Streamyard #113 Sun 7th Mar 6pm PT

TOWN HALL UPDATES EPISODE 112

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@Tuckers_Game 
Is there a feature where you can automatically show all comments on the screen?

Right now we just have it where you can see all the comments inside of the studio, but it’s not in the actual output feed itself.

It’s something we’ve considered doing, the main reason we’ve opted not to do it is just because you don’t have full control over what people are saying, and it might be a case where you get an inappropriate comment, or something you don’t want other people to see, that’s now  burned into the to the live stream.

I’d be curious if that’s a risk you’re willing to take or or your thoughts on that?

Maybe there’s another interesting way to do it where you could maybe just have a section of comments you do want to pop into the screen, then and have a feed there.

I’d be curious your thoughts on that.

@Bryan Garlock 
PLEASE add the ability to do audio files like we have the ability to do uh video files.

ANSWER : I assume you mean the ability to just upload an audio, so you can have music playing in the background?

One option you do have for now, since we don’t have that solution, is to use something like a Rodecaster.

I’m a huge fan of the virtual audio cable. I know it is an extra step, but it works very well and then it’s just more powerful too. But yes we’re definitely open to it, it’s always trying to balance that simplicity with more useful features.

@Julie DiMatteo
I’d love the ability to “pin” comments for lack of a better term;
To show them at a later time in the stream.

ANSWER : That is on the roadmap, thanks Julie

@RVingwithG
“How about auto run of the comments we can click on the ones we do not want to show… “

ANSWER : Sounds like RVingwithG was a fan of that idea to have a custom section that would show on screen.

That would be that would be one solution. 

It would be interesting, but then the downside is that it might get shown on the screen and then you have to remove it. If they just automatically got shown and then you could remove them if it’s still in the stream. Unless maybe there’s a queue where you can see them ahead of time. There’s a lot of different ways we could approach it.

It’s a cool idea.

@Bobby Whitten
Love the share video for our church Sunday School lesson.

That’s cool!
Thanks bobby, nice to hear that.

Ross is talking about StreamYard Connect this week. They’ll be covering live streaming your podcast with the author of a new book Christoph Trappe.

We have an International Women’s Day live stream event coming on 8th March, 3-5 pm ET. [ So check that out ] 

We’ll also have a StreamYard event with the exact date tbd

Just to let you guys know that it is on the roadmap and coming.
Also if there’s anything in particular you’d like to see out of a StreamYard Virtual Event if there’d be anything that would be super exciting for us to cover, or what you’d like to see from it, please do let us know.

We also have two new developers joining this week which is cool we have Alex & ?Gabe? joining the team, super excited to have them on board!

@carsandcalibres
have been doing car and watch chats since mid-2020.
Couldn’t have done it without you guys

ANSWER : That’s super kind, sounds like a cool show car and watch chats,
I’ll have to check that out.

@Human[c]ity Junction 
When will we be able to have a producer/engineer login?
A user that can control a stream, but not set up a stream.

ANSWER: It’s a good question.It is something that we are currently working on. I can’t give you a date, but I can tell you that we are are working on a solution for that.

@Jersey Art Productions
When will you be releasing separate audio tracks?
I thought you mentioned that was something you guys were working on?

ANSWER: We actually had that as a subject tonight. I can say, very soon!
I still can’t give you guys an exact date, but individual audio tracks are coming very soon.

It’s something we’ve been working on for a little while.
It’s very close We are just refining it at the moment.
Basically it’s the ability to have it  & it’s a pretty advanced feature, so it’s not for everyone. But for some of you it’s very useful.

Basically as you finish a stream, it’ll just give you a separate track from everyone that was in the stream, which is great if you want to repurpose it for a podcast or something else. 

For example if we go live to the Town Hall and then we want to turn this into a podcast, but maybe we want to edit my audio because I wasn’t loud enough, or we just need to change something, remove some background noise etc, we could edit just my audio and not the rest of the audio.

