tips for live streaming sports

Live Streaming SportsTechnology Setups from PTZOptics Camera Users

Tips for Live Streaming Sports from Industry Experts

Presentation Agenda:

1. Camera Settings Tips

2. Tips from Industry Experts

3. Levels of Sports Videoa. K-12

b. College Level

c. Minor League

d. Professional

e. Olympics / Sports Analytics

4. Live Streaming Systems Layouts

5. Customer pictures from around the world

Quick Camera Setting Tips

1. Camera Settings Ideal for Live Sports

a. Remember there is no post production in live! Get your settings right before the stream.

b. Operating a joystick controller. Let the play develop. More on this in next slides

c. Use a multiple camera system to have one camera to fade to during fast movements and

another for close up

d. High Frame Rates. We are creatures of habit and used to 24 fps. When live streaming sports

we want higher fps such as 60fps. A good rule of thumb is to double the shutter speed such as

60fps = 1/120 shutter speed.

e. A large f/stop = a small aperture. A small

Presentation includes Tips from 8 Industry Professionals!

This Presentation Includes Tips from Experts

Eastern Shore Broadcasting,

Alabama, USA

Independent

Indiana, USAWillamette University

Oregon, USA

Panel of Sports Streaming Professionals

PrepSpin

Kentucky, USA

MKBWebinar

Utrecht, Netherlands

Ryan Vance

Marshall University,

West Virginia USA

Panel of Sports Streaming Professionals

12th End Sports

Fairport, NY, USA

KB Productions

Orangevale, CA, USA

Understanding the Audience w/ Christopher Sabato

If you are just starting, know the audience expectation. Are they

expecting nothing? If that's the case then anything is better than

nothing.

Professionals may tell you to do it "Right" or don't do it at all. While

that is generally a good rule of thumb, it's not always the best answer.

We stream for our parents, if we don't stream then many parents don't

see their child compete. So for them if the option is a low quality

broadcast, or none at all, they want to see something. When we

started we used one camera and sometimes just crowd noise. That

was "better than nothing" and made parents happy. As you grow and

learn so will your product. Sometimes it's ok to start at the bottom and

work your way up. - Christopher Sabato

Live Streaming College Sports w/ Ryan Vance

1. Always allow more time than you think you need

to get ready. Something will always go wrong or

need changed.

2. Don't overthink or overproduce. The viewer is

more interested in the game than anything else.

As long as they get to see that they are happy.

Don't do anything to distract them from that.

3. Observe the 180 degree rule. Don't break the

plane so that teams switch directions.

Live Streaming High School Football w/ Ken Benedict

1. Have backups for

most everything you

can afford

2. Keep your camera

shots wide enough to

see the surrounding

players.

Sports Streaming Tips from Tom Sinclair

● Cameras guys should use zoom more than

they use pan. Pan tends to get very blurry

very quickly.

● Camera guys should not attempt to follow

the ball. Just follow the play. Like a punt in

football.

● All cameras should be on the same side of

the field. Exception is a camera that is on a

person (like a coach or spectator) not on the

play.

Sports Streaming Tips from Tom Sinclair

● Directors should have cameras that show

different things. Rookies mistake to have

two cams showing essentially the same

shot.

● Directors should not switch cams

frequently and a lot. Confuses the viewer.

● Compression should be used on the

announcers' mics. They get excited and

shout.

College Sports Streaming w/ Christopher Sabato

Audio:Having good audio is key to any broadcast, sports are no

different. With great video and crappy audio people will tune

out, crappy video and good audio people are more likely to stay

tuned. A good play-by-play person is important, but at the bare

minimum having a crowd mic where you can hear the crowd

and the whistles and the PA announcer, makes the stream

more watchable. The next step is to hard wire the PA directly

into the broadcast. It’s not as good as having PxP, but it’s an

improvement over just a crowd mic.

College Sports Streaming w/ Christopher Sabato

Audio:

For clock sports (football, basketball, soccer), incorporate the clock in your

broadcast. A full cg scorebug looks great, but can be costly or difficult to set up. A

simple way to get the clock on your stream is to have a camera pointed at the

scoreboard. Crop and overlay it on your primary camera. It’s not pretty or fancy, but

it gets the job done.

