What you need to know before making a live video

Broadcasting your events live , webinars and all other types of live video , have become commonplace in the video world, but it’s not always clear where and how to broadcast.

You can also take a look at our site because we are an audiovisual production company that produces many live videos for companies. You can also go to our portfolio page for examples.

We explain what you need to know before making a live video :

Not all platforms allow live video

With the arrival of Periscope and Facebook and Youtube lives, we tend to think that live, or streaming, can be done on all platforms in an easy way. Although this is not the case, the various social networks are increasingly developing this function, and sites offering only streaming are also appearing more and more.

It’s important to realize that live on oursocial networks is still a very recent tool and in full development, you will not be able to makelive videos everywhere, and even when you can it is not alwayseasy.

Know what you want to stream

Do a live video it’s good, knowing what you want to show is better. Before making your video, you need to know if you need one or more cameras, or if you want to broadcast images or presentation slides live on your screen etc… The reason is quite simple: the more things you want to show, the faster you will need softwares and sometimes special equipment.

Don’t panic: there are many free softwares such as OBS, allowing you to manage your broadcast, and most platforms offering a live service will offer you the good software for a smooth running of your live.

How to distribute your video?

There are several platforms and social networks that can now broadcast live via your computer. Here are short guides on how to do a live broadcast on the most popular platforms.

Live on Facebook

Facebook is today the social network offering the simplest live service. Just go to your news feed, click on “post a status”, then “Live Video”. Fill in the different information boxes you see (camera, title, accessibility description, etc.) and that’s it, you can start your live!

No special software needed here, unless you want to do something more sophisticated than just a video.

The live on Youtube

Photo by Kon Karampelas on Unsplash

Youtube also happens to be quite easy to handle when you want to go live with a single camera.

Go on your Youtube channel, click on“Creator Studio”, than on“Live Streaming” and“Créer un évènement”. Decide the broadcast date, choose your title and write your description checking that everything works by clicking on “Go Live”. This will not launch the live, but will give you a preview of what your viewers will see. Your browser will most certainly make you download a plugin in order to be able to manage your live.

Once done, everything is good!

Good to know: the video of your live will be recorded entirely on your Youtube channel after you finish broadcast.

Live on Twitter

There, things become a little more complex, but nothing insurmountable!

To perform a live onTwitter, you will need aPeriscope account linked to your Twitter account, as well as an OBS-style media monitor. Once done, go to your Periscope profile via your phone or tablet. Go to “Settings”, then to “Periscope Director” and display the “Source Info”, or choose to create one. Once done, write down the server URL and the name of the stream: you will need them later.

Go back to your computer and start OBS, go to “Settings”> “Flux”> Select “custom streaming server” and enter URL and stream name. Then click “Start Streaming”.

Warning ! Anyone with this code can rebroadcast your live or modify it.

Return to Periscope, in “Periscope Director” and launch the preview. All you have to do is fill in the text with your title and description of your content! To broadcast on Twitter, select the Twitter icon and the live will automatically post to the social network when you launch your live.

No live for LinkedIn

For the moment, the professional social network has not yet started to do live videos, but you can always create your live elsewhere and share the link on the platform so that your network is aware!

LinkedIn is not yet optimal when it comes to all things video, but it is gradually making progress in opening up to this medium, so don’t hesitate.

[Rectification] Since the confinement and explosion of webinars and live recordings for companies. Linkedin has taken to live video and it seems to be one of the best news of the day! However, to bet everything on linkedin live your business must have a business page worthy of the name!

Live Events or on several platforms

If you want to film an event with multiple cameras or stream it to multiple platforms, it can be a bit more complex. Find out more and above all do not hesitate to contact a professional to take care of all the distribution.