Hi all,
there is the interest of a medium-sized German city to stream its city council meetings to the internet. They would like to use Free Software, are willing to spend some money for it and are looking for help now.
Apparently there is OBS Studio in this area [1]. Theoretically, this could also be possible via Big Blue Button [2]? Does anyone here have experience with any of the mentioned software or in general with live streaming and Free Software and can share recommendations / pitfalls?
Thank you and best regards, Erik
[1] https://obsproject.com/de/ [2] https://bigbluebutton.org/
Hi Erik,
On 02.07.20 13:56, Erik Albers wrote:
there is the interest of a medium-sized German city to stream its city council meetings to the internet. They would like to use Free Software, are willing to spend some money for it and are looking for help now.
Apparently there is OBS Studio in this area [1]. Theoretically, this could also be possible via Big Blue Button [2]? Does anyone here have experience with any of the mentioned software or in general with live streaming and Free Software and can share recommendations / pitfalls?
About BBB:
In South Tyrol the LUGBZ has supported the Italian Schools (FUSS) with a BBB installation:
The LUGBZ has published a collection of tutorials for the teachers[1], but Italian only.
At NOI Techpark we are considering to use BBB as platform for blended events, like the NOI Hackathons[2]. But we haven't used it yet. Therefore I cannot share experiences yet.
About OBS Studio:
With OBS Studio we collected some experiences streaming jitsi sessions to YouTube as live streams. It works very well.
The computer with OBS Studio installed needs to be strong in CPU and RAM. Very important is also a very good uplink to the Internet!
You need of course cameras streaming video signals to the OBS Studio machine.
What is even more difficult most of the times, is to get a good audio quality from the microphones. The question to be answered is: How do you get the audio stream in good quality into OBS Studio machine?
Last but not least, consider spending the money on the person who will do a good direction and recording. The director using OBS Studio has to mix different camera sources, like ambience camera, camera focused on speakers and slides.
We are evaluating OBS Studio as a possible solution for the SFScon[3] this year. We foresee the conference to be held in blended mode with participants at NOI Techpark and others connecting online.
The main difference between BBB and OBS Studio is, that BBB is a collaboration platform, which allows recording and streaming of the session as is, OBS Studio is a tool to mix different video and audio sources to create recordings and streaming with the ability to have different scenes like speaker video on screen to the slides, etc. not just a plain recording of a BBB or jitsi session.
Best regards, Patrick
[1] https://www.lugbz.org/tutorial-bigbluebutton/ [2] https://hackathon.bz.it/ [3] https://www.sfscon.it/
Hi all,
On 02.07.20 15:21, Patrick Ohnewein (FSFE) wrote:
Hi Erik,
On 02.07.20 13:56, Erik Albers wrote:
there is the interest of a medium-sized German city to stream its city council meetings to the internet. They would like to use Free Software, are willing to spend some money for it and are looking for help now.
Apparently there is OBS Studio in this area [1]. Theoretically, this could also be possible via Big Blue Button [2]? Does anyone here have experience with any of the mentioned software or in general with live streaming and Free Software and can share recommendations / pitfalls?
I had the chance to help the Debian video team at MiniDebConf Hamburg last year. They use voctomix and have written down many informations helpful for such events:
https://github.com/voc/voctomix https://debconf-video-team.pages.debian.net/docs/index.html
These people have some experience recording sessions so it will not harm to contact them. For example they 3D-printed a cover to the microphones so they can't be turned off erroneously.
I think the software is comparable to OBS but I never used OBS so can't say for sure.
[...]
The computer with OBS Studio installed needs to be strong in CPU and RAM. Very important is also a very good uplink to the Internet!
Yes, this will be valid for all solutions!
You need of course cameras streaming video signals to the OBS Studio machine.
What is even more difficult most of the times, is to get a good audio quality from the microphones. The question to be answered is: How do you get the audio stream in good quality into OBS Studio machine?
And keeping audio and video in sync.
Last but not least, consider spending the money on the person who will do a good direction and recording. The director using OBS Studio has to mix different camera sources, like ambience camera, camera focused on speakers and slides.
Second this. You need to act in real-time and have to know your stuff!