We’ll basically give you the ability to download separate WAV files for each user, then you do whatever you want with them.

We do have a lot of advanced users here, so for those of you especially if you’re doing a podcast or some advanced editing afterwards, this should be useful!

@Will Russell
Just came on to tell you guys StreamYard ROCKS

ANSWER : Thanks so much will super nice to hear that

@Ephraim Osaghae
Are there any tips with overcoming the linkedin approval?
I have tried a couple of times, not sure what they need.

ANSWER: The best advice we have is they will take a look at the shows you’re currently doing, so just make make sure you’re making great content on the other platforms, where you can live stream. And also be making content on Linkedin itself. Whether that’s static videos, and using the other features you do have permission for.

Then once you’ve done that for a while, try applying again.
That’s best advice I have for that.

They did have tips, because we actually had Alanna on our show, and she was talking about what what you should be doing if you want to get access. One of them was the types of content, as well it’s really just focused on what do people on Linkedin want? Make sure you’re creating that!

It’s a lot around

• How do you get a job?
• How do you help train people? Educate people?

That type of content they’re very, very interested in.

She had a bunch of great tips there Ephraim.

You could just go back and check that out if you want to hear it directly from from her….

https://www.facebook.com/236858383701986/videos/428320048546368

@Mos-b Prince Jab
Greetings good to be here!
How do you make that lovely background?

Nice to have you here & it’s a good question. 
I didn’t actually make this one. I think Julie made this background and think she used Canva

Canva is a nice tool for making simple images. So you just use a few circles, put up the StreamYard logo, chose some colours. 

I would not do a good job of coming up with a background like this; 
So there are of course things like Fiverr where you can just hire a contractor to do it.
There’s also wonderful people in the stream, and in the community that that make those as well. Be sure to check them out.

One of the ways if you’re just looking for something that looks good, you don’t need a specific style, you don’t want to have this super unique look, you just want to have something that looks good like some sort of background that looks good, a lot of people will just upload like a gradient.

You can go online; 

1. Look up colour gradient
   It’ll fade from like a dark blue to a light blue, or just something that’s on brand for you.
2. Download that as a pn
3. Upload it to Streamyard

It’s what we used in the town hall for a long time.
It’s just a simple green gradient, I think.

It was was it Jenny we saw doing that, and since i’ve noticed a lot of people doing it.
It’s very simple but looks great!

Are there copyright issues in showing YouTube clips during a StreamYard livestream? If yes, no further question. If no, then what’s the best way to to do it

ANSWER : Good question Ephraim, and the answer is it it depends on the content you’re showing. It just depends if the the content producer owns the rights to that content.

So some content on Youtube you are allowed to share. You just have to make sure that you check. Youtube has a nice library too that usually gives that information on how you’re allowed to use the the content.

There is also the question of ‘fair use’ depending on the type of content you’re making, but it’s definitely something you want to be careful of! So best thing I can suggest is just to make sure you look into the content and see whether or not you are allowed to share it.

You can always share your own content?
Like sharing a past clip, but you do want to be careful to make sure.
Technically yes if the algorithm automatically picks it up and that could be a problem.

I think you can get it set up where it doesn’t automatically flag your stuff, but a lot of people’s content I believe is copyrighted on Youtube.

We did have a question I wanted to get to it’s about all the recordings

Obviously we have that we have the 15 day limit of recording
I’m curious how often it would be useful to go back like a really long period of time like how how often do you need a stream from like six months ago?
Is the type of thing that it’s only really useful right after you do the live stream, or do you find yourself going back to like youtube from a long time ago to download an older stream. 

What are the best audio set’s for hi-fi quality?

ANSWER : Best place to ask that is probably in the Streamyard Community – there’s tons of great experts on on that sort of thing. They really will be able to outline a bunch of options and the pros and cons.

Right now I’m using a Yeti which iIm pretty happy with. I think dan’s using the same mic.

I know i’ve seen lots of people also like to enhance their setup, by using a mixer and having multiple mics, if they have different things going on.

So probably best to check out the Streamyard Community, there’s lots of great resources inside of there. And then on the Streamyard site.

Specifically if you are using the audio settings, you can turn off echo cancellation.

If you have a really high quality setup, you’ll probably want to do that. it’ll just make it sound better in general. So if you really do invest in some high quality equipment that’ll make it sound the best, it’s higher bitrate, plus it also doesn’t have any kind of audio processing in it.

@DaveCooper Live
Linkedin is my main platform for streaming. I IRL live on location with a liveu solo when on the road and wish I could use streamyard as it’s my go-to uh daily stream platform 6 days a week. Is RTMP an upcoming feature?

ANSWER : Another cool request Dave! It’s definitely something we’ve considered especially for those types of use cases where you are on the road, and you need something to actually come into streamyard itself.

Ican tell you it’s something we’re considering, i can’t give you a date or anything, but it’s definitely something we’re considering!

I’m curious those of you watching if there’s anyone else that would use it in a similar way? If you have maybe an advanced setup where you’re doing a live stream, but you also have someone out in the field, or in some physical location, where you want their feed coming in from from a more advanced camera, or something like that?

@Jersey Art Productions
Is there any solution to audio clipping (getting cut off/garbled if more than one person speaks)? Or is that just the nature of streaming and we need to remind people to speak one at a time.

ANSWER : If you don’t have control over your guest setup, like if you just have someone joining and you can’t really get them to wear headphones, or or control what kind of audio setup they have, then you do just have to make sure you’re timing things that you’re not trying to talk at the same time.

If you do have control over that, what you can do is disable the audio processing functionality on streaming. If you both uh wear headphones, because it also gets rid of the echo cancellation ability, you won’t have to be wearing headphones, but if you have that on, and everyone’s wearing headphones, you can actually talk at the same time without having that audio ducking effect.

So basically in in your settings on streamyard, turn off echo cancellation for everyone, but again yeah definitely have headphones on are you gonna do that my mistake i forgot we changed the uh yeah we changed the name there

@JoeDog
A nice feature to add would be a monthly/yearly usage email for paid users showing how many minutes/hours you broadcast, How many shows you did and any record only also.

ANSWER : We are we are working on adding more analytics type functionality, specifically for that type of stuff. It’s fun to be able to track how you’re doing, and how much you’ve used the product. So that is something we’re actively working on, and super curious, anything you guys would like to see on that analytics? Appreciate your suggestions there 

@Russ Johns 

ANSWER : It sounds like Russ would use the the RTMP ability, and has done several events that have multiple cameras and mobile users.

Curious, would you need RTMP for that though? Originally the ability to have multiple cameras.

if It’s just a phone i guess you you you wouldn’t, but if you were using something like a live view you would.

@John Willmott
Many of the subjects I cover in streams are an annual event the recordings are a great reference to remind me about content used for each subject when i repeat it.

ANSWER : Thanks john that’s good to know

@NLTMW 
I would think that a good creator / producer would add download files to their workflow, so older archive files wouldn’t be too valuable.

ANSWER : Good to know.

One other question we had for you guys was around monetization.

One thing I’m curious about is, I know many of you have things like courses, or consulting, and you basically use stream as a form of content marketing, to to drive people to your email list, and ultimately get familiar with the type of stuff that you do.

I’m curious how many of you are working with companies with actual sponsorships from the company? I’m curious about that, and also curious of any other unique ways that you’re monetizing content.

One thing now that we’re part of of HOPIN, that has come to mind more recently, that I hadn’t thought about as much about in the past is monetizing through events.

So i’m curious how many of you that that is a strategy? Where you have an audience, and then maybe you have an annual event, or something that’s special, that you have people buy tickets to? I’m curious if that’s something that’s interesting or something you’re currently doing? Do let us know!

It’s definitely a very good strategy!
Some companies do that extremely well.

@Sue A Webley
Yep! I have clients that use the same banner in their broadcasts. Right now I have to scroll through all of the banners to get to the ones a specific client uses. 

