Conference Streaming

Recently I have been involved in some conference streaming jobs which have been great fun. There are a number of options open for clients for streaming pending on there budget and how complicated there shows are.

One great piece of kit I have used for a number of jobs has been the tricaster studio.

Tricaster Studio 350

 The tricaster is an amazing piece of kit for your conference or live event needs, not only can you mix 6 live feeds you can input computer feeds, overlay graphics, chroma key live, essentially its a TV studio in a box. Not only can you record the show as your mixing it you can simultaneously output it to a live stream across the Internet. Its amazing to think that something like this is now available to buy off the shelf at such a reasonable price. This kind of technology was only available if you had very deep pockets or had access to an OB Van a few years ago, now schools and places of worship and clubs have this technology for there events.

As powerful as the tricaster is some times it can be a bit over the top if say your client just needs a single video feed and the ability to stream there presentation to the web at the same time as the event.

So when the budget is tight using such streaming sites as Ustream can be an amazing tool. Even using the Ustream free Producer software you can do Picture in Picture which is great for when someone has slides in keynote or PowerPoint.

 You can also cue up videos to be streamed full screen or using pip in Ustream. All these tools weren't impossible to do a few years ago but they were hard to pull off.This kind of technology has meant that streaming your event live to the world is much more accessible than it ever used to be all you need is an Internet connection and someone who knows what they are doing like me :)

Exciting times for 550D/T2i Owners

If like me you own a Canon 550d/T2i you may be aware of the Magic Lantern open platform for developing the firmware on the 5D, and now at the end of 2010 the latest 550D version of the firmware are available to download.

Magic Lantern have brought what video users of DSLR's have been asking for with the latest version I have been testing the 24/12/2010, you now have control over elements of your video that were previously not available when using just the official canon firmware.

Now you can choose your white balance via kelvin from 1700k to 10,000k, select a much wider iso range including 160/320/640/1250 which you could not before. You can have an active Histogram on your live display along with active zebra markings for under and over exposed areas.

Blue checks show under exposed areas on the frame.

You can now disable the hideous AGC (auto gain control) and actual control the audio levels going into the camera via the internal or an external input, you have control over the analogue gain and your able to add digital gain to the individual channels.

Over the next few weeks I will be doing more tests with my camera I have already done a few audio and video tests and once I edit the footage I will be uploading my findings.

For now here is an iso test I will be trying lots of tests to see if its really worth using magic Lantern on your 550D. If you have any good ideas on a test you would like to see let me know.