Even when all the content, talent, cameras, lighting, and audio are worked out, live streaming event production is far from over. The workflow to get the signal from the camera to the viewing audience can make or break the production. There’s no single solution that fits all budgets and types of events. But in this article I will review some of the best practices and tips to make sure your live event streams go off without a hitch. I’ll cover some information that should be useful to beginners but hopefully more advanced producers will learn something new as well. These tips come from interviews with industry experts, discussions from panels I’ve moderated at Streaming Media conferences, and my own experiences.

There’s More Than One Way to Do It First off, a warning. There is not just one way to do it. There are literally hundreds. The perfect solution for one event might not make any sense for another. “Don’t limit yourself to a single workflow,” says Dylan Armajani, who works in digital workflow technologies at, “and get to know the tools and technology that’s at your fingertips.” With all the encoding and transmission options now available, Armajani says “you really can stream live from just about anywhere in the world on just about any budget and at least have your content show up online. The challenge really becomes weighing the cost vs. Possible points of failure and determining what workflow is optimal for your show.” 2.

Use a Video Switcher Let’s start with the signal coming out of the camera. The best practice is to use multiple cameras and a video switcher to create a visually interesting, dynamic show. When selecting a switcher, don’t underestimate the number of inputs you will need. Even though you might only use two or three cameras, you may need many additional inputs, such as graphics from the stage presentation, animated backgrounds, extra GoPro camera positions, and video playback sources.

Because there are so many switcher options available and diverse viewpoints, it’s beyond the scope of this article to make individual recommendations. The best switcher for any project is the one that offers the features you need within your budget. Perhaps more importantly, it’s the one you are most comfortable using. Video switchers can be divided into two basic types: hardware-based switchers that run on dedicated boxes with their own control surfaces and software-based switchers that run on a desktop or laptop computer with video capture cards or converters. Software switchers cost less and can deliver a flawless production. Yet many producers, including Adam Drescher, co-founder of the video production company, prefer hardware switchers. “There is something great about directing or TD’ing a live event and feeling the buttons and responsiveness of a hardware switcher,” he says.

“Also, there’s no chance of a software crash interrupting the event.” Drescher used a NewTek Tricaster to produce this year’s Westminister Kennel Club Dog Show, switching between a camera at each of the 12 different rings to create a single program output. The camera at each ring was also hooked up to an encoder to generate 12 single camera feeds, giving viewers the ability to become their own technical director. Suite Spot’s Adam Drescher uses a NewTek Tricaster to switch among 12 camera feeds at this year’s Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Hardware or Software Encoding At some point you need to encode the video into a streaming format. While this usually happens at the event venue, we’ll see some examples later of how it can be done offsite. Just as with switchers, there is a large range of hardware and software encoders, as well as some switchers that also do software encoding.

On one end, there are free software encoders, such as Adobe’s Flash Media Live Encoder, that run on a PC or Mac. Livestream, Ustream, and YouTube also offer free encoding software to stream to their own services.

Next up are software encoders such as Telestream’s Wirecast Pro or CombiTech’s VidBlaster, which can also be used as switchers and sell for less than $1,000. With software encoding, just as with software switchers, you need capture cards built in to the computer or external converter boxes to get the video signal into the computer. With hardware encoders, you just plug your video signal in. At the top of the line are hardware encoders made by Elemental, Cisco, Haivision, Niagara, and Digital Rapids, which can cost between $10,000 and $50,000. With 15 years of experience delivering live video on a global scale, Chris Mangum, senior digital media manager at, recommends hardware encoders like the Elemental Live.

He says “software-based encoders are inherently less dependable than hardware encoders.” Another benefit is “the ability to push more streams out of a more powerful box.” All of these encoders are capable of delivering a flawless webcast, but none is perfect. “Every single product in the market fails at some point or other, even the most expensive encoder,” says Alden Fertig, director of customer success at Ustream. “I’ve been on the phone with people when their $40,000 encoder doesn’t look good, or they can’t figure out how to operate it, or it requires a re-start. The best system is the one that you know, the one that you have tested extensively, and is stable in that environment with those inputs. For some that’s a hardware encoder, for others it’s a software encoder.” 4.

How Many Streams to Encode and Distribute Life would be simpler for live event streamers if there were one universal format and bitrate to encode and distribute in. That’s the goal of MPEG-DASH and technologies like it, but we are not there yet.

For now, many streams are needed to reach viewers with different connection speeds and different screens. At the venue, one option is to encode at a single high bitrate stream that gets transcoded to many renditions in the cloud. Mangum says if you are going with the single stream approach, “a 1280x720 frame size feed encoded at 4Mbps would be a good starting point.” For the audio portion, he recommends 160Kbps for a music event, but “if you are encoding a talking head, you can drop audio down to 96Kbps and it will still sound good.” This single stream would typically use the RTMP Flash Streaming protocol, the H.264 video codec, AAC audio codec, and progressive frames. Streaming services can take this single stream and transcode it in the cloud to support RTMP, HTTP and HLS streaming, so it can be viewed on computers, mobile devices, tablets, and set-top boxes. Streams are typically rendered in the cloud into four bitrates and frame sizes ranging from HD quality to a lower mobile setting. Another option is to generate multiple streams onsite. This requires those more expensive encoders and a lot of bandwidth.

