Blog Posts

This post covers the best PTZ (pan-tilt-zoom) cameras for live streaming. It's part of our series on live streaming equipment.

There's a whole world of video cameras you might want to use for live streaming.

PTZ (pan-tilt-zoom) cameras are cameras that you can attach to a wall or ceiling or other fixed location and operate via remote. These differ from other video cameras that sit on tripods and require a cameraperson to operate.

In the world of live streaming, PTZ cameras are great for capturing a wide shot of a room or a tough angle, while allowing for zoom.

They can be used for anything from an easy one-camera, hands off setup to a highly produced multi-cam setup where the production crew controls the cameras from a studio. They are particularly helpful when you don't have a large team to operate a stream.

This post looks at alternatives for getting an internet connection that meets the necessary speeds for a reliable live stream without the use of mobile hotspots. It's part of our series on upload speed for live streaming.

Here at BoxCast we believe that every event that is watched live should be streamed live. Unfortunately, not every event takes place in your usual venue where you there is a reliable internet connection. Whether you are streaming an away football game or a charity concert at a remote venue, we have often suggested the use of a simple mobile hotspot from your phone because of the low cost and simplicity. 

This post is an in-depth comparison of three hardware video encoders: the BoxCaster, Teradek VidiU, and Digicast. It's the main post in our series on video encoders.

Live video streaming is often best accomplished by way of a hardware encoder (see our post about why that is). The encoder is a physical device that connects to a video source and converts the audio and video signals into something that can be streamed to a media server. While many hardware encoders share similar features, chipsets, and form-factors, they're not all made the same and can produce different results given otherwise similar conditions.

This post talks about the best software encoders for live streaming. It also addresses how to create an ideal workflow with these tools. It's part of our series on live streaming equipment.

If you're looking for an encoder for your live streaming setup, we recommend a hardware encoder.

TL;DR (for that link): Computers complicate live streaming. They drastically increase the chance something goes wrong. If you want to make live streaming easy, you should keep them out of your workflow.

That said, there are plenty of situations when you need to bring software into the process. Most likely, you require the advanced production elements that some software encoders offer.

Below, we'll quickly name the top softwares for live stream encoding and then talk about how to set up an ideal workflow with them.

This post addresses the different ways that live streaming platforms like Facebook Live, YouTube, Periscope, and BoxCast measure viewership. It's part of our series on How to Start Live Streaming.

Since the beginning of television, the most important metric for broadcasters has been viewership. In the days before the internet, live video audiences were measured, in the form of television ratings, by precise calculations from outside groups.

Fast forward to the digital age and you find a wild world of unregulated measurements. In the internet age, companies can measure viewership however they want.

As a broadcaster, you may find the lack of consistency in reporting frustrating, especially if you simulcast to multiple destinations. What does it mean to have 543 viewers on Facebook Live vs. 245 on YouTube Live? How can you compare across platforms and measure your true reach?

In this post, we breakdown the different platforms and considerations for measuring your live stream viewership.

This is the first major firmware release for the BoxCaster Pro. The release is available now. It includes the following: