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Now I am a TV broadcaster!



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One of the reasons for this blog was to share my absolute delight with technology.  Let me share my most recent delight.

First, a little of my background is relevant here.  I earned a BA in Broadcast Journalism back in 1978 yet within two years embarked on the career of selling computers, other technology and enterprise software.  Broadcasting becanme a memory.

About twelve years ago we bought a couple consumer grade video cameras and Adobe Premiere. I was astonished at the product I could put out. It was comparable to what I could in 1978 with access to a TV station.  I used the capability to shoot a couple of friend's weddings and make a couple of documentaries.  Some are at my YouTube Channel.

Last night, I fooled around with a free software product called Open Broadcast Studio, or OBS for short.

For those who know video production a bit, OBS is basically acts a video switcher.




A video switcher is the device in a TV studio that all the video sources are connected to. For example, in a TV studio there might be three cameras, a feed from the network, VCR's (well, today they'd be a PC putting out a video), etc.  The switcher, an actual hardware device, lets you choose the next shot to go out over the air, and how you transition to it.

A professional video swticher


In this screenshot below of OBS, the shot going out over the "air" is the right hand side.  It is a combination shot of my webcam showing me, and a pre-recorded video, in this case, a documentary I made about a ride in a Ford Trimotor Airplane.

Screenshot of OBS 


The left hand panel is the Preview shot, the next shot coming up.  In this case, it is a screen shot of my other monitor, showing a web page with this blog.

Between the two panels are controls for transitioning to the new shot. It can be a quick cut, or a fade. The director (that's me! or you.) controls the speed.

Here's where it gets interesting. The user can of course save the output to a new video file they can post to YouTube.  Or...they can stream it out.

Last night I made a brief live broadcast to Facebook Live.

Think about that for a moment.  From my laptop I became a broadcaster to a world wide audience of potentially two billion people.

OBS is popular with the video gaming set.  One of the stream services it supports is Twitch, Gamers will broadcast their own games with their own commentary.  Amazingly (at least to this Baby Boomer) people watch.

Also, there is an active professional gaming circuits drawing viewers and they use Twitch.tv to get the games out to viewers.



I've found messages on Reddit that indicate users have used two cameras at one time.  I've asked the question if anyone has used more.  Imagine having a three camera setup in your living room to do a interview style TV show?  It looks like it might be feasible and cheap.

Update 1/31/2018 :   a bit of rewriting for clarity, and to report the inquiry in Reddit I learned that some people use four cameras. If I could afford webcams I do not need, I'd love to test the feasibility of setting up a talk show like program using OBS.

Note: I've deleted the video I made to Facebook so no point in looking for it.  It is nothing more than what you see in the screenshots above and didn't last a minute.

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