Don’t use Zoom as a Streaming Tool
How to improve the quality of your live broadcast (during the Quarantine)
*This text is for those who want to improve the quality and dynamics of a live broadcast without leaving their home, not to those who are using a professional studio or one made for live broadcasts.
With the sudden change of our daily lives, specially at companies, we saw an increase of live broadcasts during the quarantine. Ordinary people, small and big companies, colleges, churches, many of those are starting to do live streaming as a way of providing a continuity of their service, event or to create content.
But some of them are doing that in an amateur way. Not all companies have someone who is a specialist in video production on their team. So the solutions come from youtube tutorials, google, trial and error, etc. And this is not wrong.
Zoom was the platform adopted by big part of the companies to be used as a tool for video conference calls and meetings. Those who signed up for it, discovered that you can use it for another thing: Live Broadcast. And this was a solution to those who want to produce and share a Webinar, an interview, classes, etc.
But Zoom was not made for that, and here we find some problems.
You don't have a good control of the broadcast. You can't select which person is speaking at a specific time, you can't add graphics. And this is the objective of this text. Zoom is a limited platform for live streaming. In fact, it's not even made for it. It's made for video calls, like Skype. And you can only use the livestreaming option if you pay for it.
I'm part of the Communication team from my Church, and during quarantine, we looked for solutions to continue to provide our sunday services without using our building, so that everyone could stay home during quarantine, but still gather online, for services, groups and classes. We used (or tried to use) Zoom, but the result was not great. So we looked for other options for streaming.
And we discovered Streamyard.
Streamyard is a web based service with a free option of streaming. It was created for live streaming. And you can use it to stream to YouTube, Facebook, Linkedin, etc. You can control who is talking, you can put up to six people on the same screen, or highlight just one at a time, like a technical director/vision mixer would do in a live broadcast.
The free option is limited in some resources. One of them is that you have to keep their logo during all of the broadcast, but if you don't mind that, it's ok. You also don't have many options for graphics, but if you already pay Zoom for that, you can pay five bucks more and have a better platform, with graphics, your logo and more. And you can have a better broadcast.
Streamyard is not perfect. Their settings are limited, but we had success disabling the audio processor so the band could have a better sound while playing songs. You can only upload 30 seconds of video to show during your broadcast, and some other things. But as an entry level tool for people who want to improve their live streaming, it's pretty good. You won't have that on Zoom either way.
I used EBANX and LIBER as examples, but you can (and should) apply these concepts to your reality and your objective with live streaming. It can be a class, meeting, webinar, debate, whatever. This is not a critic on Zoom, they do a good job as video conference tool. Also, I'm not getting paid to promote Streamyard. I'm just trying to show that, with some effort, you can have a broadcast with more quality for your audience. And either for free or paying almost the same as you pay for Zoom. And you can use other platforms.
Streamyard is not the only option. You can use OBS too. But in my opinion, Streamyard is easier. Specially if you are not a professional. And you should consider hiring someone if you can. A professional can even control your broadcast remotely. Also, if you have other recommendations, let me know. Always good to have different options.
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Felipe Câmara works with video and (almost) anything related.
Portuguese Version: https://medium.com/links-weekly/n%C3%A3o-fa%C3%A7a-transmiss%C3%B5es-ao-vivo-com-o-zoom-2e5939aa4314
