We ended up using a 5n for running and gunning (imported the footage into premiere, quick edit and then imported into wirecast (on separate macbook pro with wirecast).. and a canon xha1 that was live all the time, kind of like a station for interviews, overview... e.t.c. So basically we created a small studio in the centre of the main area. Obviously I would have liked to have another cam live, but there were problems with the matrox mx02 and the PC I managed to find to run it.. With time running out and almost nothing falling into place we just had to do it as easy as possible. We had a bunch of laptops that we used for shooting lectures around in other rooms, (clips from those might go into the final edit).

For similar events in the future I'd go all out to find a pro wireless broadcasting unit, and have one mobile live cam... A couple of static IP cams would have been nice also. For overview and change in perspective..

The idea with a strategically placed studio / editing suite was great though. Being in the centre of where people had to pass / hanged out certainly did help to make it interesting enough and those out running and gunning had quick access wherever they went.

The major contributing factor to the success of our work was the two reporters we had, doing interviews, tours and sparking up the events and contributing with their local knowledge and experience. (These reporters were two students who volunteered to do it)

Whilst the live broadcast was a bit guerilla action, I think the edited version will be a very nice display for the University in the end.

@Mark_the_Harp: Cheers for your help! I ended up using wirecast because I ran out of time.. and had no more time to test stuff. Learned lots and even though the live broadcast was a bit messy, there's lot's of nice material to edit down..

:)

@RRRR Hi there - in Vidblaster, I used "Screen Capture" and then defined the screen area. Where you have more than one participant, just use another screen capture for the each. You could, in theory, do this on a dedicated machine, then stream to virtual device (I think that's it, but I'm away from my Vidblaster PC at the moment) and pick that up on another machine (possibly). What I did was stick to the one machine and record the Oovoo interview locally while the interviewer and interviewee were in other cities. Basically, get them both talking while you get your end recording, then ask the interviewee to start the interview. It's probably not worth risking doing screen capture type stuff AND streaming live at the same time!

Audio for Oovoo interviews on Vidblaster is fine, but I think you have to experiment with the audio source to get the right one. Hope that helps even if (being away from the machine) I don't have the exact words right. Again, for audio as well as screen-capture reasons, it's probably better not to risk trying to stream live at the same time. Record it locally and then either play out the completed interview locally, or upload (which is what I did) and play from the Livestream studio - then you get a breathing-space to set up your next live event.

@RRRR Sounds fun! Very best of luck with it - I can't think of any more suggestions except I think your laptop / webcam idea, via WiFi, might be good if you have networks around the place, as it should look pretty good.

Good luck on the day!

Great! Glad it's useful. Definitely think about what you could prerecord - for example, something about the day, or why you're doing it, purpose, outcomes etc, from participants / sponsors (I'm assuming its based in an organization of some sort) and get anything you can in the can. If you set up 2 cams / webcams and if possible a mic connected to your main pc and vision mix it as it's being recorded you can get amazing amounts of material in almost real time, straight to the hard drive and ready to play out. Even live tv networks have a lot of recorded stuff. Plus it's a good way of getting familiar with the gear.

That aside, the more you do in advance, the more buy-in people have and the more they know about the event.

For an example of the types of things you can adapt to your own event, see these examples of different types of things I did for a 2- day harp festival (all unpaid, naturally, but huge learning, and I hope it inspires some ideas). Just wait for the irritating 30sec ad to finish first!:

2 firewire cameras - but could have been webcams - local, mixed live and recorded to hard drive: http://www.livestream.com/harp/video?clipId=flv_09bc25ad-f23d-48c3-8f1f-36f605fcaca6

Interviewer in another city, interviewee in another country, on webcams and mixed by me in a third location and recorded to hard drive: http://www.livestream.com/harp/video?clipId=flv_3c44c145-8c9d-4633-80a4-ae9fcc76b42f

Behind-the-scenes trailer (shot on DV, played out on a loop prior to the event): http://www.livestream.com/harp/video?clipId=flv_dcb02163-f8bd-4e19-806f-c4c6b072d384

Live concert (3 firewire cams): http://www.livestream.com/harp/video?clipId=pla_f037c90c-61e9-4a87-acf7-da8adae032e4

People also emailed me videos as "greetings" to the audience - done on their own video cameras or webcams: http://www.livestream.com/harp/video?clipId=flv_d0a3d308-de73-4e85-9b58-9d8fcfb2b252

What also helped me on the day was that I'd prepared logos, straps and text graphics so I could create consistent titles whether live or over the top of a pre-recorded item, and they matched the branding of the channel itself. That's quite important especially if you have a load of mixed video sources - it ties the whole thing together visually.

@RRRR If it's a no-budget cheapie and low res is OK, one way to do it is to use webcams on machines around the building, bring them up on your pc and then use a software mixer like Vidblaster to do separate screen captures and bring them up on different channels - and you can then mix those live. It's quick and dirty but it works. Even with my wonderfully crappy connection here in Cheltenham UK, I vision-mixed (live) an interview where the interviewer was 200 miles away and the interviewees were all over the world. It worked a treat (using Oovoo as a way of getting multiple video / audio feeds to my machine).

I'm sure you can do better if you throw money at it but it just depends whether you have money and time, and if you want it totally live or not. You could also stream live from mobiles using Ustream and bring that up on the screen and put that into vidblaster too, or there are other ways. I've used wired and wireless IP cams before and you can bring those straight into Vidblaster as inputs. You can also play recorded sources into it, and it copes with most stuff you can throw at it. And did I mention vidblaster is free? With the scenario I mention you don't even need any sound / capture cards as long as you stick to webcams, so you could have 2 or 3 webcams attached to your machine to do a main studio bit, and use a decent mic (if you have one) on the audio channel. You can even vision-mix a spot, record the vidblaster output on the hard drive and then play it out later as part of something else.

You can use the chat channel to get people watching to put questions to interviewees etc - really your imagination is the limit.

As you can tell I've done a fair bit of Livestreaming. The main issue is not a technical one so much as coordinatinng it and keeping it all going. It helps to have a few pre-recorded idents or short trailers online that you can play out when you need a break or when you're waiting for a local event to start, so have these prepared and uploaded before the day.

WiMAxwith a good pipe. Or use something like we did such as Broadcast RF wireless transmitters (hired but worth it with guaranteed pro features).

@Blackout Last month, I had Livestream running beautifully off a EX3 with SDi and a GH2 using hdmi with a Matrox MXO2 on a lappy. Worked really well. Livestream pretty darn good, plus Telestream's Wirecast - live producer.

Ughhhh all this and I am finding out I had a faulty mini hdmi to hdmi cable... so now I don't know if the damn shuttle really worked or not.... might have to buy it again, but now I have the pci card.. but I had to shuffle around my three 5830 graphics cards (take one out and get a longer crossfire cable.... so IF it was the cable.. the shuttle would be a better fit becaiuse I have usb 3.0 on my desktop and laptop

@SuperRoach: what do you mean by "agc is active"? if you think the gh2 regulates the iso when you dont want it to- it doesn't. :)

@blackout wow. it's really working. you are singing with a girl.

what was the issue you had? how did you solve it?

1.5 mbit need 5mbit to do hd, sd, & mobile at once