video streaming

Terry is a cord cutter and he doesn't think that he gets actual high-speed internet with Frontier. Leo says it's been proven that Frontier goes out of its way to keep bandwidth speeds slow for its customers to keep them from using too much. Leo also says that Frontier is being investigated by states for their terrible customer service and rampant internet outages. And they aren't alone. The US has the worst broadband of any country in the developed world. Leo says that one solution is Elon Musk's Starlink system, but at $100 a month, plus the cost of equipment, it's not cheap.

Aaron's church is using OBS studio and Facebook Live to stream services to the faithful. They are looking at returning to regular services in three weeks, and it will require moving the camera setup to the back of the sanctuary. So what kind of cameras should he get that would be affordable, but effective? Leo says you need a camera with "live, clean HDMI out." Canon makes a small point and shoot that Leo has been using called the Canon M200. Canon designed it for this very purpose. They're about $400-500. Not cheap, but it will do just what you need.

Bob will stream Leo's show and then after going to another show, he'll go back to TWiT and it gets really quiet. Leo says that UStream may be changing the level. There's no standard, so the basic volume can change from Leo's site to UStream. Leo says he'll check the streams in studio to see how it's going out.

Nick has a camcorder with HDMI out and he wants to know if he can run Wirecast with a tablet. Leo says probably not. He'll need a computer because tablets don't have HDMI in, only HDMI Out. He'd also need HDMI live as a feature in the camcorder. If it will only be live in playback, then it won't help. Do any notebooks have HDMI? Leo uses Canon Vixia's with a Blackmagic converter to run into the computer. Imogen also makes an HDMI Input card.

Kathy watches Leo online through UStream and is frustrated because it buffers a lot. Leo says it's on UStream's end, and he can't do much about it. He also streams through BitGravity and Justin.TV, so she could try one of those. Also, choosing the lower resolution from BitGravity could help. Kathy should also look at her bandwidth online. If she only has 1.5 Mbps down, for instance, she will continue to have a rough time with streaming. It could also be a bad modem. She should ask for a new modem or buy her own. She could first try rebooting both the modem and router.

Jay is trying to do some live video streaming with a limited signal 4G using the Livestream Broadcaster, and is wondering if a signal amplifier would help. Leo says not really. He needs high speed signal in the area. Leo used to use the Live U backpack that used 8 different cards to bond together and get a better signal by marrying multiple signals, but it wasn't cheap.

Tony was streaming while he's on the road and the TV show stops every so often. Leo says that's called "buffering," which is when the stream has to stop for a second while it waits for all the data to be downloaded in order so it can continue. Sometimes a packet of data will get lost or delayed, so the media has to stop and wait for the data packets to "catch up". It usually has to load 30 seconds of the content before it can start playing again. If it's starting and stopping all the time, that usually points to an internet bandwidth problem.