As if Town Halls don’t present enough logisitical challenges, these challenges are often compounded by moving the production to an off-site location like a hotel, theatre, or arena. Going into a new environment, there are definitely some key considerations that you will want to confirm before locking in a venue, including: some questions to be sure to ask as well some information you’ll want to be sure to share with the venue:
- Confirm Port Access: Encoders will connect over RTMP/s and will use port 1935 or port 443. The encoder video will be outbound from the network and the video playback in the control room uses WebRTC video which also uses port 443 and that is inbound Viewers video streams will be HLS video. HLS is standard HTTPS web content. Simply put, that means that the video comes across the internet just like all other web page content does. There should be nothing special needed at the venue for this content but, just in case, this content also uses port 443.
- Confirm Wired Access to the Internet: The encoders should use a wired connection to the Internet. Wireless is great these days – but we’ve all experienced wireless networks slowing down and dropping altogether for mysterious reasons. Connecting the encoders to the network via good old fashioned Ethernet cables is the way to go
- Perhaps Most Important, Secure A Dedicated Network: If the video encoders can be on a separate network from the rest of the venue traffic, on a dedicated network, it is HIGHLY recommended. We’ve probably all been in hotels where the Internet speeds are fine at some points but at other points they really slow down because the hotel guests are checking their mail, watching YouTube etc. Ideally, you’re video encoders can be put on a dedicated network that the general hotel guest and staff don’t use. This will provide a lot of protection against mystery network issues. Now, it should also be pointed out that we’ve heard several times from clients who were told by their venue that the network cables they were given were on a dedicated network. Then they find out that the network is dedicated from the encoder to the wall that the cables plug into and then the traffic goes into the regular venue Internet – so it isn’t a dedicated network at all. If the venue you’re using is used fairly often for events that are streamed to the Internet, then they probably have a dedicated network for the video crew to use. It can take a couple of requests to actually get connected to that network though.
In addition to ensuring your venue meets your requirements, it is also important to ensure all of the tools in your production suite are “web friendly”. As is always the case, a checklist of pre-event requirements will always improve the likelihood that you avoid gotchas and pull off a successful event.