5 Tips to Ensure a Successful Stream

The Streaming Room is pleased to present Skip Rudolf, BitGravity‘s Senior Director of Marketing. 

Considering streaming an event live online? Make sure you do the following to ensure success:

1. Do Not Overestimate Your Audience

Most first-time event organizers tend to overestimate the number of people that will attend their event online. Though it’s important to ensure that you live streaming provider can handle large and/or flash crowds, it’s better to limit access to the event than to over-commit and over-spend.

2. Set-Up

Make certain that you develop and pull together the complete list of all necessary components of your stream, including cameras, encoders, cabling, Internet connection, lighting, and of your set, well in advance of the event. You’ll have enough last-minute coordination and don’t want to worry about essentials hours or minutes before the event.

3. Multiple Bitrates

End-user experiences vary greatly based on location, Internet connections, CPU usage, and more. To provide the best experience to the widest possible audience, make sure you output your live stream in two or more bitrates so end-users have the option to view higher or lower quality streams based on their circumstances.

4. Testing

As with setting up, make sure to get your live streaming system integrated and tested well in advance of the event and once it’s tested, make sure to keep the configuration intact, or document and recreate the exact configuration you tested in advance.

5. Support

Despite all advanced planning, streaming issues may arise during your event, so make sure that your live streaming provider is on hand or on call to help you address your issues in real time.

If you have questions, would like to learn more about BG Live, or have a need to deliver video on demand, please contact me.