Paying to have your event webcast

[Pat McCarthy]

Last year we had the West Michigan Regional webcast using a professional video distribution service. From what I heard, it wasn't cheap, I think in the neighborhood of a few thousand bucks. That way we were assured a high quality stream.
If it had been my wallet, I'd hook a computer up to the video drop and ustream it or something free. Though, you won't get the quality and reliability for free.

[Scott L.]

I did a rough calculation for a 1000 mile round trip for a 3 day event and came up with roughly $1000.

A sigle day event would cost less

[AV_guy007]

As someone who has pushed webcasts up to NASA's servers its not the setup at the event that is very costly complicated. You need to consider what is serving the content. Do you have a powerful enough server with a fast enough connection? If not make sure to consider the costs of that.

Personally I would not pay for webcasting. I think a better idea would be to talk to people in the community who will be at events and get a network of people that can push a stream to your server, and share the content that way. there is no reason to pay for a crew to travel when there are already people there. Also don't forget you need a good internet connection at the venue which usually means talking to the event planners far in advance.

[Scott L.]

Originally Posted by AV_guy007

As someone who has pushed webcasts up to NASA's servers its not the setup at the event that is very costly complicated. You need to consider what is serving the content. Do you have a powerful enough server with a fast enough connection? If not make sure to consider the costs of that..

Personally I would not pay for webcasting. I think a better idea would be to talk to people in the community who will be at events and get a network of people that can push a stream to your server, and share the content that way. there is no reason to pay for a crew to travel when there are already people there. Also don't forget you need a good Internet connection at the venue which usually means talking to the event planners far in advance.

we currently can't afford a faster Internet connection(DSL currently), but we are looking into faster options such as a T-1(~$350/month) If we could afford this every month it would allow us more freedom in what events we would be able to webcast, but this wouldn't guarantee that we would be able to archive 100% of the event and produce complete event DVDs, as we would be at the mercy of the person sending us the feed.
But this option would allow us to charge a lower rate to host the webcast.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Scott L.

we currently can't afford a faster Internet connection(DSL currently), but we are looking into faster options such as a T-1(~$350/month) If we could afford this every month it would allow us more freedom in what events we would be able to webcast, but this wouldn't guarantee that we would be able to archive 100% of the event and produce complete event DVDs, as we would be at the mercy of the person sending us the feed.
But this option would allow us to charge a lower rate to host the webcast.

Scott,

If I'm hearing you right you're saying that someone at the event will feed you with video from the event, and you will use your servers to host it?

If this is the case, as I posted before, NASA is willing and able to do this for any team or individual that wishes to webcast an event. Such a team or individual would just need to obtain an internet connection at the event.

[Scott L.]

Originally Posted by Cory

Scott,

If I'm hearing you right you're saying that someone at the event will feed you with video from the event, and you will use your servers to host it?

If this is the case, as I posted before, NASA is willing and able to do this for any team or individual that wishes to webcast an event. Such a team or individual would just need to obtain an internet connection at the event.

I'm offering features such as chat, match results, rankings, event pictures posted during the event, event archive DVDs. Off season events is currently the events we would webcast.

[Vikesrock]

Was your last post implying that you would be attempting to serve a webcast over a DSL connection?

[Scott L.]

Originally Posted by Vikesrock

Was your last post implying that you would be attempting to serve a webcast over a DSL connection?

No, it was not, but because of this I bring the servers to the events venue to use the high speed internet.

BTW my intention of this thread was not to advertise, but to get a feel for what people would pay, and recommendations for services to offer, etc. Looking back I see that some of my posts seem to be advertising, but this was not my intention for starting the poll.
I am trying to form a media company and am using these forums as a form of market research.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Vikesrock

Was your last post implying that you would be attempting to serve a webcast over a DSL connection?

Originally Posted by Scott L.

No, it was not, but because of this I bring the servers to the events venue to use the high speed internet.

I might not know what you're intending, but your words suggest that you don't fully grok what it takes to host a webcast well. You shouldn't expect to just plug into a generic "high speed internet" connection and be able to serve video to hundreds of viewers. Pay attention to Cory.

[Scott L.]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I might not know what you're intending, but your words suggest that you don't fully grok what it takes to host a webcast well. You shouldn't expect to just plug into a generic "high speed internet" connection and be able to serve video to hundreds of viewers. Pay attention to Cory.

I understand that there are firewall settings, etc. that must be configured before a webcast can happen this way. Having done webcasts before using T-1, T-3 connections, and network administration experience, I understand that its not just a simple plug and play thing, or that I wouldn't even attempt a webcast of more than an extremely small audience with anything less than a T-1 connection.

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by Scott L.

I would even attempt a webcast of more than an extremely small audience with anything less than a T-1 connection.

A T1 is useless for a webcast. A typical webcast runs in the neighborhood of 500kbps. At that rate, a T1 could only support 3 viewers.

I've served the Midwest Regional webcast for the past few years from my personal server. The last 2 years we've come close to maxing out a 100Mbps connection with this setup. That's 67 T1 lines. Even a T3 (45Mbps) isn't enough to handle the demand for the more popular regionals.

Additionally, the serving bandwidth is basically the expensive part of the operation. If you're planning to use the bandwidth at the venue (most don't have enough for this BTW), then what value are you adding? Someone else is already ponying up for the expensive part with that setup.

[Jonathan Norris]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I might not know what you're intending, but your words suggest that you don't fully grok what it takes to host a webcast well. You shouldn't expect to just plug into a generic "high speed internet" connection and be able to serve video to hundreds of viewers. Pay attention to Cory.

Alan, you would be surprised how good of a webcast you can host with a basic highspeed connection. Using Ustream.tv last year I was able to host over 500 people at one point, and that was when flash streaming was still in its relative infancy. A year later i've seen these services handle almost 10,000 viewers at once. Online streaming is getting easier and easier every year, to a point where there shouldn't be a regional that doesn't have a webcast going.

edit: and with these web-based flash streaming services you don't need to worry about firewall settings and all that jazz, as long as you can get to the web page you can stream.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Norris

Alan, you would be surprised how good of a webcast you can host with a basic highspeed connection. Using Ustream.tv last year...

Yes, using Ustream.tv or NASA some other service. It's the service that is hosting the webcast; you're just providing the video for them to distribute using their high-capacity internet connection.

Scott's comments keep suggesting to me that he expects to put the webcast server at the event site. That makes me worry about how much he really knows about the details of something like what he plans.

[Justin Stiltner]

As a former network engineer for a school district, I can say that my big deny stamp would have went through the desk on this one if you are planning to use the schools bandwidth to serve all the casts. If you did do it without asking, it wouldn't last long as any decent IDS (intrusion detection system) would be screaming to the rooftops when you started taking major bandwidth.

But to answer your question, $0 this is already provided by soap, and the web cast on nasa tv, as well as nasa channel.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Scott L.

I'm offering features such as chat, match results, rankings, event pictures posted during the event, event archive DVDs. Off season events is currently the events we would webcast.

Unfortunately, many of those features are already offered by clients like "SOAPGameday," which feature all the streams that weekend in a consolidated UI with chat and rankings.