The term ‘live streaming’ gets thrown around a lot. But what is it?
Live streaming is easy to create and quickly consumed. Anyone with a smart phone can do it. People use their smart phone to film an ‘event’ and stream it to social media platforms. If the filming and streaming are concurrent then they are ‘live streaming.’ The major platforms favour live streaming over other forms of media and communication (photos and text in particular).
To be a little bit technical, streaming is about how you are sending or receiving the information. And it’s about analogue versus digital. Transmitting or receiving a digital signal is ‘streaming’ while watching television via the aerial on your roof is still analogue. A signal transmitted via analogue waves is not ‘streaming.’
How we live stream
When we live stream your event, the basic concept is the same but the method and results are different. Instead of using phones, we create a network of professional cameras, microphones, and broadcast-standard equipment. This creates polished programs similar to traditional television but that contain many other elements that only digitalisation allows. For example, a sports program such as the World Cup live stream has multiple cameras, slow-motion replays, live scores, interviews, commentators and advertisements. But it can also have elements particular to the digital world such as live, 2-way interaction and engagement with online-viewers. This has opened up the possibilities for organisations to reach, and engage, with viewers.
We capture and encode the signal into a digital signal that the online platforms can read. Each social media platform has their own method of communicating with professional equipment, and it often changes. We test platforms regularly and adapt what we do to best suit the broadcast medium. The result is a professional program, streamed to whichever channel you choose.
How does it differ from ‘streaming services’ like Netflix?
In simple terms, all streaming services are massive servers accessible by the user, whenever they want. Subscribers access these digital files via the internet, which is ‘streaming.’
What about the news and other TV content?
Some streaming services, especially those linked to television channels, also broadcast live on their channels. Sport, with gambling associated with live results, fills the bulk of this. Christmas concerts, state funerals and natural disasters are shown live too. Many news shows still broadcast one show live each evening. Plus they do ‘live crosses’ to reporters in the field to get updates on certain events or for weather reports. TV is still transmitted over both analogue and digital signals.
As you can see, live streaming has a few strings to its bow. But we take the complications out your hands to live stream your event. Get in touch to find out how we can increase your audience through live streaming.
Written by David Pawsey of Queensland Live Streaming