Live Event Production

The day of the event, the cast and crew arrive as early as possible to set up. All equipment is laid out and wired. Then the equipment is turned on and tested.

The technicians connect audio from the mixer output and video from the switcher to the capture cards on the encoding computer. Then they connect the NIC to one of the DSL modems. The chat/playback computer is connected to the other DSL modem. The DSL modems are then connected to the phone lines carrying the two DSL lines.

The technicians then turn on the encoding computer and load the session file that was created ahead of time for the live stream. The session file is configured with the following properties:

• On the Source tab, click Source from Devices, and select the video and audio capture cards.

• On the Output tab, click Pull from encoder, and type the port number supplied by the hosting service.

• On the Compression tab:

  • The Destination is specified as Windows Media server.

  • Video and Audio has Multiple bit rates (CBR) selected.

  • For Bit rates, only 148 Kbps is selected.

• On the Video Size tab:

  • The Crop Method is Widescreen 1.78:1.

  • The Resize Method is set to No resizing.

The Contoso Movies Online site sizes all video to this aspect ratio so it has a more cinematic look. With these settings, the top and bottom 30 pixels of the image are cropped.

In addition to the property settings, the technicians will configure the encoder to reject all connection requests for the stream except from the Windows Media server at the hosting service. As mentioned earlier, Windows Media Encoder will only support up to five connections. If the address of the encoding computer were to become known on the Internet, it would be open to a denial-of-service attack if only five clients connected to it directly. To restrict access to the encoder, open the Broadcast Security dialog from the Tools menu, and enter the IP address of the host server in the Allow area. In Contoso’s case, they get the address from the hosting service. The address is also displayed as a Client on the Connections tab of the Monitor panel once they start encoding.

After everything has been set up, the Contoso technicians send a test stream to the host. They can, for example, use the character generator to create an appropriate title, play some test music on the CD player, and start encoding. The producer contacts the host to start the publishing point. If they are using a rollover playlist, the IT person at the host service will see that the media element associated with the live encoder is the active media element in the playlist.

The technician then opens the Player on the chat/playback computer and connects to the publishing point to check that the data is getting through, and that streaming quality is acceptable. If a connection is not made, they can turn off broadcast security to allow all connections, and then see if they can connect directly to the encoder with the Player on the playback computer. If you have difficulty making a connection, double-check settings and make sure the domain name, if you use one, resolves properly to the encoding computer.

A half-hour before the show, the director can play some music with a title announcing the start time. The producer can set up and check the chat system, and the technician and camera operators can check all audio and video signals one last time.