We recently produced a live stream encoded at 720p for an awards ceremony which was relayed to an audience of about 300 persons via MS Teams. The result was thoroughly unsatisfactory for the audience and client. We're writing this recap so no one should experience the same. Bottom line is, if you have an audience larger than 200 viewers, use a proper webcast CDN, not a videoconference application*.
Our setup is Wirecast 13.0.1 which is almost the latest version (but sadly is now unsupported). We are running on Win 7 Pro with i7 CPU and Magewell SDI capture cards. The virtual camera and microphone were fed into MS Teams 1.3.00.13565. Our internet connection was dope - 100 mbps up and down.
1. The most recent version of MS Teams apparently does not support virtual camera, so we had to roll back to an earlier version and then (since we were testing over several days) prevent the software from auto-updating. Big hassle and I never experienced this issue using Zoom.
2. It was not possible to hear the encoded output when using the virtual mic to feed into MS Teams. To hear what we were sending, we had to open a separate window and run Audacity, which was extremely clumsy. I'm still not sure that this isn't a Wirecast issue, but it frustrated me during setup, especially playing prerecorded video intros or roll-ins, and we did not have good control over levels.
3. When sending switched video into MS Teams, there are no encoding settings. This is different from say YouTube, where you have some control of the transmission quality. And there is no fail-over redundancy provision like what you'd have in YouTube. So with Teams you're basically hoping they don't throttle your stream.
4. Keep in mind that feeding switched video into an MS Teams meeting is not what Microsoft calls a 'live meeting'. Simply put, a live meeting is a webcast with chat facilities. According to Microsoft: 'Live events are an extension of Teams meetings that enable you to schedule and produce events that stream to large online audiences - up to 10,000 people. If you need a meeting for more than 300 people, use a live event.' Yeah, we were warned!
5. There are multiple reports online that MS Teams is limiting video quality for larger meetings, due to popularity of the service during the Covid-19 pandemic. We had continuous monitoring on two laptops and one mobile device and all looked good on our end. But the anecdotal reports and screenshots coming in from viewers complained about blocky and blurry video for some users, many of whom seemed to be viewing on mobile devices.
6. The client claimed that a post-event survey indicated only 20% had clear video. But we could not get meaningful reports. MS Teams reports are only available while the meeting is in progress and unlike YouTube, they do not provide information about the bit rates or screen resolutions delivered to viewers.
7. Adding insult to injury, we also experienced at least 3 connection drops, due to the presenter (our encoder) being blocked (either muted or removed) by someone in attendance during the meeting! This is a known issue in Teams, but it cannot happen in a proper webcast. Obviously, it's very disruptive for all viewers and wrongly makes it look as if the presenter (that's us) is at fault.
* Honestly, I would not even call MS Teams a video conference application - it's a messaging app like Slack. And Teams should not be confused with MS Teams Live Meetings aka 'Microsoft Streams', which is a separate webcasting service running on a proper global CDN.
Fontdoctor 10 7 day. Hi all,
We have been using Wirecast Play 6.0.6 on Mac OSX El Capitan for a while (Starting Jan. this year) to live stream our church service on our YouTube channel every Sunday. It has been working great!
It does work in Demo mode in Wirecast 6.0.7 or 6.0.8. With them you simply enter the key and url under RTMP server. In Wirecast Play it's only YouTube and its not able to fetch the stream. I presume too a recent YT change and the Play preset is stuck. No way to manually change it. MacOS 10.14.0 or later; Requires internet connectivity with HTTP/HTTPS port 80, and RTMP port 1935 open for streaming, Remote Desktop Presenter requires opening port 7272. QuickTime Streaming Server or Darwin Streaming Server 4.1.3 or later required for QuickTime Unicast Streaming. Wirecast 6.0.2 – Stream live from the desktop. January 22, 2015 Wirecast lets you capture an unlimited number of input devices from live camera feeds, iOS cameras (coming soon), computer desktop, Web feeds, and more. Our setup is Wirecast 13.0.1 which is almost the latest version (but sadly is now unsupported). We are running on Win 7 Pro with i7 CPU and Magewell SDI capture cards. Current Wirecast users would be on 14.0.4 and Windows 10 and may have a very different experience than you describe at least regarding Wirecast. Teams may be another matter. Wirecast 7.6.0 – Stream live from the desktop. Wirecast lets you capture an unlimited number of input devices from live camera feeds, iOS cameras (coming soon), computer desktop, Web feeds, and more. Then add polish and professionalism to your broadcast with live switching, transitions, titles, lower thirds, and more.
Stream Live Chat
Recently, in the last couple of weeks, when I click stream, I get the stream button to blink and nothing shows up on YouTube channel. When I click on the stream button again, the whole application becomes irresponsive. The issue has been reported before on the old forum but without a solution provided at http://forum.telestream.net/forum/messageview.aspx?catid=45&threadid=24524
Also, after reading so many posts on-line, I changed our YouTube account security to accept less secure applications.
Moreover, what's so strange, is that after a few tries to kill the application from the activity monitor and restart it, the stream gets to work fine!
Has anything changed with respect to live streaming to YouTube that we're not aware of it? and why the application just goes irresponsive?
Wirecast 6 0 1 – Stream Live From The Desktop App
I do appreciate in advance your help in figuring out this issue.
