It’s all about the sound
The most important part of a livestream isn’t the video, it’s the sound. Just think of all the blurry, low-resolution YouTube videos and questionably-procured episodes of TV you’ve watched over the years. It’s much more important to hear the bride and groom make their vows than to see it happen in 4K HDR. At some point, this is likely to be the case for you. Whether it’s a wedding, funeral, birthday celebration, holiday gathering, or something else, getting the livestream right will be crucial. For the best sound quality, you’ll need a dedicated directional microphone placed close to wherever people will be speaking. The microphone built into your computer, webcam, or smartphone won’t cut it; it will pick up too much noise from the environment, and there’s no workaround. You can get fancy and use wireless lapel mics or other more elaborate options, but it’s hard to beat a good USB microphone on a long cable. The two I recommend are the Blue Snowball and the Blue Yeti.
OK, video matters too
With a good audio setup, you can get away with a lot of video sins. Seriously: You can connect a Blue Yeti directly to your smartphone (you may need a USB-C-to-USB-A or Lightning-to-USB-A adapter, depending on your phone) and have a livestream that’s far better than most one-on-one Zoom calls. And if you’d like to shop around a little more, PopSci‘s reviews team has compiled a list of the best mics for streaming, if you want to take advantage of their expertise. Still, you can make things even better without a huge amount of effort. First up: the camera you’re recording with. You can connect a modern DSLR or a mirrorless camera to your computer and use it as a webcam, but I don’t recommend it. They’re not designed for recording long, continuous video, so they can overheat, run out of battery, or fall victim to a number of issues. If you know what you’re doing, it can work, but for most people, the bump in video quality will be offset by a lot of extra stress and failure. Ultimately, the best camera will be your smartphone. You can, as I suggested earlier, wire a mic straight in, but it’s better to use your phone as a webcam connected to a computer. There are quite a few apps that let you do this:
Camo Pro: This is what I went with. It started as an Apple-only service, but you can now use it with Android and Windows devices as well. It’s also one of the most expensive options, at $5 a month, $40 a year, or $80 forever. However, the Camo Studio app gives you a huge amount of control over the video feed, which I wanted.EpocCam Pro: This is a less-expensive option at $8, and it works with any iOS device connected to a PC or a Mac.DroidCamX Pro: This is only $5, and it connects both Android and iOS devices to Windows or Linux PCs.
Whichever option you go with, I’d recommend using a USB connection rather than wireless. For live, one-time events, you want the simplest setup possible—you won’t want to wrangle a fickle WiFi router that’s struggling to handle loads of guests. Go with a 3- or 6-foot cable and you’ll have lots of options for where to place the camera. You can hold your smartphone yourself, but a stable tripod is better. If you already have one, you can get a tripod mount for your phone. Otherwise, any phone tripod will do—as long as you can place the smartphone where you want. Worst comes to worst, prop it up higher with a chair. I went with Zoom’s Video Webinar. It was overkill and pricey, at $40 a month for up to 100 attendees, but Zoom’s offerings have changed since then. Now, you can host a 100-person event on Zoom One Pro for $15 a month, or livestream to 300 people for $20 a month. There’s a free version, but you can’t stream for more than 40 minutes. Zoom Webinars are now $80 a month for a minimum of 500 attendees. Overall, Zoom gave me a lot of control over how people viewed the stream, most people were already familiar with it, and I needed something bulletproof since my brother is only getting married once. As a bonus, I was able to record a local copy of the event and see everyone’s in-person and Zoom chat reactions. If most of your audience or guests are on Facebook, YouTube, or Twitch, those platforms’ livestreaming options are good, but you may have to jump through some hoops to get set up. Don’t count on them on short notice. Also, be aware that no matter where you host the stream, you are probably running afoul of copyright laws if you play any music. For a private event, copyright owners are unlikely to notice or shut everything down mid-event, but don’t use the tips in this article to broadcast a bootleg concert to thousands of people. And they can still punish you afterward.
Test, test, test
The time to test everything (and I mean everything) is not the day of the event. Instead, make sure everything is working at least a day or two beforehand so you can fix any of the (almost inevitable) bugs, problems, and other weird issues. A non-exhaustive dry-run checklist includes ensuring that: With that said, make sure you give yourself enough time to set everything up (if you can’t leave it set up from the tests you did the day before). Some key things to bear in mind as you get ready to start the stream: This story has been updated. It was originally published on November 25, 2020.
