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A good livestreaming setup is a well-tailored suit

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

#41

Post by wombatmobile »

adriand wrote: post #13
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.

Any chance you could list some links for the Twitch streams you're referring to? I've been asked to participate in some live streaming sessions for electronic music and I'm not quite sure how not to make it boring, at least from a visual standpoint.

Emma McGann Livestreaming home studio walkthrough

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClKZR9x-eyARpIDz1mEEzcg

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

#42

Post by PragmaticPulp »

silicon2401 wrote: post #38
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.

That’s the false dichotomy that lures people into these over-complicated setups. You don’t need a professional podcasting microphone to be understood. Plenty of us do just fine without.

I have pro audio gear at my disposal, but I’ll still reach for the MacBook Pro built-in Mic when it’s convenient. It just works and I don’t have to worry about placement, reflections, setting gain and clipping, keeping noise sources away and so on. There’s a lot going on with the directional microphone setups in modern laptops that happens behind the scenes.

An improperly setup podcast style cardioid mic will actually catch more echos and stray noise than the finely tuned directional setup built in to a MacBook Pro.

Pro gear doesn’t automatically solve problems, but it does introduce a lot more opportunities for incorrect setup.

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

#43

Post by HanShotFirst »

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 glasses glare you can use soft lights (large, non directional lights, like lamps with large shades or harder lights bounced off of a white wall) on each side of your face, much more to the left and right than normal - almost perpendicular to your nose, just slightly in front of your face. It's a nontraditional setup.

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

#44

Post by daniel_reetz »

adriand wrote: post #13
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.

Any chance you could list some links for the Twitch streams you're referring to? I've been asked to participate in some live streaming sessions for electronic music and I'm not quite sure how not to make it boring, at least from a visual standpoint.

Check out sarahcoponat for a cinema-quality stream. She improvises flowing cinematic piano, sometimes two hours of two pianos at the same time. She's streaming today, but it's an experimental day with guests so you'll want to check out her VODs, recent YouTubes, or Wednesdays stream.

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

#45

Post by sokoloff »

Applejinx wrote: post #34
sokoloff wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sure, getting to the 99.99th percentile of audio is incredibly expensive [just like anything else].

My comments were more directed at getting people into the 80th percentile level (decent mic on a boom, correctly placed and away from a built-in camera/laptop mic), but your point is correct for the absolute best 1-in-10000 level.

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

#46

Post by slantyyz »

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…

Doesn't the issue have more to do with people not being ready on time than it does their gear?

It's no less annoying than a person who shows up to a meeting without having read any required background material in advance.

I always make a point in connecting to a conference a couple of minutes in advance to make sure all the inputs are correctly assigned and working, simply because I don't like making people wait.

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

#47

Post by gumby »

rozab wrote: post #8
jumpkick wrote: post #4

What point is the author trying to make in comparing the two iPhones? There was a setup but no payoff.

As they say, it's the skuomorphism. The original iPhone aimed to replace various existing things - instead of TV, we've got YouTube! Instead of a notepad, we have the notes app! No need to carry around paper maps with charming little pins stuck in anymore! This is equivalent to dressing up nicely as one would for an in-person meeting and plonking oneself down in front of a laptop webcam, according to the author. In t…

> of course the whole thing is a bit silly

As goes with fashion as well. I’m not a practitioner myself (but married one, and am the parent of one) and I have observed that even the ones who take it seriously also treat it wil a sense of humor.

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

#49

Post by slantyyz »

DenverCode wrote: post #39
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.

I guess it depends on your organization, etc. but on most of my conferences, it's rare when a participant even has the webcam on.

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

#50

Post by periheli0n »

beardbound wrote: post #31
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 setup…

Sounds great - if you have the names of some of those youtubers with a low-cost high-quality setup, that would be awesome! ;)
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