Audio Visual Insights for Web-Conferencing and Live Streaming

I'm here with Michael Kaelin today. Michael is an educator at Union School District and he's in charge of streaming media electives. He was tasked at starting a daily live news broadcast for his middle school. They're just getting started and have completed their third week of broadcasts. So, I wanted to talk to Michael to learn about the inspiration to start the show and to see how it's all going. 

Frank Caruso is The City of Easton’s IT manager ( For those of you are not familiar with Easton, it is a city in PA north of Philadelphia) and Frank is heading up the project of bringing live streaming to city council meetings. Frank previously worked for the borough of Kutztown who have been recording and broadcasting their meetings on their local television station for the past 10 years, so he is no stranger to the process. Easton is set to start streaming meetings January 9th so we wanted to chat with Frank and see why they decided to start and what their plan is.

Holidays got you Stressed Out? We put together a list of 5 of the Chillest Live Streams on the internet that will surely calm your holiday nerves. In-laws on your back, kids don’t believe you about Santa anymore? Just take a look at these video streaming LIVE from all over the world.

Live streaming is not just fad, it is a valuable marketing tool that is here to stay. However, do you need it at trade shows? Yes! No matter how large the trade show you are going to may be, your audience will be exponentially larger on the internet. Plus, you end up with valuable video content that can be shared and repurposed after the show. Streaming doesn’t have to be hard or even expensive. In this post, we are sharing our top reasons why you should be streaming trade shows and a range of options on how to do it, from practically free - to more advanced.

This week on ConferenceCast we interviewed Andrew Hayley of Telestream.  We were particularly interested in their live streaming studio solution called Wirecast. Wirecast lets you turn any computer into an easy to use Live Streaming Video Production studio. Learn all about it below.

We had the opportunity to interview Doug Lawes from Keys Vineyard Community Church (Check out Their Website Here) about their live streaming system. They have been streaming their church services since 2009, and have watched as their following has grown as well as their streaming quality. After checking out a few of their videos, I'm not surprised at all that people like to tune in even when they can't make it to church as Doug puts on incredible concerts with different camera angles, great lighting, and a fun upbeat feel.

A Bubble Machine, a Confetti Cannon, and a YouTuber walk into a room… That’s the start of fundraising in 2018. New tools for accepting donations directly through YouTube and Facebook live streams are finally reaching scale at a time when live streaming is all the rage. So, I am excited to dedicate this blog post to putting the “Fun” back into “Fundraising”.

This is a really cool time to be part of the video production industry. The immense culture shift toward digital media and smartphone usage is increasing the demand for video by leaps and bounds. After reading the Huffington Post article “Yes, It’s time to get serious about vertical video”, I have to say that the data is compelling. So compelling that it starts to flip everything we about 16:9 video resolutions and makes you think twice about 9:16.

Consider the fact that smartphone users hold their phones vertically 94% of the time and more than half of all video is now consumed on mobile devices. Jill Sherman, SVP, Social Strategy reports that Widescreen (16:9) and square (1:1) will have a hard time competing with vertical video (9:16) when it comes to mobile video consumption.

So I did a test and the results were pretty interesting. Yes, I did see more organic video views a 9:16 vertical video versus a similar 16:9 widescreen video. These test are difficult to draw too much information from because the views depend so much on the content and user behavior but the test did have a striking resemblance to a test performed 1 year earlier on YouTube vs Facebook Video content on Facebook.

Hello Pro AV & Broadcast Professionals!

Just getting back from InfoComm 2017, and a major trend appeared. Videos are being made inside traditional meetings spaces more than ever before. Not only are more rooms “video enabled” as we say in the industry, but every video conference, live streaming and webinar software includes a big red “record” button nested prominently inside the interface. That big red button is getting used more than ever, contributing to the staggering 300 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every minute!

 We have all sat through a recorded webinar right? They are getting better, but the majority of recorded webinars are sub-par in comparison to polished videos viewers are becoming more and more accustomed to. I would guess the last recorded webinar you watched is something your co-workers would call “death by powerpoint”. It’s not uncommon to come across recordings on YouTube with poor audio and video quality BUT when you do come across a video that was helpful and well prepared… that’s when users start to click the “subscribe” button. This is where social network sharing and communities discussions can start to uplift your video content and take your content further.

Hello AV & Broadcast Professionals!