The advancement in technology has meant that broadcasts abandoned by major players are now becoming viable to smaller operations who can do all their switching on a single computer unit, and stream to the internet.

Here is a dedicated 3 min 30 sec ABC news bulletin story on what is happening in regional Australia.

4 Sept 2016 - ABC News - streaming media revolution - YouTube

A text version of the story is here: Online streaming sparks cheap and cheerful TV revolution in regional Australia (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-04/online-streaming-sparks-regional-tv-revolution/7809834)

Andrew

Thanks Andrew

So we will shortly see "Smith TV" ??? It's a massive industry in the making and becoming quite affordable too. I was delighted to seem the footy broadcast using the same switcher that we use!! If you think about it it's not a horrific cost either to set up either ...one could even find an old panel van and bam..you have a mobile OB unit!! Over here we used to have Channel 31 as a community channel which was abandoned a few years ago so the Perth market is also ripe for Community TV ... the USA people love their community cable shows so doing the same with a stream channel would be just as easy as more and more people have smart TV's so living room viewing becomes practical!!

Not likely, but I do get together with a mate of mine and live switch an occasional 2-cam event. Here's one we did recently, steaming to both YouTube and Facebook, streamed from Parliament House n Queensland.

Two Men Talk About Marriage BNE launch - YouTube

Annoying slight green cast from the fluorescent lights (amongst many types) in the room which seem to be impossible to white-balance out for live stuff.

Andrew

Additional note: Pretty dang sure we streamed out to YouTube in full HD, yet the highest showing on the embedded playback at the moment is 720P. Weird.

Maybe it's just a temporary hiccup.

Andrew

Edit: Video at source at YouTube (not the embedded version here) has the 1080P option for playback for those that want to judge the quality of the stream.

When the community channels were turned off here on the East Coast this shut down my TV programs, I had no where to go. I thought streaming was going to be the answer for me however, educating business to support my programs has proved to be a dead end. I still think streaming is the future and once people become educated to this and learn to connect and watch this on their TV, it's a winner.

Oh, congrats guys on streaming, very envious at your endeavours.

Your TV programs were really awesome Simon ..it's such a pity they were abandoned. I'm assuming that your dead end was purely lack of sponsorship from companies ? For Aussie companies it's still a very new and scary thing and they will need time to be convinced that it's a good product promotion media. I really think it's more education and bringing companies out of the dark ages is all that's required. A LOT of homes have Smart TV's now and it's hard to see anyone walking down the street without a phone in their hand nowdays so the audience is there ..they simply need to be informed!!

Yep Chris, lack of funding. Sponsors seem to think that going to a TV Network is the holy grail, maybe it is... however why limit your brand to just a few thousand viewers that are watching on the network, with the internet, live streaming etc... the potential for a given product to been seen is massive.

Trying to educate business that the way forward ( for me anyway) is internet based commercial content embedded or aligned within the production. But hey, TV is what they want. I just don't get it.

Look at KODI and the add ons for content, live streaming etc... exciting times ahead and I think the typical TV station model is in danger.

My two cents worth anyway....

What is sad is that sponsors still see TV advertising as people sitting in the living room watching a program in front of the screen at a set time, whereas modern broadcast can go to almost every type of device and with "catch up" TV you can still watch a show long after it has been live. Our CDN records our stream as a DVR so even if you miss the start you can go back and start at the beginning and then you can re-watch it anytime you like which equates to a much bigger audience. We did a simple stream of a Real Estate home open a few weeks ago and more than double the viewers watched it after the event was over. Sponsors need to realise that their product is not only promoted during the show but also afterwards too.

Valid points Chris, I would love to include Streaming into my services, I'm just not sure how to go about this yet, both as a cost to my business and client fees.

Hi Simon

Whenever I see an event I find myself thinking "Gosh I could stream this!!" But seriously my first reason was weddings and an attempt to streamline my workflow.

In the old days of VHS and full size cassette cameras I used to film 10 seconds of the wedding invitation prior to the wedding then line up the start position and film the entire wedding doing an in camera edit and planning shots carefully (quite the opposite nowdays where people tend to shoot a huge amount of wasted footage) At the end of the night I would eject the tape, hand it to the bride and I was done!! No post production and spending days trying to piece clips together.

What we do now is stream our weddings (shooting carefully) where our CDN automatically makes a DVR copy of each event. At the end of the event the bride already has her entire wedding on the server (in fact often they have already watched bits of it) Once I get home I simply download the clips and drop them onto a USB and I'm done. So, I spend 8 hours shooting only instead of spending 8 hours working then 20 odd hours doing post ... I can actually drop my prices a bit this way and still double my hourly rate.

It's also a great feeling to shoot for 8 hours and actually say "I'm done!!!

It's also a great feeling to shoot for 8 hours and actually say "I'm done!!!

I can relate to that Chris.