But, as co-founder and CEO Max Haot says, “the upside is the quality is higher since you don’t re-encode.”.

The use of good, hard-to-guess passwords can make it difficult for a malicious hacker to break into your computer account. Avoiding predictable keywords and using different methods to introduce variety into your passwords makes it easy for you to remember them but virtually impossible for others to guess them. Here are some tips on creating winning passwords. Use keywords related to a theme.

Choose a common, significant event: a honeymoon, the birth of a child, a new car, a new job. Related: Example phrases associated with a birth might be blueeyes, hurry, onemorepush, crankyRN, coldbracelet, roomsix and icechips. Ideas associated with a new car could be deepblue, 6CDs, 5speed and TiresThatGrip. The idea here is that you use a variety of words associated with an event that other people would not readily guess. Remember that you may also need to mix in uppercase letters and numbers when you create a new password. For instance, 'hurry' could become hUrry66 or Hur5ry. Substitute numbers for letters based upon their appearance.

With a little imagination, you can visualize numbers that bear resemblance to letters. Number Letter 1 L 2 Z 3 E 4 A 5 S 6 b 7 Z 8 B 9 g 0 O When you create a password, substitute a number where a letter would appear, according to the chart above. Some examples:. scuba becomes 5cu8a. water becomes w4t3r. icecream becomes 1c3cr34m Substitute numbers for letters based upon their location on the keyboard. The uppermost row of letters on the keyboard, QWERTYUIOP, has a row of numbers right above it:.

You can substitute a number for a corresponding letter according to this chart. Number Letter 1 Q 2 W 3 E 4 R 5 T 6 Y 7 U 8 I 9 O 0 P So when you create a password, carry out the substitution from the chart. Some examples:. scuba becomes sc7ba. purple becomes 07r0l3. rocket becomes 49ck35 Consistently capitalize the nth letter(s) of your password. Some systems require that at least one character be uppercase.

Many people capitalize the first character, but this is too predictable. Instead, always capitalize the second, third or fourth letter, or perhaps always the last or next-to-last. Some examples: huRry, roCky, puRple, roCket. For further interest, you can capitalize more than one letter, for instance the first and third, or the second and fourth.

Avoid predictable week-to-week or month-to-month changes. One example of a predictable pattern to avoid: eyesJan01, eyesFeb02, eyesMar03, etc. If someone was lucky enough to discover your password long ago, you don't want him to be able to predict what it will be in the future. Gregory, CISSP, CISA, is an information technology and security consultant, a freelance writer and an author of several books, including Solaris Security, Enterprise Information Security, and CISSP for Dummies. As a consultant he provides strategic technology and security services to small and large businesses. He can be reached at.

His Web site is. Store passwords in Counterpane Labs' tool. All passwords are encrypted with the robust Blowfish algorithm. A nifty feature of Password Safe is that when you double-click on a previously stored password entry, it silently copies it to the clipboard so you can paste in the password even if others are watching you type. Check the quality of your password at.

This Web site performs calculations based on the complexity and 'guessability' of your password and tells you how good your password is. Remember that your password is transmitted over the Internet in the clear, so you should try similar passwords instead of your actual passwords to get an idea of the characteristics of a good one. Adopt ISO17799 password quality guidelines. Ask the IT department to implement best practices for password management in accordance with ISO17799, a widely recognized information security standard. According to the standard, here are some guidelines for passwords:. They should be at least six characters long.

Computer Security Best Practices

They should be free of consecutive identical characters. Don't use all numbers or all letters.

Avoid reusing or recycling old passwords. Require that passwords be changed at regular intervals. Force users to change temporary passwords at the next log-on. Maintain a record of previous user passwords and prevent their reuse. Change all vendor default passwords. Eliminate or lock shared-user accounts. Warning: Don't use any of the password examples that appear in this article!

Quality Control Review Best Practices

A note about password length: Some information security (infosec) professionals will bristle at ISO17799's recommendation for a mere six characters in a password. Some have told me that six characters are insufficient, based on the time it takes to crack a password. My response is this: Typically, hackers don't care about the length of passwords when choosing to crack open a computer account. Organizations are rife with guest accounts, group accounts, accounts with no passwords, a lack of password expirations, passwords that can be easily guessed and opportunities to exploit technical weaknesses or perform social engineering.

Best Practices In Quality Management

With all of these easy opportunities, computer accounts with good six-character passwords are only a trifle weaker than those with eight-character passwords. My point is that infosec professionals need to focus more on the compliance of good user-account hygiene than on the length of passwords. Tips From Security Experts Stories in this report:.