ANSWER : Maybe linking the two options together? Because we do have banner folders, and then we have the brands, but I’m wondering maybe you’re thinking when we switch brands, you also switch to another banner folder?
Let me know!

@Fadlin Faladino
Any possibility or plans to have NDI output?

ANSWER : Yeah NDI’s super cool Fablin! It’s something that we’d certainly like to to support. It’s been a while since we’ve looked into it. There have been lots of advancements made as far as browser tech, so we need to look into what what is possible, and it might be the type of thing that we would have to add a downloadable component to Streamyard in order to support? But it’s it’s something we’re certainly open to.

For anyone who doesn’t know what NDI output is, it’s pretty cool!

Network Device Interface (NDI) is basically if you have cameras connected on the same network say you have a camera that’s over IP connected to the same router you can basically pull those different feeds in over your local network, which is pretty cool for having more advanced setups.

An NDI output would basically be the ability for Streamyard to do the same thing but push it out so if you’re using Streamyard in addition to some other kind of software!!

@Dave Gardner
We just used Streamyard tonight for our hockey league draft

ANSWER : Hey Dave nice to see you here! It’s been a minute since we we saw you. It’s a nice you had it for hockey league draft fantastic!

@Evelia Garcia
Hey guys is there any way we can use background without having to purchase green room stuff?

ANSWER : At some point we might try to support it, where you don’t have to have a physical green screen, unfortunately right now you do have to have to have the physical green screen 

One thing we should mention that I skipped past at the beginning of the stream is that HOPIN just completed their SERIES C, which is pretty cool!

For anyone that doesn’t know what that means, they basically just raised another investment round!

Which just means we have even more resources to deliver an awesome experience and product for you guys! So super exciting to be a part of that, and they just brought on some awesome new investors like Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst.

It’s pretty cool to be a part of that, and we are excited also for some of the new team members they brought on to their executive team, so some exciting news there!

We want to touch  on something where we had a brief issue this week with Facebook Comments.  There was an update that we we did get resolved though.

Basically there was a day or two where Facebook was having some issues with images, so it seemed to be resolved after the first day, and then it came back another day as well.

It seems to be fully resolved, it was just some images from Facebook we’re not loading in the studio. This should be fine now. Everything seems to be fine, but yeah there as a temporary issue. I think just something changed on Facebook’s end & we were able to adapt to it on our end, and had to make a few different changes to work around it, but it seems rock solid now!

@DaveCooper Live 
I’m live streaming for a living with sponsors and we are now starting private content to stream private sponsored events as well as to university classrooms across the country as part of their curriculum.  Would love to use Streamyard for all of our events.

ANSWER : That’s super useful insight there Dave.
I appreciate you you sharing that

@Luke John Emmett
Plus one for NDI

ANSWER : Thanks Luke

@Re Anderson 
We do save masters offline and do access for repurposing, also offer that to clients. That’s two or three backup workflow

ANSWER : Thanks Anderson 

@Flash In your Pan
Yes I have an annual event, Flash Bash (very cool) that I sell spots to, for a weekend, and I want to stream portions of it live. (that’s awesome!)

@Neil Dixon 
Hey I am a new user to StreamYard is there a way I can stream through my phone and use a laptop to control broadcasting features like the banner, turn on the ticker etc?

ANSWER : Absolutely! Basically you can just join the Streamyard stream as a guest on the phone, and then also be operating from the the laptop. That way you can control the layout of the show, the comments on screen, and still have that that phone feed.

It’d probably be easiest if you were working with someone else to help you do that at the same time, but yeah you can absolutely do that!

You can actually control everything from your phone too! A little harder, though you can do it!

But for the best experience simpler to have someone on a laptop doing it! 

@CalmDownRich 
Is it possible to add SY and ethernet and wi-fi hotspot connections simultaneously so you don’t get dropped off during live streams?

ANSWER : Whilst it’s a cool idea, @calmdownrich you can’t be too careful!