Olympics Sports Streaming w/ Joe Calabrese

1. Use similar cameras...we use 6 PTZOptics

cameras and 8 Sonys. That way it is easier to create

similar settings and your look can be uniform.

2. Use headsets and cough buttons (We use Henry

Engineering Talent Pods). Your sound will be more

professional and your talent can control their levels.

3. Test, test, test... Then test again. Be sure that

your destination is receiving your stream and that you

can be heard.

Olympics Sports Streaming w/ Joe Calabrese

4. Automate as much as you can. Use vMix shortcuts,

autohotkey, and scripts when possible to automate

processes. We also use an Xbox controller and two

xkeys units tied to there shortcuts.

5. Use replay to push clips if great plays to social. We

use Dropbox and Zapier to push clips to social media.

This means with preparation, it only takes a save of a

replay to a specific dropbox folder to push clips to

Facebook and Twitter. It is a great way to advertise

your event in media you may not be streaming on.

Final tip from Joe

Use as many close ups as possible...it makes the cast more personal

Tips from Rick Vanerwielen

1. Revenue isn’t easily obtained from advertisers. Being

paid to produce ‘by others’ is the best business model.

2. You can produce 90% of the big truck’s produce at 10% of

the cost. Stay simple with graphics. Refrain from

complicating the show.

3. Get good cameramen. Everyone thinks they can run a

game came, but unfortunately, only about 10% can.

4. Watch other productions. See how they articulate their

camera. Listen to professional announcers.

5. Find a mentor. Ask questions. There is no book written

on the subject of webcasting sports.

Rick in the middle between Hall of Famer and

former Voice of Pacers Jerry Baker and HOFer

Bob Lamey, current voice of the Colts.

Tips from Rick Vanerwielen

6. Audio is very important. Don’t waste your efforts with poor audio.. or poor commentary.

7. Put your webcast everywhere. “If you’re not everywhere, you’re nowhere”. (FB, YT, OTTs, Webpage,

Periscope.)

8. Webcasting is by permission. You’ll need relationships with the games ‘owner’ or school.

9. Consider a bonded cellular internet solution like Live U or the Teradek Vidiu Pro. Internet access will

be problematic if you travel to produce.

10. Incorporate. Purchase insurance.

Sports Streaming Tips w/ William Warfield

1. Focus on your audience and promote

your stream on social media

2. If your broadcasting high school sports

make it all about the kids and the

community.

3. Build your network as a community

service rather than just a network. You

really have to lead with a passion to drive

forward your purpose.


1. College sports is a different animal because your a small fish in a big

pond. Focus on the things that set your broadcast apart. Connect with

your audience by providing exclusive content. Realize that your not espn

with a million dollar budget but you can still do most of what they do with

little budget.


1. VMix tip of the week - Don’t forget to set your computer power settings to

high performance. By default the power settings is set to balanced. This

makes your computer run at a much less pace than when on high

performance mode. You will drop frames on balanced mode.

Live Streaming Setups for Sports

Outdoor Camera Enclosures

This outdoor camera enclosure

(picture from Christopher Sabato) is

a Dotworkz D3 enclosure.

These outdoor PTZ camera

enclosures have weather tight cable

seals allowing for multiple cables to

feed into the protected dome area.

Outdoor Camera Enclosures

Basketball Live Streaming

Here you can see the

live streaming setup

from the Willamette

Bearcats. This

Basketball broadcast

features multiple

cameras, Wirecast, a

PTZOptics Producer Kit

and uses the NewTek

NDI in a very creative

way. (see next slide)

Pictures from Ken

Big thank to all of our Facebook User Group

Contributors!

www.Facebook.com/Groups/PTZOpticsPals

http://www.facebook.com/Groups/PTZOpticsPals

User Group Member Sports Applications

PHOTO CRED: ANDREW SEABROOK PHOTO CRED: MATEUSZ LEMIESZKO PHOTO CRED: DOMINIK MüLLER

PHOTO CRED:

KEN RICHER

PHOTO CRED:

ERIC HIMES

KICK-BUTT SPORTS SETUPS CONT’D

PHOTO CRED: NIKOLAJ KANNIK

PHOTO CRED: SCOTT DUPLER

PHOTO CRED: KEN BENEDICT