Using Professional Cameras on your Facebook Live Streams
There are lots of things you can do to make your Facebook lives better. We wrote up a few of them here. (“Getting the best stream with Facebook live on your mobile device”) But it’s possible that you’re looking to get an even better picture for your live stream. Maybe you have a nicer camera, and you know all the fancy knobs and whistles, exposures and white balances… but you don’t know how to get that sweet setup into Facebook Live. Let me walk you through.
The answer is an easy conversion. What you chiefly need is a device that can take your camera signal and convert it to USB or Thunderbolt for your computer to send that signal to Facebook Live.
I lean toward using the Magewell HD HDMI USB 3.0 capture dongle, or the Blackmagic Mini Recorder. These beauties will allow you to take an HDMI or SDI feed from your prosumer or professional camera and convert it to a USB or Thunderbolt signal, which you then can send through broadcast software like Vidpresso, ffmpeg, OBS, Wirecast or Xsplit.
From there you can follow the steps provided by Facebook to connect your broadcast to Facebook Live.
