU Solo vs the Teradek VidiU Pro.

1. What are they?
2. Setup and Connectivity
3. Flexibility and Usability
4. Streaming Quality
5. Conclusions

Surfing was in full swing in Hawaii for the Billabong Pipe Masters competition, where the World Surf League hosted the grand finals of the 2017 Championship Series. Enthusiasts from all across the world tuned in to witness the event, which reached its last stop at the Banzai Pipeline in Honolulu.

But some areas of the world have little to no access to these broadcasts and competitions, yet want to see their favorite surfers shred the gnar. In December, Brazil decided to change that, especially since their country’s own surfer – Gabriel Medina – made it into Top 10.

The biggest TV network in Brazil, Globo TV, wanted to broadcast the competition – complete with multiple cameras and commentator coverage – on Brazilian national TV and the network’s Facebook Page. They commissioned live production house Betterlive TV to handle the broadcast.

“An hour or so before the start of the tournament, we live streamed the surfers warming up, along with commentary on the scores and stats of each player,” said Antunes Mororo, Executive Director at Betterlive TV. “Viewers want to see surfers in & out of competition, so this was the best way to capture them in their natural flow.”

Surfs Up Setup

Antunes and his crew wanted to produce a multi-camera show complete with switching and overlays. However, they needed a solution that was not only affordable, but could also be used wirelessly to avoid laying cables in the sand. The goal was to be as close to the action as possible, so setting up on the beach was a priority.

Camera Setup:

• 3x Sony FS5
• 3x VidiU Pro
• 1x iPad Pro w/ Live:Air Action app
• 1x Bond
• 2x 4G/LTE USB modems

Live:Air Action is a live switching and streaming app for iPads. It offers a suite of professional overlays and actions that are typically found on traditional hardware switchers, and also pulls in feeds from multiple cameras wirelessly. This integrated solution requires the additional cameras to be mounted with VidiU Pros (or other Teradek encoders). After every unit is connected to the same WiFi network, Live:Air Action picks up the feeds and allows you to switch between them.

Bond is a 4G/LTE cellular bonding unit that allows you to combine up to 5x 4G/LTE USB modems into a singular, powerful Internet connection for video streaming. More redundancy translates into a lower chance of a dropout, meaning the stream stays smooth and steady all throughout.

Each of Antunes’ FS5 cameras had a VidiU Pro mounted and connected via HDMI, taking the video feed and streaming it to the Live:Air Action iPad. From Live:Air Action, the program feed was pushed to the Bond, which encoded and sent the stream directly to Canal OFF Facebook Page….read more

Live streaming is one of the fastest growing forms of new media, but let’s be honest, most streams you see on Facebook and live platforms are choppy videos of your friends holding smartphones to their faces. This gets the content online easily and reliably, but is very rudimentary in execution and oftentimes results in some low-quality videos.

So while we see a lot of live streams are being created by your average independent content creator, rarely do we see more advanced applications of live streaming such as multi-camera, live-switched productions. And for good reason – traditionally, the tools needed to achieve high-end broadcasts were expensive and bulky, making them inaccessible for the majority of people.

But with the widespread use of social media, mass adoption of handsets and implementation of quick-and-easy live video, anyone in the world with a current-generation smartphone can go live from anywhere. This presents an opportunity to create professional live streams in an economical and creative way. That’s where Live:Air Action comes in!

What is Live:Air Action?

Live:Air Action is a live switching app available for iPads. It offers an entire suite of tools traditionally only found on enterprise broadcast switchers such as switching, graphics, lower-thirds, looping in pre-recorded videos and much more. But instead of being a giant hardware switcher, Live:Air Action has all of these bundled into an app!

How Does It Work?

It uses the iPad’s built-in back camera to capture video and allows you to add various built-in or custom-designed graphics. Once the video is ready, you can select any live streaming platform (Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, etc.) and go live directly from your iPad.

However, the best and most unique feature included in the Live:Air Action app is the ability to feed in multiple remote cameras wirelessly. Using other iOS devices (iPads, iPhones, iPod Touches) as camera sources, Live:Air Action can receive the feeds from up to 6 cameras and allow you to switch between them on the control surface. This gives more character to your production and makes for more engaging streams.

What Are The Features?

1. Multi-Cam Switching

There are 2 ways to do this:

1. Other iOS devices with the Live:Air Remote app.
2. Professional cameras w/ VidiU Pro encoder connected via HDMI.

Under the same WiFi network, other iOS devices can use Live:Air Remote to send their camera feeds directly into Live:Air Action. Every connected iOS source will populate on the main interface, where you can click to choose which feed to occupy the stream screen.

Similarly, if you want to stream a higher-quality image and own a professional video camera, connecting a VidiU Pro to the camera allows Live:Air Action to receive the camera’s feed and stream with it. This allows you to forego the iOS built-in back camera and use a high-def video camera instead.

The free edition includes switching between 3 external camera sources. Additional camera sources can be purchased in-app.

2. Lower-Thirds

Lower-thirds are texts that display on the bottom of a video feed, like the name of a reporter or brief text describing the subject of the broadcast. Adding lower-thirds helps viewers tuning in understand what’s going on, especially in broadcasts like interviews, news and sports games.

Live:Air Action makes this easy. Simply choose one of the built-in lower-third designs, type in the text you want and place it into the video. It can also be changed/removed at any time with just the tap of a button.

