So you have been asked to do a live webcast for your company, friend, community, or local band. You ask yourself: "What's a live webcast?" Don't worry! I am here to help you out. I’ve done live webcasts on Queen St. Toronto, as well as the ivory towers of the corporate world. I started my career doing community events, which meant that I had no access to T1 or fibre connections with incredible amounts of bandwidth. Instead, I learned from the beginning how to do quality webcasts using standard household DSL and cable broadband. I started this work in 2002 when webcasting, or "live internet streaming" was in its infancy. Okay, let's get you started. If you’re in live production, you’re already 75 per cent of the way there and that’s good news, but before you can commit to doing a webcast for your over-excited parties, you must check the available bandwidth at your webcast location. Bring your laptop or make sure there is a computer on-site that is accessible to you. Connect to the network and go to www.speedtest.net. This online speed test tool is fun and accurate. It’s like looking at the speedometer on your car – and it can be a real adrenaline rush. Click on the geographical area that is near to you. Don't worry about the download – pay attention to the upload! Upload is important because you’re taking your broadcast out of your location to a multimedia server. Upload speeds can be from 100 kbps to 1000 kbps or higher depending on where you are. Do this test several times, using different locations, then average the numbers. If your upload speed is 200 kbps (average) then you should be webcasting at 100 kbps. Why? Bandwidth fluctuates, and if you are broadcasting at 200kbps and there is a fluctuation, your webcast will be kicked offline, so you need to leave some room. You are not quite ready yet. If you are in someone's home it’s fine to disconnect any computers on the network before your broadcast. If you are in a corporate environment, you may be behind five firewalls and a suspicious IT department. Go to the IT department and explain what you are going to be doing. Make sure you understand the culture of the network and how it’s used. Also, if you have to obtain a static IP (Internet Protocol) address, which you may need to do depending on the type of webcast you're doing, only the IT department can do this and it may take time to sort out. Warning! If you test your connection two weeks before your broadcast and everything is fine don't assume when you return that it will still be set up for you. IT departments have huge responsibilities and things can change while you are gone. One more thing: Do not do a webcast using a wireless network … just don't go there.
Brad Marshall is the Owner of Popular Minority Production, which brings live events to the Internet (www.popularminority.com). He is currently writing a 10-week course on Live Webcasting to the Internet for Conestoga College in Kitchener, ON. He can be reached anytime at: brad@popularminority.com.
Last issue, Scott offered some introductory information on disk drives and the headaches of fragmentation. Here’s some advice on how to keep your disks running efficiently and effectively.
There are many tools available for dealing with fragmentation; some are even included with many typical operating systems used today such as Windows, which has an application built right in called Disk Defragmenter. Such tools can analyze the disks or RAID volumes to determine just how scattered the data is, where the blank blocks or sectors are, and then will proceed to reorganize the data so that it’s in sequential order beginning with the inner most blocks, moving the blank sectors to the outer ends of the disks where they belong. Many of these defragmentation tools will allow users to schedule defrags so they are done when the system is not in use. In many cases, defrags should be performed on a daily basis, depending on how much data or content is removed and written in relationship to how full the disks are. The fuller the disks, the more frequently a system may need to be defragged. By defragmenting, your system could find renewed performance. Another tool that can have a big impact on performance, especially write performance on a system, is virus software. Most of us have had, at one time or another, the misfortune of dealing with a virus and have been forced to be prepared for future scares. What we do not realize is that the very software we rely heavily on to combat these threats can severely impact our business productivity, especially in write performance-sensitive applications such as uncompressed video capture as well as professional audio software. This happens because the virus software wants to scan each file as it enters the system as well as when the file is opened, and that process is time consuming. Even a millisecond can cause a drop frame or a write delay. Either can require a user to start over only to have it happen again. Not only can this be frustrating and costly, but also confusing. Not being aware of the issue could cause a software problem to look like a hardware problem. Of course, the solution can be as simple as disabling the software during the use of performance-sensitive applications. As the industry continues to change, so too will the issues and demands facing disk management. In response, more and more solutions will become available for overcoming such issues. Having the knowledge and appropriate resources in place before encountering any obstacles can protect your day-to-day operations and essentially ensure streamlined content management and productivity.
Scott Leif is President and CTO of Globalstor Data Corp., a leading storage technology provider for the professional audio and video, post-production, government, medical, education, and military industries. He is responsible for designing high-performance storage servers and storage area networks widely recognized among film and video, post-production, and audio professionals.
Gifts For
Audio Professionals at Music Books Plus
