Live Streaming – Pros and Cons , Quality vs ‘Budget’

Ever wonder why some ‘live streams’ quality are bad? And how come some company’s ‘live stream’ look so professional?

could it be due to this ?

Now, please don’t write me off as trying to slam couples who has low unrealistic budget. It is probably this way due to the lack of proper understanding on how Live Streaming works. This article is actually meant to provide some form of insights as to why Live Streaming Services cost so much.

First, let us break down the equipment and manpower needed as well as the cost

For a good live streaming (professional)

Camera Operator – $350-$450 per hour

Audio Engineer – $350 per hour

Riggers – $200 per hour

Director – $450 – $500 per hour

Equipment cost

Professional Gears – on average $9000 – $15000

Broadcast level video cameras

Switching console

Audio console

Video encoders

Network connectivity

Roving capability

Private Site

Non tangible benefits

Professional guidance

Professional quality work (proper white balance correction, exposure compensation, audio tuning….)

Do They backup their recordings?

After sales service

Amateur Gears – on average $2000-$3000 (could be lesser)

DSLR or Mobilephones

Software based switching (not so stable)

Software based encoding or cheap adaptors (OBS, Vmix, Streamlabs, Streamyard…)

Mobile hotspot (not stable)

Professional service – you can almost forget it

As you can see, Both can do live streaming, however you gotta ask yourself if the price is really worth it to sacrifice for a sub par viewing experience. Imagine a setup with fixed camera, there isn’t much dynamic angles for the audience. How about audio? Can you imagine all the hollow sound? One good analogy is like getting from point A to B, one is via public transport while the other is via a private (semi luxury) car. Both will get you to the destination, but ultimately only one will give you the class experience that you desire, especially for important occasions like a wedding or town-hall or online retreat.

 

For some ideas on how live streaming is being carried out, ie what are the processes involved, you can check out our “Loveinstills Xperience Live Streaming” page here

 

Check out some of our past streams. As well as the reviews that we have received. You can be certain that your wedding live stream will be in good hands

 

 

Sample of our client’s private stream. Hosted on our private server

On average, a typical live streaming job should cost around $1000 or more with 2 camera setup. However, as Singapore market is pretty competitive, you will get a decent vendor at around $650 – $700.  Anything below is a big risk as they vendor will likely be using sub par equipment or they have to take on multiple jobs, which then add to the probability of failure

 

Some Check-boxes that you can use to make sure that you are getting a professional to do your live stream

What camera are they using

How many Live Streaming jobs have they done

What gears are they using for their audio

How are they streaming to the internet

What platform are they streaming on, why ?  (YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook….)

How is their knowledge on audio solutions

Can their system work independent of the venue’s

Whats the crew size per job

For Covid-19, are they MTI approved vendor

 

Traits of a professional reliable vendor

Reliable

 Responsive

Responsible

 

Uses equipment like this

Has a professional crew like this

 

So if you are looking for a good live streaming experience for your guests, where the audio quality is crisp and clear and the streaming is smooth. $650 – $700 for an hour is actually a very good investment. Your wedding is far too important to be spoilt by sub par work, even so, your guests will not have a very experience.

Go with a vendor that is established, has many experience doing live streaming (multi-genre will be better as they have experience with troubleshooting)