A good livestreaming setup is a well-tailored suit • Hacker News Board

Re: A good livestreaming setup is a well-tailored suit

#31

Post by beardbound » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 1:55 PM UTC

periheli0n wrote: post #7

I expected to read about studio setups for live-streaming, e.g. on twitch. There are some musicians on twitch that have really awesome setups where one can discover so much visual detail while listening. I would have loved to read about some of those, perhaps even with a bit of advice how to build my own. Instead I got a luke-warm analogy of business attire and videoconferencing backgrounds. Mildly disappointing.

I've been watching quite a few of those kinds of setups videos on Youtube during the pandemic. I actually setup a small home studio because I've been getting back into music during lockdown (I originally studied music in undergrad before switching to engineering).

It's been fascinating. The mic setups and also the lighting setups that people have put together are great. I've seen some very inexpensive ingenious setups. People spending less than a hundred dollars and some time to put together a better lighting setup than I was seeing my photography friends use 10 years ago. All that with a few shop lights and some carefully folded paper.

Re: A good livestreaming setup is a well-tailored suit

#32

Post by handrous » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 1:55 PM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #15

I write off anyone who video conferences with a bookshelf behind them as a fool trying to pass off as more intelligent than they actually are. It’s so cringey because of how blatantly manipulative it is.

The best position for filming in my office gives me a blank wall as a backdrop. Looks great, helps the lighting, end up with a wonderful, natural backdrop gradient around me in kind of a "halo". People've commented on it, unprompted. It's nice.

However, the most functional and useful layout of my room fills my whole camera backdrop with bookcases, edge-to-edge.

Here I was, right this moment, trying to decide between moving my desk back to a spot that lets me re-claim half the room for other purposes, or keeping the better-looking backdrop but having a shit room layout, and now I guess I have to worry that some people will judge me an asshole if I have books behind me. WTF.

Re: A good livestreaming setup is a well-tailored suit

#33

Post by approxim8ion » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 1:58 PM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #28

I was expecting a review of some of the really amazing setups some Twitch streamers use. Check out CodeMiko if you haven't already.

CodeMiko is incredible. I don't care for her content particularly, but the tech is just incredibly interesting.

Re: A good livestreaming setup is a well-tailored suit

#34

Post by Applejinx » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #12

resonious wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also felt like the article hit pretty weak in a lot of places. In the part where they compare Bill Gates to the Bloomberg anchor, it just says "Her self-presentation is overawed by Gates’ setup." with no clear explanation as to why. And it's not actually clear to me when I look at the pic. Maybe I just don't have the "technical expertise to understand how colour temperature, shutter speed, aperture, and ISO conspir…

I suspect they could have found a better example, but Gates was clearly using a camera with a very wide aperture, giving a shallow depth of (focused) field, meaning his background wasn’t distracting. His lighting also had slightly less hot-spotting (you can see she’s using two main lights, but can’t readily ID Gates’ light placement). Given the disastrous video setups I’ve seen, I think the Bloomberg anchor’s setup w…

If you mean to really REALLY push the quality, audio gets expensive. My video is in service of audio plugins so I have a motivation to do that: the reason my audio is strikingly good on my voice is, it is NOT done with plugins.

It's done with a Roswell Colares (or a Sennheiser lav) a $1500 boutique mic inspired by $10,000 mics, into an API 3124 studio pre, directly into a MOTU 16A interface with no further processing. Room treatment also plays a part: the room has two large openings into other spaces and six large T-Fusor diffusors, painted to match the walls.

A setup like that projects its sound character into the recording so strongly that there's nothing to fix: when the mics and things are high enough quality it's like the intention of the vocal performance comes through more powerfully in the first place, and this responds very well to digitization and compression.

