Speaker 1: In this video, I'm going to talk about how to set up a multi-cam live stream. Now, I do live streaming as a service for my business. And so when a company or an organization needs something live streamed, I can come in with multiple cameras and live switch that all by myself without needing any assistance. Of course, it definitely makes it easier when you have helpers because the setup and teardown goes faster. And having somebody on each camera is definitely better than having unmanned cameras. But it's definitely possible to do all of that by yourself. I'm going to walk you through how I do that and some of the things that I utilize through that. So I use all of my Sony cameras. And so I've got Sony a7 for cameras that have HDMI output. Essentially, what you're going to need is cameras with an HDMI output. It doesn't have to be a camera like this. There are definitely better camera options for live streaming. But because I utilize these cameras in most of my other creative work, it's what I have and they work really well. The image produced is really nice because the a7 for mirrorless camera with some good lenses is going to produce a beautiful image. You can utilize whatever cameras you have available to you that are an HDMI output camera, HDMI cameras. I usually use two to four cameras depending on the scenario and the size of the stage and different angles and what I need to capture. That usually is determined by what my client wants as far as how professional they want the live stream to be. One camera is setting up in the back, just pointing at the stage. Definitely is not going to be as professional as having multi camera. So multiple cameras set up all HDMI cameras. It can be a little challenging to manage all of that. So obviously those cameras are going to be on tripods, whether they're being manned with somebody behind them, moving them around or not. Usually they're going to be on tripods. I've only a few times done a live stream that included a shoulder mount camera where that cameraman was moving around. And that's more for live music production. You want to have something that's a little bit more responsive. And so I had a shoulder cam that was essentially not the not this particular camera, but one very much like it that was all rigged out like a video set up with handles. And that camera operator was able to move around and be completely wireless, which was great. So you're also going to need battery sources because while these cameras have a lot better battery life than they used to, if you're going to be live streaming for several hours, you're going to need an additional power source for these cameras. Now, I like to go as wireless as possible, meaning that everything that is on that camera on the tripod is self-contained and doesn't need to be plugged into anything. Running cables and all of that can be kind of a nightmare. And I'm going to explain how I can get wireless as we continue to go on. So what I usually have underneath the tripod is some form of a battery bank. Depending on how long the live stream is going to be will determine how big the battery bank needs to be. If it's only a few hours that I'm going to be live streaming for maybe a maximum of four hours, I can get by with one of those larger battery banks that you might use to charge your cell phone because I'm going to get the full battery life out of the camera battery and then probably two to three times additional battery life out of the power bank. I'll make sure to link to some of these things in the description below so you can check them out and see what's going to work best for you. Power is definitely important. And I'm not only powering the camera, but I'm also powering the wireless transmitter, which I'll talk about here in a second. Wireless transmitters definitely help me in maintaining that wireless capability between my cameras and my switching board. So if you are not going to go wireless, you're definitely going to need HDMI cables and you're going to want to make sure to gaff tape those down to the ground as best possible or run them straight up and over some rafters or something like that. But you definitely want to make sure that those cables aren't something that people can trip on. In my earlier days of live streaming before having access to anything wireless, I would run HDMI cables and you can run HDMI cables a decent distance before having any sort of latency. As soon as you start to run them very much of a distance beyond the capability, you start introducing latency. And then when you're syncing and switching between different shots, they're not all going to be in sync and you're going to have issues there. That's when I made the switch to wireless. And I have these wireless kits here that are from Hollyland and they're affordable. They're not cheap, but they are affordable. And essentially what these guys do is you attach one of these to your camera and then you attach one on the other end to your switcher and it has antennas that are coming out and they have HDMI ins and outs. And so HDMI in that device goes, which is the transceiver that or the transmitter that goes on your camera and then you have your receiver that's going to be over on your switcher. And so I'll have two to three of these depending on the setup and I'll be broadcasting wirelessly between the camera and my switching board, which is great. So there's a variety of these different models. The Hollyland, I believe this model is the 400, the Mars 400S is a very affordable and capable unit. And then I have a higher end Hollyland model here as well. I'll make sure to link to all of these down in the description below. This is the Cosmo C1. Now, I primarily live stream in events where there's going to be a lot of people in the crowd. You would think, OK, what about cell phone interference and all of that stuff? Well, I've live streamed with a roomful of about 450 people all carrying cell phones. And I didn't have any problems there broadcasting from one transmitter to the receiver directly over that crowd, from one corner of the stage to the back corner on the opposing side of the room. And I didn't have any problems with connectivity there. These Hollyland wireless transmitters are absolutely fantastic and extremely powerful. They do require their own power source. And so a lot of times what I'll end up doing is using a V-mount battery on my camera. So the V-mount battery is on the camera rig and it will be powering both the camera and it'll be powering the Hollyland wireless transmitter as well. And those big V-mount batteries can power the camera and that transmitter for many hours on end without me running into any issues. And so that's my particular setup for running wireless. Now, you're going to need a switcher, some way to switch between those different cameras. And I found that the best solution on the market right now that is price effective is the ATEM Mini Pro from Blackmagic. That is a beautiful little device, which I started out with the four channel device, but then I needed a fifth channel once. And so I upgraded to the eight channel device that has eight different HDMI inputs. You can have an output to a monitor so you can have a display that shows you all of the different camera angles that you have, including what is live. And it's just a an amazing tool to have and very impressive. My clients are always impressed by the setup and how everything's working. The fact that I don't have to run any wires, everything is self-contained. All I have to do is set up my camera with the transmitter on a tripod with its battery pack and then set up a couple of those throughout the room. I usually have one camera right next to me as well. That is actually an HDMI cable from that camera running into the switcher. So that way, if everything fails, all my wireless stuff fails. At least I have one camera that is hard