3. Scoreboards

A tool for all of the sports streamers out there, scoreboards can be easily added and constantly updated every time your favorite team earns a point. The app gives you the option of listing teams as Home / Away, or simply inputting the team names yourself.

4. Pre-Recorded Video

One noticeable thing you see on TV broadcasts like news or sports is the way they can overlay pre-recorded footage into a broadcast. Whether it’s commercials, pre-recorded interviews, sports recaps or whatever you need, Live:Air Action allows you to pull videos directly from the iPad’s Camera Roll into the app and play them over the video feed.

5. Transitions

You can’t overlay videos without smooth transitions though, and the app offers a collection of built-in transitions to choose from. This allows you to create a nice separation between program and commercial (or whichever video you choose to overlay).

6. Images

Many users enjoy adding images like custom-designed logos to their broadcast, which give their streams more character and identity. Live:Air Action makes this very easy too. Simply load any images into your iPad’s photo storage and load them into the app. You can have up to 4 images in your feed at the same time.

7. Recording

Ever see a good play in a sports game and wish you had recorded it? While streaming, Live:Air Action gives you the option to “clip” the last 30 seconds of the stream into your iPad’s camera roll. Use it as a replay later, post-production VOD or simply keep it for the memories!

8. URL

This new feature is for all of the Twitch streamers out there. Integrated with Streamlabs, the URL function adds a funky icon that pops up everytime you get a new subscriber or donation. This can be rearranged and resized to anywhere on the screen. Just copy your Widget URL into Live:Air Action, choose a cool image/gif for your stream, and go live.

And Much More

Chroma key (green screen), audio mixing, gif overlays, iOS delay info, and multi-destination streaming are more of the many other features available within Live:Air Action. The most popular features in traditional hardware switchers can be done from the palm of your hands.

Conclusion

Heavy, expensive switching solutions are a thing of the past. With Live:Air Action, you can live stream production-level content in an affordable and convenient way. Try it out for free on the App Store today.

It’s another great year for the live streaming world. From major events to video gaming to high school graduations and even live news from major news outlets, the widespread adoption of live content as a broadcasting form shows that it’s quickly becoming a mainstream way to deliver content.

As more consumers shift towards live video, 2018 is predictably going to be the biggest year for live streaming ever. Whether you’re doing corporate marketing, IRL streaming or anything that involves going live, now’s the time to do it!

And to give you a bit of motivation, we’ve compiled 5 reasons to grab that camera and go live:

1. Social Media is On A Roll

Who doesn’t love checking Instagram every now and then to see people travel the world while you sit in an office? Joking aside, average daily use of social media by global Internet users has risen to 135 minutes in 2017, up from 126 minutes in 2016. This has pretty much been the trend since the inception of social media, and with so many new features being developed to keep our eyes glued to our screens, who can blame us?

More people are spending more time on social media than ever before, which makes for an excellent opportunity to get views on your live content. And this doesn’t just apply to Facebook anymore – 2017 was the year of Instagram, with the company announcing that they now have 800 million active users monthly; sharing 95 million photos/videos per day. With millions of Instagrammers browsing the app every day, it’s an excellent platform to attract viewers to your live stream.

2. Viewership for Live Videos Are Up.. Again!

Ever notice that if someone’s streaming live video on Facebook or Instagram, those always pop up first on your story? It’s not a coincidence; our favorite social media platforms prioritize live video over regular posts in order to encourage more users to try it out.

And to some degree, they’ve succeeded. According to the Global Web Index, viewing of live streams has gone up 8%since 2016 on Facebook, Instagram & Twitter, totalling 28% of social media users who’ve seen live video before. In addition, we’ve seen countless organizations of all sizes opting for Facebook Live over traditional broadcasting avenues such as CNN, NASA, HBO, The Verge and much more. This is because they know live stream viewers will watch longer, comment and share videos, resulting in huge viewer turnouts….[continue reading]

The Teradek VidiU family gives you the freedom to broadcast live high definition video directly to the Web without a PC. Whether you’re streaming out of a video switcher or wirelessly from your camera, VidiU allows you to go live when you want, where you want. All 3 versions of the VidiU can be set-up as a wireless video source with the new Teradek Live:Air video production suite for iOS. With a host of real-time video editing tools and support for all of the popular live streaming services, the Live:Air app helps you share your experiences online with a professional look that will keep viewers locked to their screens. Add style to your online broadcast with Live:Air’s selection of graphics, text overlays, and other visual effects. Mix up your live stream with pre-recorded video clips, or even switch between multiple live video feeds, all with elegant looking transitions.. and more!

Click here to watch on YouTube.

You can use your camcorder, video switcher to change between different cameras. This will help you to use multiple internet upload streams for redundancy and high quality in the transmission so you can use 720p or 1080p even if with one of your internet connections is not fast enough. You can add them all at the same time. 

Click here to watch the video on YouTube.

Configuring the Teradek VidiU Pro for Facebook Live — PhotoJoseph’s Photo Moment 2016-09-09

Got a Teradek VidiU Pro and can’t figure out why your Facebook Live streams look like rubbish? In this video, PhotoJoseph goes through the VidiU settings and explains the proper configuration for Facebook Live, as well as lists out some technical detail web pages that were surprising hard to find on the internet!