My mate Alan on the Gold Coast did a 4 year old's funeral back in July and after an hour he actually phoned me and said "I can't believe I have finished ..no editing, no copying media ... I'm done!" Live broadcasts do have a few advantages!!

Andrew ? Nice job on your two camera shoot ...it shows that a simple two camera switch can be very effective! What did you use to do the live switching BTW??

Same mate of mine who has the ATEM Black Magic thinggy.

I kept myself busy running both cameras and checking on the stream status.

Speaking of "I'm done", an older lady at the back of the room at that event commented to me at the end how she had difficulty hearing what was being said. I think the issue might be with her hearing. So I informed her that we had made a recording and she could always watch it online again at home (with the good audio).

I emailed the YouTube link address to her email address, right there on the spot from my phone.

I soon received this reply: "Many thanks Andrew. I'm amazed - you're efficiency plus."

Clients seem to be impressed by the fact that the recording of the stream is already there. :-)

Andrew

A few years ago I was going to setup Live Streaming services as part of my business... anyway I found vMix and was really impressed by this.

Live Video Streaming Software | vMix (http://www.vmix.com)

I do like the fact that it's there "instantly" ... With weddings the big issue has always been how long you have to wait to see the end result and in that industry 3 months is often quite normal ...I would have totally forgotten about the video by then ..even if it's a huge event.

The VMix does look interesting Simon, I'll have to look into it. We are currently applying the live stream to weddings and so far the only tough part is finding a fast enough laptop to handle the switching. So far we are using LiveStream Studio software which works well

The only thing you really need to do is decide where your content is going to ..Some CDN's are sneaky and charge you on audience viewings which can be pricey!!

I've always wished there was a community TV station, but it doesn't seem to be much of a thing in Australia, particularly rural Australia.

Live streaming is something that I find interesting, especially things like this, where it kind of bring a community TV kind of option to the people.

I'm impressed that it's coming out of country areas, which you would imagine have a fairly limited broadband availability, but I guess if you can rely on high speed mobile broadband, then you can get somewhere.

Hopefully eventually we'll get some proper broadband access, with decent upload speeds here one day, and that will make things a lot easier.

Hi Matthew

We used to have a community channel throughout the country. In Perth it was called "Channel 31" but was bought by a foreign investor and then closed sadly. I supposed when broadcasts went digital they simply couldn't afford to upgrade their transmitters? It used to be a great place for film students to get experience but they were very fussy about what they would allow to be aired and companies were only allowed to "sponsor" a program and no other advertising content was allowed within the program either just selected ads at various places and that probably killed the revenue stream. Content also was very restricted too. With an online streaming channel you don't really have all the government red tape so I'm surprised that a replacement hasn't sprung up already!! As Simon says getting sponsors is the biggest issue. Maybe a project needs to be started and financed with a crowd funding scheme ??? There's an idea!!! We actually do a wedding vendor show based of brides looking for wedding suppliers and so far have done two trial runs and believe me, wedding vendors seem to be VERY tight fisted with their money so unless they get their act together we will eventually have to scrap it.... Here is one we did in August.

Perth Bridal Show - Episode 2 on Livestream (http://livestream.com/videohouse/events/6213186)

For me and many others Community TV was a great place to start and give it a go. I liked the fact that Community TV was raw and had a diverse range of programs and one that I miss sadly as I felt really aligned with this style and format. Main stream TV is fine and great at times however lacks the chance for smaller productions to have a voice and this is where Community TV came into its own.

The USA, and Canada seem to have a great Community TV presence and I for one would love to tap into this, I did try but became.... umm... lost motivation. I still have many Shows running around inside my head and they look and sound fantastic however I don't think I have the energy again to go down this path again, agh...... I could be wrong.

Now Live Streaming, this is the future man.... the public just need to learn how to connect their PC, Mac, Laptops etc... and become educated that Streaming has fantastic content available. I hardly ever watch TV anymore due to the fact that everything and I mean everything is now available on the NET and mostly for FREE.

Sorry for my rant, I'm just sooo into it.

Hi Simon

That's no rant! That's pure enthusiasm and an intelligent look at the future of live broadcasting. When I started to get into it I was more excited than I have ever been and still get excited over the prospects.

There seems to be one major obstacle which is educating the public about the massive potential and I'm not sure how that should be done ... even with weddings brides are proving a huge block for me simply because they don't understand that they can get a wedding video the same as before except (because the event is edited live) they don't have to pay the videographer to sit for a week putting together a hundred camera clips. What seems perfectly logical to us is a mystery to the general public.

Your market is massive. I mean how many young ladies do you see when you are out that DON'T have a mobile phone glued to their hand ... I bet only a tiny proportion of those watch conventional TV and they are a powerful market for manufacturers and services, yet the same manufacturers will spend millions advertising on TV !!

If one could find funding for a Community channel education would spread like wildfire and people would watch "internet" shows on their phones or tablets.