Re: A good livestreaming setup is a well-tailored suit

#35

Post by thinkmassive » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

brutus1213 wrote: post #17

rjknight wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the article is not "how to do it", but rather to observe that this kind of thing, previously a (relatively) niche concern, has become important to a general audience. The article even suggests that there's a business opportunity for fashion businesses to create tailored videoconferencing spaces, which is predicated on the notion that most people lack the time or inclination to set up their own bespoke se…

I was an organizer for a major ACM conference last year, and I really struggled with my home video streaming setup. A lot of equipment was sold out last year. I followed the recommendation of some YouTubers and realized that this is not as simple as it seems. Despite realizing the importance of a live stream setup and investing in it, I'm pretty unhappy with the results. Thankfully we are out of the worst of the pand…

For the glasses glare I found a few things that help:

    - Turn down display brightness
    - Dark mode everywhere possible
    - Block direct sunlight (blinds/curtains or rotate desk)
    - Illuminate the rest of your face to reduce the contrast from glasses

If you use a terminal for most things, including notes, one thing that helps a lot is to use a semi-transparent black background and position the terminal window over the meeting display.

Re: A good livestreaming setup is a well-tailored suit

#36

Post by jonpurdy » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

brutus1213 wrote: post #17

rjknight wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the article is not "how to do it", but rather to observe that this kind of thing, previously a (relatively) niche concern, has become important to a general audience. The article even suggests that there's a business opportunity for fashion businesses to create tailored videoconferencing spaces, which is predicated on the notion that most people lack the time or inclination to set up their own bespoke se…

I was an organizer for a major ACM conference last year, and I really struggled with my home video streaming setup. A lot of equipment was sold out last year. I followed the recommendation of some YouTubers and realized that this is not as simple as it seems. Despite realizing the importance of a live stream setup and investing in it, I'm pretty unhappy with the results. Thankfully we are out of the worst of the pand…

I wonder if using a polarizing filter over your webcam would reduce the glare from your glasses. Polarizing sunglasses very effectively reduce glare on water, as well as car windshields.

Re: A good livestreaming setup is a well-tailored suit

#37

Post by PragmaticPulp » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

Since the pandemic, I’m seeing more and more over-engineered home video conferencing setups that add more trouble than they’re worth.

Adjusting your home setup for decent front lighting and workable audio quality is important. Getting a mirrorless camera with expensive lenses and a podcasting microphone setup is not. I’m getting tired of losing minutes at the beginning of each call while the people with exotic camera, microphone, and lighting setups play games to get everything working with Zoom.

Re: A good livestreaming setup is a well-tailored suit

#38

Post by silicon2401 » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 2:10 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #37

Since the pandemic, I’m seeing more and more over-engineered home video conferencing setups that add more trouble than they’re worth. Adjusting your home setup for decent front lighting and workable audio quality is important. Getting a mirrorless camera with expensive lenses and a podcasting microphone setup is not. I’m getting tired of losing minutes at the beginning of each call while the people with exotic camera…

I would rather give them a few minutes than spend the entire meeting straining to understand people over their echos, terrible mic quality, etc.

Re: A good livestreaming setup is a well-tailored suit

#39

Post by DenverCode » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 2:11 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #37

Since the pandemic, I’m seeing more and more over-engineered home video conferencing setups that add more trouble than they’re worth. Adjusting your home setup for decent front lighting and workable audio quality is important. Getting a mirrorless camera with expensive lenses and a podcasting microphone setup is not. I’m getting tired of losing minutes at the beginning of each call while the people with exotic camera…

We have had two completely different experiences. For me, most of my team stopped caring about their video after the first month of working from home and just wing it.

Re: A good livestreaming setup is a well-tailored suit

#40

Post by beckingz » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #37

Since the pandemic, I’m seeing more and more over-engineered home video conferencing setups that add more trouble than they’re worth. Adjusting your home setup for decent front lighting and workable audio quality is important. Getting a mirrorless camera with expensive lenses and a podcasting microphone setup is not. I’m getting tired of losing minutes at the beginning of each call while the people with exotic camera…

To continue the article's metaphor:

This is like being late to a meeting because you're struggling to knot your tie in the bathroom.

Being prepared and in control is part of the point of a good setup.