For super big events that’s a definitely an interesting idea but honestly I think your best bet for that would be to look at hardware specifically for that rich, where you can basically vary for your exact use case.

Like I want there to be zero percent chance of something going wrong.

I think it’s best to use one of those hardware devices. Not sure how much how much we’d be able to do in streamyard itself? Maybe it’s possible, but I would probably opt for for one of those specialised devices, that allow you to to connect you to the hotspot, the ethernet cable and every connection you have available to you, to just make sure there’s very little chance of anything going wrong.

I think at it’s worst case, if it does crash, and you can quickly flip to the new internet, you can probably be back on in around 30 seconds and the stream won’t cut out, but obviously not an amazing experience, if it’s a very high production quality event!

At least your stream won’t fully cut out if your internet goes out,  the stream will keep going in the background, you can refresh and should be fine. But not amazing & we totally get it!

@Jersey Art Productions 
Analytics would be great! Number of views, peak viewers, average number of viewers, would be really helpful!

ANSWER : Thanks so much for the insights there, sounds like quite you have sponsors which is very cool congrats on that too!

Ariel also has sponsors for every week!!

@Daniel Smrokowski 
I have corporate partner sponsor for special chronicles

Answer : Thanks Daniel – very cool!

@SwiftChaser
Any suggestions on streaming (smartphone screen) app demos to the to the broadcast?

ANSWER : Personally the few times I’ve done it, I’ll use an app called reflector 3 & there’s a few different apps you can use. Basically for me I’m on a mac, and I will use that app, what it’ll do is it’ll just sync with your phone, so if you want to share your phone, it’ll sync with it and just in the app on your computer, you basically see everything that’s on your phone, and then you just screen share that within Streamyard.

So your screen sharing this reflector app, reflectors sync with your phone, it’s actually very very easy to use once it’s set up, and even setting up it’s pretty straightforward. So you can scroll around the phone, and it just shows up.

You’re just screen sharing, your phone works very well, honestly is cool!

@Billy Zerillo
Just want to say love the platform. Love how simple it is.

ANSWER : Thanks so much Billy – that’s super nice you to say!

GIVEAWAY 

Today we’ll be giving away a black Streamyard T-shirt with the the white text and a Streamyard mug!! 

HEADS UP : We’ll also have some some new items coming in relatively soon so hopefully next giveaway we’ll be giving away some new items that you haven’t seen before!!

I like the way you usually have over 100 entries by the time you announce how it actually works that’s so cool that everyone knows the drill! We’ve got a lot of experts here. I love seeing the hashtag #TheYards

Dan Briggs 

It was Shannon Griffith that originally came up with the hashtag! 
And was the first user of hashtag!

JoeDog Congrats I know you’re you’re always watching so cool for you to win!!

Dana will reach out to get your information and your details to send you some stuff!

Thanks so much for watching every week it’s cool that you’re always here and congrats again!

FYI – The giveaway tools is just a custom tool that we use & at some point we will try to make it available for everyone to use. Just right now it’s not in a form ready to share. Dan’s just  running it on this computer, so we need to make it in a form where other people can actually use it remotely!

@Bacon Earth
Ask can we get a feature where the square around the avatars are transparent so people can see the work we put into the backgrounds etc?

ANSWER : Yeah, that’s a cool idea bacon. I assume that what you mean is  having a bunch of audio only guests, that have the avatars, but you have the black box around them and you would rather just have the pictures. Thats a super cool cool suggestion & something we’ll definitely consider.

Maybe something that could have an option somewhere for that. The other option I don’t know if this is good if you didn’t want to have the avatars you just have the have the setting where you don’t show audio avatars at all, and people just see the background but then you  don’t know who’s talking, so not amazing? it’s just that would really show off the background so maybe an option to just show the background?

Thank you guys so much for for hanging out with us.
Always so much fun to to hang out with you and answer your your questions.
We’ll see you next week at the same time 6 pm Pacific