How We Run a Live Broadcast
We run live broadcasts the same way a television control room does. A technical director cuts the show live, every camera records its own isolated file at the same time, and the program feed goes out to whatever platform the audience is already on. The result is a finished broadcast when the room empties, not a pile of footage that needs a month of edit.
We have done it for a retail town hall in Manhattan, a monthly program for a technology company, a workshop that tied New York to London, and a live MMA card in South Carolina. Different rooms, same discipline.
What Goes in the Control Room
Every camera lands on its own switcher input and the technical director cuts between them live. The program cut is not the only thing that survives the day, because every angle records clean and separately, so the edit team has real options afterward.
- Blackmagic production switcher, eight SDI inputs
- Blackmagic HyperDeck isolated recording on every angle
- Blackmagic Web Presenter for the encode and the push to the destination
- Audio off the house board over XLR, so what the room hears is what the stream hears
- Clear comms across camera operators, the technical director and the audio operator
- A remote confidence monitor watching the outbound stream from outside the building
- Program master delivered as a 4K MP4 file
Staying Ahead of the Bandwidth
A smooth live stream is decided long before show day. Gear is rarely the question. The connection is, and we make sure it is answered before anyone plugs in.
We put the requirement in writing before the job is booked. A hard line ethernet connection with 300 Mbps down and 100 Mbps up as a floor, dedicated to the broadcast and not shared with a room full of guests on the guest wifi.
When a venue cannot produce that, we bring bonded internet so the show is never waiting on the house connection. Bonded cellular is rented against the specific job and billed through, which keeps a five figure encoder off our balance sheet and off your invoice.
The Process From Setup to Air
Nothing on show day is happening for the first time. Every broadcast gets the same run up, whether it is a one time event or a program that goes out every month.
- Survey and setup day. We walk the room the day before, not the morning of. Camera positions, cable runs, power, the audio feed off house sound, and a real test of the venue connection.
- Tech rehearsal. The full system runs end to end with the actual feed going to the actual destination. Graphics, lower thirds and any playback assets get loaded and tested here.
- Dry run. Speakers walk their content with the crew live on comms. Timing problems and microphone problems surface while there is still a day to solve them.
- Show day. The technical director cuts live. Isolated recording runs on every camera the whole time. A monitor outside the building watches the public stream.
- Delivery. Program master as a 4K MP4, isolated camera files on a drive or a direct download, and a recut for on demand distribution when you want one.
Broadcasts We Have Run
Four rooms that had nothing in common except the way we ran them.
Magic Leap
An ongoing program rather than a one time event. Each broadcast carried its own rehearsal, tech rehearsal and dry run before the show, month after month.
H&M
A four person executive town hall streamed live from Houston Street in New York, with a setup day ahead of it and live translation running alongside the broadcast.
Stantec
A workshop that connected offices in New York and London. Their feedback afterward was that colleagues on both sides felt like they were in the same room.
Zodiac Studios
A live MMA event out of Columbia, South Carolina.
Where the Stream Goes
YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, LinkedIn, a client website, or a private destination such as Zoom, Skype or GoTo Meeting.
Live translation when the audience spans more than one language, which is what we ran for the retail town hall.
Live question and answer tooling, with a moderator on the comments so the chat has a person running it.
A Film Studio You Can Broadcast From
People search for a film studio for live streaming. Most production companies cannot answer that.
We own the room. Thirty thousand square feet in Los Angeles, with offices in New York and South Florida. A broadcast can originate here on a controlled stage with our own power, our own connection and our own lighting, instead of fighting a hotel ballroom and its guest wifi.
Broadcasts, films, campaigns and stills from the same team that will run your live stream.