Read the videomag’s special pre-show edition for IBC 2016 and feel free to share with colleagues.
Category Archive: Technology
Tech news that caught my attention
YouTube launches mobile live video streaming
In face of increased competition from live streaming from mobile devices on Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat, YouTube is now introducing mobile live video streaming.
The company is quick to make clear that it has been offering live streaming on YouTube since 2011, “before it was cool.”
Millions of people around the world tuned in to watch the Royal Wedding in 2011. One-sixth of the internet watched Felix Baumgartner leap from space live on YouTube in 2012. And just this year, YouTube became the first to ever broadcast a 360-degree live stream during Coachella. Over 21 million people tuned in to watch Coachella on YouTube this year—almost twice as many as tuned in to watch the season finale of American Idol.
Now, the ability to start a live video stream from an Android or iOS device will be built into the YouTube app, “just hit the big red capture button right there in the corner, take or select a photo to use as a thumbnail, and you can broadcast live to your fans and chat in near real time.”
The videos will be searchable by other users, or set to private so only people with the link will be able to access the stream.
Source: http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/
Wirecast Now Enables Professional Quality Live Video Streaming To Facebook
(via @videomageu)Telestream has announced that the latest version of its popular live streaming software Wirecast now features Facebook Live as a streaming destination, allowing users to create and stream high-quality broadcasts from their computers to their Facebook timelines with just a few clicks.
Facebook recently announced the ability for all users to stream live video to their feeds through the Facebook app for iOS and Android devices. With Wirecast, users can now elevate the production value of their live videos by using multiple cameras, graphics, effects, transitions and other professional capabilities. With direct integration between Wirecast and Facebook Live, Wirecast users can publish live streams directly to the Facebook Live platform from within the Wirecast interface.
With so many businesses maintaining a Facebook presence, streaming live content presents a perfect opportunity to attract additional followers while increasing overall traffic. Creating dynamic, eye-catching content with titles, graphics, and transitions keeps otherwise fickle viewers engaged and tuned in.
“Facebook Live allows people and businesses to connect with friends, fans and followers in exciting and much more interactive ways,” comments Barb DeHart, Vice President of Desktop Business & Corporate Marketing at Telestream. “With Wirecast live streaming production software, Facebook users can create unique and professional live streams with professional production capabilities, such as multi-camera live switching, lower thirds and titles, green screen, instant replay, scoreboards, and much more,” added DeHart.
Wirecast is ideal for broadcasting professional live web shows, news, online gaming, sporting events, concerts, church services, corporate meetings, lectures and much more. With Wirecast, users can switch between multiple live cameras while dynamically mixing in other media such as movies, images and sounds, and adding production features such as transitions, built-in titles, chroma key support, virtual sets and live scoreboards.
Because Facebook Live is now an integrated broadcast destination for Wirecast, once they have started streaming, users will be able to see the number of live viewers, the names of followers who are watching, and a real-time stream of comments, throughout the live broadcast. Once the broadcast is complete, the video will stay on their timeline like any other post.
Wirecast 6.0.7 featuring Facebook Live as a destination is available now as a free update from Wirecast 6 or for purchase from www.telestream.net. Prices start at $495.
Enex upgrades its complete workflow to HD
In Q1 2015, Enex contracted BCE to create a new fully HD technical infrastructure, together with a customised Media Asset Management, Editorial and Playout platform that would meet the growing needs of the global news provider.. The new system was launched officially on 14th January 2016 after a soft launch at the end of 2015.
The heart of the new platform is an advanced News Media Asset Management (MAM). Completely developed by BCE, the MAM features library management tools and advanced automation and is combined with the editorial platform (NRCS) and the playout platform under one common user interface.
The intuitive graphic user interface is tailor-made for editorial and technical staff, displaying clear information flows while allowing for the publishing of news items in a few clicks. It is solely web based and can be accessed by all Enex staff in the 3 continents that the organisation operates offices currently.
The production environment also comes with an integrated editing tool with basic features to edit videos, add text, comments etc.
The solution is built around a central storage system from Harmonic, where all the content is recorded and stored. All the production tasks such as content reviewing and editing are done directly on the storage system.
Two types of servers are used for the playout. Harmonic Spectrum servers are used for content recording with channel ports for advanced playout. Loop playout and announcements are made available by the BCE in house developed playout server “D.Playout”.
The media processing is controlled through the News MAM. By using Telestream Vantage as the core transcoding and workflow engine, Enex technical staff is now able to easily define tailor-made workflows to respond to specific requests of Enex partners. Vantage is combined with open source transcoding software in a transcoding farm – a solution that was proposed and developed by BCE in order to enhance cost efficiency and provide scalability for the future.
All the video and editorial metadata exchange between newsrooms of Enex partners is based on the BCE Newslink solution while FTP and other transfer technologies are also supported. Satellite bookings and recordings scheduling is done in ScheduALL, which was also upgraded as part of the project. BCE automation, Au2System, enables the use of ScheduAll as an ingest management system and orchestrates communication between it and the News MAM in order to automate the baseband ingest process.
Christos Schizas, Deputy Managing Director of Enex noted the following: “This project represents the most important investment decision in the recent history of Enex and required a long investigation period and deep discussions with our key members. We are very happy to have opted for the BCE proposal and excited with the final result.
What has started as a purely technical upgrade from SD to HD has resulted in developing an innovative media management and editorial platform. It is the platform that automates a large part of our daily work and lets our staff focus on value and service for our members.
Terence Jarosz (Enex), Léa Krieger (BCE), Sven Weisen (BCE), Julian Neundorf (BCE), Tobias Matzat (BCE), Daniel Resslinger (BCE), Sascha Quillet, Steve Heiles (BCE), Christos Schizas (Enex).
At the same time it a solid base that provides enormous flexibility for the future and can grow with Enex. Finally by combining industry best practices, open source software and BCE custom solutions; we have managed to keep the overall investment at low levels, in line with the frugal nature of our organization.”
via @videomageu