7 tips for professional live streaming

“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” has endured for a reason. It’s sound advice whether you’re farming, investing – or live streaming. Building multi-level path redundancy into your production workflow is the best way to make your live streaming setup more resilient. By eliminating single points of failure, you can minimize the impacts of technological hiccups – and maybe even avert disaster.

Here are 7 tips for fail-proofing your streaming setup:

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HDMI and SDI cables are prone to failure. To ensure your feed reaches its respective encoder, use redundancy switch boxes or re-clocking devices to diversify and amplify one program feed into multiple synced outputs. Two cables are always better than one.

Set up multiple hardware encoders to protect against single device failure. Choose the same encoder model and use identical encoding configuration presets for easy setup and consistent video quality. Ensure all your encoders are timecode aligned and genlocked.

For your wired connection, use disparate local area network (LAN) switches for each encoder. Make sure you have enough bandwidth across all paths – for each encoder and for each stream. Add an in-line cellular-bonded modem with automatic switchover for an extra layer of resilience.

Look for CDNs that offer automatic stream failover options. Set up each encoder to send 2 streams: one to the primary CDN and one to the backup CDN. This way, in case of primary encoder and/or primary CDN failure, the backup encoder and CDN will pick up the slack, continuing to send a healthy stream to the destination.

Be sure to test your setup in advance to confirm the switchover happens smoothly. Run the stream using primary paths and then deliberately bring them down, testing one level at a time. Remember that there will be more stress on the CDN side during a real event as more people access the stream.

Having options for both manual and automatic switchover is beneficial. In some critical situations, it’s difficult to pinpoint right away what the problem is. Automatic failover architecture can be a lifesaver here. On the other hand, manual control is important because sometimes quick (human) decision making is critical.

Backing up every aspect of your production workflow will greatly reduce the likelihood of stream disruptions and failures. To increase overall robustness, each hardware and software element must be of the highest quality. For example when choosing a hardware encoder, pay special attention to its multistreaming performance, firmware update regularity, and overall physical robustness.

The Audio / Video team focuses on the professional audio / video and the command and control (KVM) market. Through years of experience in the professional AV and KVM world, Intronics thinks in terms of solutions, not in products. We know the market, give independent advice and provide several solutions for meeting rooms. These solutions are tested in their own fully equipped AV test lab.

The AV Lab is used for pre- and after-sales support such as:

• Testing of products
• Construction of proof of concepts
• Research & Development
• Beta testing of your solution
• Developing central knowledge