What's your isolation project? Mine is producing television.

A long, long time ago, I earned a BA in Journalism, with an emphasis in television production. Before I could find a job in broadcasting, I started selling computers; a seductive business I am still in.

About 2003 I bought two consumer video cameras and Adobe Premiere, a professional grade video editing application. . I was astonished at what I could do on my PC. I shot videos of my son's plays, productions done at the local Senior Continuing Care facility, a documentary for my church, and even a few weddings.

The cameras are now 17 years old. I cannot trust them to get through an event, so I no longer use them.

For these last few weeks, I've been exploring the ability to do live television productions from your home.

A lot of us are working from home, and using Zoom and other video conferencing systems. What I'm looking about goes beyond.

I found a a free, open source program call Open Broadcast Studio (OBS). It doesn't refer to itself this way, but for those who have any experience of broadcast TV, it is basically a software version of a TV switcher. In my college days, a switcher cost $100,000 easily.

It lets you have multiple sources : cameras, web feeds/pages, pre-recorded videos, Skype callers, text, images, and captures of your PCs windows, including game play.

Using OBS you can combine these sources on one screen, and easily switch from one source to another, with transitions like fades or cuts in real time.

You can record video, or better yet stream them live to Facebook, Youtube, Twitch and other services.

OBS is what enables the YouTube stars.

I just have a couple webcams. I haven't produced a show yet, but I have some ideas.

Meanwhile it is a fascinating field to explore. It lets me combine my two interests, computers and television production.

And it is amazing what hardware is out there. For only a few thousand dollars, I could have a better live streaming production capability than what a TV studio gave me in college.

I found a couple videos at Twit.TV helpful to get oriented. They are a bit dated now but give a good background. Some of the equipment they mention is no longer available, and all this kind of equipment is hard to find now unless the prices have been jacked up. All this teleworking has caused a run on some PC gear.

Know How... 374 Stream How: Personal Streaming

Know How... 378 Stream How: Personal Streaming Part II

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