Support with livestreaming outdoor events

[ericburnard]

Hey everyone. Looking for a bit of input on the best way to build out a live-streaming set up for outdoor events.

 

Last weekend we live-streamed an outdoor event using two borrowed Go Pros (One wired in webcam home and the other through a phone via rmtp), and a phone for roaming vid ninja.vdo. We want to start doing this regularly at our running events and looking to invest in the right cameras and systems.

 

Our web access would be via Starlink and we would have a desktop computer and power in the van. Everything runs though OBS.

 

I looked at PTZ cameras with POE and HDMI, but that would limit the distance of the cameras with the HDMI leads. Also, waterproof PTZ cameras are either very expensive or security cameras.

The next thought was for cameras like the Mevo that are made for live-streaming, but again, many are not waterproof or even water resistant.

 

So this brought me back to the GoPro set up; The only issue here is that in webcam mode you can only have one GoPro wired into the PC and the distance is limited to the max USB cable length before losing signal and power. I did consider a HDMI to network adapter at both ends and running network cables, but again that would likely be costly. I would purchase some cheap phones and pair them with each go pro and have them stream to an RMTP server via the Starlink Wifi, but then I would have to be in range of the router, would I need a router upgrade? How would this affect my stream and speeds if I had 4 go pros wirelessly streaming into the PC.

 

I seem to have given myself to many questions and two many options, so I need some help. Am I approaching this the wrong way, are there other cameras to look at, is there a better way to stream overall?

 

I think at the moment I am leaning towards upgrading the router and getting cheap mobile phones to stream the GoPro's through. Would this be the best or cheapest way?

 

Any help would be very much appreciated.

 

Eric

[BrandonTech.05]

I do live streaming productions but all of our cameras use SDI. I'd look around for some waterproof or just easy to cover sdi cameras and a pcie sdi capture card. At least that'd be my ideal setup.

Another setup could be just to run sdi out and convert it at the camera if power is available to power the converter. 

You can also use wireless hdmi if your gopros have even just a mini output it'll work. But for some production such as ones with speakers and can be jarring to have their mouth not line up with the audio.

From my experience, PTZ's are cool and really useful for very limited types of productions. Most of the ones that are not the cost of an average car have tremendous latency and for most productions it's just not worth it. 

 

Just some ideas. Let me know if you have any more questions...