We are evaluating OBS Studio as a possible solution for the SFScon[3] this year. We foresee the conference to be held in blended mode with participants at NOI Techpark and others connecting online.
The main difference between BBB and OBS Studio is, that BBB is a collaboration platform, which allows recording and streaming of the session as is, OBS Studio is a tool to mix different video and audio sources to create recordings and streaming with the ability to have different scenes like speaker video on screen to the slides, etc. not just a plain recording of a BBB or jitsi session.
Yes, are they holding meetings online right now? OBS or something like that will be needed also when real live meetings are held up.
Bye Michael
Hi Patrick,
On 02.07.20 15:21, Patrick Ohnewein (FSFE) wrote:
On 02.07.20 13:56, Erik Albers wrote:
there is the interest of a medium-sized German city to stream its city council meetings to the internet. They would like to use Free Software, are willing to spend some money for it and are looking for help now.
Apparently there is OBS Studio in this area [1]. Theoretically, this could also be possible via Big Blue Button [2]? Does anyone here have experience with any of the mentioned software or in general with live streaming and Free Software and can share recommendations / pitfalls?
About OBS Studio:
With OBS Studio we collected some experiences streaming jitsi sessions to YouTube as live streams. It works very well.
The computer with OBS Studio installed needs to be strong in CPU and RAM. Very important is also a very good uplink to the Internet!
You need of course cameras streaming video signals to the OBS Studio machine.
What is even more difficult most of the times, is to get a good audio quality from the microphones. The question to be answered is: How do you get the audio stream in good quality into OBS Studio machine?
Last but not least, consider spending the money on the person who will do a good direction and recording. The director using OBS Studio has to mix different camera sources, like ambience camera, camera focused on speakers and slides.
We are evaluating OBS Studio as a possible solution for the SFScon[3] this year. We foresee the conference to be held in blended mode with participants at NOI Techpark and others connecting online.
The main difference between BBB and OBS Studio is, that BBB is a collaboration platform, which allows recording and streaming of the session as is, OBS Studio is a tool to mix different video and audio sources to create recordings and streaming with the ability to have different scenes like speaker video on screen to the slides, etc. not just a plain recording of a BBB or jitsi session.
[1] https://www.lugbz.org/tutorial-bigbluebutton/ [2] https://hackathon.bz.it/ [3] https://www.sfscon.it/
thank you very much for this brilliant insight, that is exactly the information I was looking for and that hopefully helpful for Fürstenfeld Bruck as well. I copy Tobias into the discussion who is researching solutions and necessary technical setup for the city, so he can ask more details himself if needed.
Best, Erik
OBS could stream to a server. Icecast could be the server and stream to the viewers.
https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Icecast
BBB would be good if you want participant interaction. It might get overloaded with a city council meeting. I have seen BBB used for a classroom sized event with approximately 30 people.
Many alternatives are listed at https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Remote_Communication
Best, Michael McMahon | Web Developer, Free Software Foundation GPG Key: 4337 2794 C8AD D5CA 8FCF FA6C D037 59DA B600 E3C0 https://fsf.org | https://gnu.org
On 7/2/20 7:56 AM, Erik Albers wrote:
Hi all,
there is the interest of a medium-sized German city to stream its city council meetings to the internet. They would like to use Free Software, are willing to spend some money for it and are looking for help now.
Apparently there is OBS Studio in this area [1]. Theoretically, this could also be possible via Big Blue Button [2]? Does anyone here have experience with any of the mentioned software or in general with live streaming and Free Software and can share recommendations / pitfalls?
Thank you and best regards, Erik
[1] https://obsproject.com/de/ [2] https://bigbluebutton.org/
* Erik Albers [2020-07-02 13:56 +0200]:
there is the interest of a medium-sized German city to stream its city council meetings to the internet. They would like to use Free Software, are willing to spend some money for it and are looking for help now.
Apparently there is OBS Studio in this area [1]. Theoretically, this could also be possible via Big Blue Button [2]? Does anyone here have experience with any of the mentioned software or in general with live streaming and Free Software and can share recommendations / pitfalls?
Might be interesting to have a look at:
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/how-to-livestream-a-conference-in-just-u... https://libreplanet.org/wiki/LibrePlanet:Conference/2019/Streaming
Best regards, Matthias