wired in and I don't have to worry about that camera as much. The ATEM Mini has two different versions. There's the ATEM Mini Pro and then the Pro ISO or ISO. And the main differences between the two is that they both have internal recording capabilities. You plug in a small hard drive like an SSD to the back of it and you can record everything that you've switched. And so you're basically editing a finished video on the fly. And my clients love this because I can offer them a fully edited video version of the live stream, because sometimes the live stream, depending on your Internet connection, there can be a dropped frame here or there or a little bit of jitteriness. And so you don't necessarily want to rely on the version that comes out on the other end of the live stream through whatever service you're using. A lot of times I use Vimeo, which Vimeo is really great. But offering that fully edited video for them to upload or send out to all of their patrons or whatever, or just have available as a backup is a great solution. The difference between the ATEM Mini Pro and the ISO version is that the ISO version also captures each individual camera separately. Maybe you want to go back and use those individual camera angles to edit down into a smaller project for social media or something like that. And of course, I can capture internally on these cameras. These cameras can capture 4K. The ATEM Mini can only handle HD. So as I'm exporting, everything is going from the camera into the ATEM Mini. It's being down sampled to 1080. So I usually just tell my clients like 1080 is what you're getting unless they have a need for 4K and then I can capture internally to the camera as well. Audio is another situation and probably would need its own video. You can't audio capture while utilizing the ATEM Mini. And I keep looking over here because mine is off camera and it's helping me see different camera angles in most of my videos. The ATEM Mini has a very small like eighth inch headphone jack input for audio, so I prefer not to use that. I actually use a two channel audio interface that allows me to run an XLR for house audio into the interface and then I have a backup shotgun microphone that I run just in case something fails with the house audio. And sometimes I end up having to rely on my shotgun microphone. So I will boom a shotgun microphone up as high as I can get it safely so that it's shooting over the crowd and I just run that and connect it directly into my audio interface and it serves as a backup. If the audio fails, somebody messes with the soundboard and makes a change that affects my audio. I have a secondary audio source. So to walk you through the setup, I've got the ATEM Mini. I've got all of the wireless Hollyland devices connected to it, including one camera that is hardwired to it. I have an SSD connected to it so I can record to the SSD and then I have a display monitor connected to it so that I can see a preview of everything that is going on with all of those cameras. Now the ATEM Mini is connected to my computer and on my computer is OBS. OBS is a fantastic open source free piece of software that makes it easy for me to broadcast live from that software. And it has a lot of built in abilities, like being able to add text on the screen and all of that good stuff, have different scenes and different backgrounds and just different things that I can have. A lot of times I end up having to have a PowerPoint presentation that I'll switch between. And so I'll have a PowerPoint presentation loaded up. And then sometimes it's full screen with a video overlay. Sometimes the PowerPoint is split screen or something like that. And so I can set all of this up in OBS and switch between those. And then, of course, my computer is connected to a solid Internet connection because you need a good, consistent, solid Internet connection when you are live streaming. And I highly recommend if you're going to be in a room where there are lots of cell phones and lots of other things that are interfering in the way, Wi-Fi will be affected by that. And so I try to go hardwired and if I can get an Ethernet cable, ran to the booth or wherever I'm going to be set up so that I can have Internet that is not affected by a lot of crazy activity with cell phones and different things going on that perhaps are even connecting to that same network. So having dedicated Internet is definitely a plus. I actually have my own Starlink device that I will utilize. Sometimes I'll put the Starlink outside, make sure I have a good connection and then utilize my own Internet as a backup. Back in the day, I would use my 4G connected to my phone. I would use whatever I could to make sure that I was providing a solid Internet connection so the live stream would go on no matter what. So having a solid, dedicated Internet connection, if possible, is definitely a huge tip and a pro move to make sure that you are going to have a solid connection and that nobody is going to miss this live streamed event because your Internet dropped out. Another tip is to check your audio before you go live. Make sure that you do a test live. You actually go live, maybe on a separate feed that nobody else is going to see and make sure you test everything from cameras to your audio and put in headphones and make sure you're listening to both channels to make sure that you have both channels, because with OBS sometimes you can end up broadcasting through one channel and missing the other, which is going to be an unfortunate situation for people watching at home. And so you want to make sure to look through and test all of those things ahead of time to make sure that you don't have any issues. So to overview, doing a multi-cam live stream setup can be pretty simple if you have everything that you need and you understand how to use all of your equipment. Definitely practice doing this, maybe in your home or your office, set up multiple cameras, wire everything in, try it wireless, try it connected to your audio interface, make sure to publish a live stream and watch it as if you were just a person watching it so that you can find out if there are anything that is not working perfectly. Because on the other end, people are going to be trying to experience whatever it is that you are capturing for and you want to make sure that that experience is good because the your client or whomever you're live streaming for is going to hear about it. And then that's going to reflect upon your setup and everything that you spent a lot of time trying to get dialed in. So if you have any questions about live streaming, definitely ask down in the comments section below. I definitely went through a lot of this pretty fast. I would like to do more in-depth videos. So if you have questions, ask them, because that will help me determine whether or not it makes sense to do more video content on this topic. Live streaming is just going to continue to become more and more of a thing as especially with schools and churches and different places where events and things are happening, where there might be some of the family there and some of the rest of the family might be somewhere else in the world or the United States. And so being able to live stream, make sure that everybody gets access to whatever's going on. And more and more businesses, organizations are wanting live streaming. So it's a great thing to have as far as access to service or even just knowledge to understand how to set up something like this. So questions down in the comments section below. Everything that I talked about is linked up in the description. So definitely check out those links in case you're looking at any equipment. Utilizing those links help support the channel. So I greatly appreciate it. Thumbs up if you enjoyed this video and subscribe if you haven't already. I hope to see you back in another one soon. Take care.