Live video streaming is quickly becoming one of the next ‘big things’ in internet marketing. This is a platform that really gives consumers the ability to watch live feeds from people all around the world, effectively becoming a ‘fly on the wall’ or seeing the world through their eyes. The potential uses are almost limitless and because of that it is creating a lot of excitement and buzz.
This is the real appeal of live video streaming and so the quality of the content doesn’t really matter. A lot of the footage is going to be filmed on mobile phones, which means it will be low resolution and the filming will probably be shaky.
So if you want to provide the best possible content for your audience, you’ll need to think about how you can improve your video quality. Here are a few things that will affect your video quality:
Camera
Most live video streams will be filmed through a camera phone, or in the case of Blab, a webcam. Because of this, most videos are likely to be relatively low-quality, and this is made even worse by the fact that the majority of the phone footage will probably be done using the front-facing camera.
So the first thing you can do to make your resolution a little more crisp is to consider investing in a better camera phone with a higher resolution front facing camera. And don’t forget to also look at the temporal resolution – AKA the framerate. This is more often an issue with webcams.
Sound
You also need to think about your audio. This will be partly determined by your camera but you also need to consider your recording environment (how are the acoustics?) and how close you’re sitting to the microphone.
Environment
Environment affects your sound and also your visual appeal i.e. you will also need to think about the backdrop of your videos. Ideally, you will want to create a professional feel to your video, so that means you should have a clean and tidy professional backdrop i.e. don’t film in your front room with washing piled up in the background!
You will also need to think about the lighting. The best way to ensure even lighting is to have separate light sources on your left or right side to create what’s known as ‘Rembrandt’ lighting.
Connection
Something that many people will overlook is to make sure that you have a stable internet connection! There’s nothing more frustrating than a video that keeps buffering, freezing or stopping halfway through. You should make sure that you have a good connection and always stream over WiFi rather than a data connection where possible.
