Video Streaming Solutions

Streaming live video online is something that is becoming more and more common. Channels and software like Livestream, Ustream, Youtube, Google's hangouts and Skype makes it possible from us to share video with people across the world. From conferences to broadcasting live on YouTube more and more people are connecting live online. We have had this ability for a few years now but as bandwidth increases and video technology gets better it becomes more easier to produce great video for live streaming on the web.

The most basic way to do this is of course with a webcam but for those of us who want to produce a higher quality video it is necessary to look at a better camera and therefore an interface for getting that live feed into our computer and out to the masses.

Now if your are just plain recording into a computer there are lots of options for that from capture cards to video breakout boxes, however if you want to stream live video on the fly out to the web then rest of this post is for you.

Up until recently this has been a bit of a struggle to find a relatively cheap way to stream live video affordability into a computer and out to the web. In this post we will look at some affordable streaming


Blackmagic Design's H.264 Pro Recorder:


What makes this little box so great is it does on the fly H.264 encoding from either HDMI,
HD-SDI/SDI, Component BNC, Composite BNC and 1/4 jack balanced audio inputs to
 USB 2.0.Now this is great because it gives you any input you could possibly ever want to a port that every
PC or Mac already has, USB 2.0. This is a perfect solution for anyone who wants to stream live video and not worry if they will have all the right connections required to make it happen.

 H.264 encoding is the key to makes this unit so great. H.264 is a standard video compression and is one of the most common formats used for compression, recording and distribution of HD Video. H.264 was originally introduced in 2003 and since has been widely adopted by Internet websites such as YouTube, Vimeo and the iTunes Store. Abobe and Microsoft have adopted it in recent years. It is also becoming more in common in HD and satelitte broadcast as well.

There are lots of software that will do H.264 encoding for you but the Pro Recorder is different because it does all the H.264 encoding in the box allowing you to stream the signal through a single USB.2.0 mini port into your computer.

Some key features include:

-Real time H.264 encoding.
-Can capture from professional decks in SD and HD H.264 files.
-Can record (not stream) to iPad, iPod, iPhone, Apple TV and YouTube file formats automatically.
-Real time scaling and cropping
-RS-422 Deck control
-Batch capture for H.264 files.


Compatibility for streaming live:

LiveStream currently supports the H.264 Pro Recorder: LiveStream H.264 Pro Recorder

MX Light is a great third party program for PC that will allow you to do live streaming from the H.264 Recorder and the Blackmagic ATEM Television Studio: MX Light Streaming software.
It is compatible with LiveStream, Ustream and Justin TV.