Questionnaire Results

To help back up my pitch to potential events I decided to carry out a survey of my own, which has helped me get a taster of who watch live streams and if they would watch one from an event they are interested in. 

Overall there were 27 responses but unfortunately I had to get rid of one set of responses because they hadn't answered appropriately so I couldn't use their answers. All the data below is after I took out the inappropriate comments. 

Even though I didn't get a huge number of respondents they was an equal split between male and females answering. But on the other hand 20 of the respondents were 18-24, (the rest older), which isn't a very goof proportion of ages.

Only eight said they were unlikely to watch a live stream but when I asked would they watch if it was live from an event they are interested in they answered that they likely would watch it. This is interesting, it means the content needs to be tailored specifically to the target audience otherwise you risk losing the audience.

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Live Streaming Statistics - Is it worth it?

For me to approach a client I need to have statistics that show the client live streaming is a good investment for their event. 

The statics below are focusing on audience behaviours, which is very important when trying to get viewers and interest of what you are doing. For example, 80% would rather watch a live stream then read a blog and 82% prefer a live video from a brand then a social media post. From the events I have been looking at this would seem quite important to them because they mostly do social media or blog posts but if I could offer to get the content out a lot quicker and straight to the audience then I think they would be more willing to let me do this for them. 

Also if audiences see a live stream they are more likely to buy tickets to an event by 67%. For an event like London Fashion Week Festival, this could diffidently boost their ticket sales in future years, especially because it is fairly new. Audience's also like more behind the scenes content, 87% of audiences prefer to watch online if it means they will get more behind the scenes information.  If we stream the Facebook, 78% of online audiences are watching Facebook live already. 

All of these statistics are in favour of Live Streaming, this is good for us as this is an area that still has a lot of potential. These are great business points as well because it will allow the events to get a wider audience which means hopefully more tickets sold and greater foot fall. I will be including some of these pints in my video pitch. 
(Blog, 2016)

Events I could film at:

London Fashion Week Festival:

This event is happening from the 21st - 24th February 2019. It showcases designers work, public can go to runway shows, shop and view talks from industry professionals. But ultimately it is making Fashion Week accessible to everyone. I feel with this ethos, bringing the event to the wider public would really suit them.

Here is a link to there web page: https://londonfashionweekfestival.com

The setup:

- One central hub were we talk with guests and have a magazine style show.

- When we aren't using the central hub, we will roam and conduct interviews and pieces to cameras at the catwalk, stands and the retail section. Showcasing the work and content of the festival. 

- I would like to use three cameras for this as one won't cover enough or make it interesting. But this does mean I will need three cellular bonding kits. 

London Games Festival:

This event is happening from the 2nd to 4th April 2019. This is an event where they showcase old and new games, where you learn about experimental games and the future of them. It is spread across the city in 20 venues across 12 days. I have looked on their website and social media and they don't seem to have that many videos, mainly promotional on the website. This could be a good way in as this festival celebrates technology, considering that streaming games is very popular then they should have an aversion to streaming what they do at the event.

Here is a link to their web page: http://games.london 

The set up:

- As this festival is very spread out each day of the 12 we will be in a different location. 

- We will have a hub at each location where again we will have a magazine style show. But this will be more fun as we will play silly games as I feel this festival is all about fun and involvement of everyone. 

- We will also roam around to any key and interesting areas. 

How could this be implemented at an event?

As I have mentioned in my other posts this is mainly used for news broadcasts. I would like to use cellular bonding to cover events. My idea for this as been influenced by events I have worked on in the past. For example I worked at Move It and big dance convention at the excel centre. We provided behind the scenes interviews that would go out to the big screen when there were no acts on the stage.   I also want to take influence from when I worked for IBC TV at the convention in Amsterdam. For this we broadcasted across the convention by producing a news/talk show. We also went out around the convention to film VTs.

My idea would be to go to an event and have a hub where a presenter would talk and interview guests, we could also play games and make it fun. Then whilst we aren't doing that we would go around the event and film what's going on. This would be done with one camera to make it simple and cheap, all of the content will be streamed live to Youtube and Facebook so that those who aren't at the event can still keep up with the latest news.

I feel events would be up for this as they normally have a film team going round and getting general visuals to then produce a video after the event. But with this we can cover the whole thing whilst it is going on and can be used after to create highlight reels.

Companies that make and supply cellular bonding kits

Live U: 

Live U was one of the first companies to bring out a cellular bonding kit, they now have many other products to help us with our broadcasting needs. The image below is the LU500. The is the best for news broadcasts as the camera man can set it up and wear it whilst filming. (Liveu.tv, 2018) 

Teradek:

Teradek has developed there own cellular bonding product. The comes in a backpack as well so it is portable. It streams in H.264 and can have up to 5usb or teradek modems so that you have connectivity everywhere.  (Teradek, LLC - Wireless HD Video, 2018)

Aviwest:

This company also makes the type of technology again it can be mounted on the back of the camera making it portable and lightweight. But this one encodes using H.265 which makes for a clearer picture and uses less bandwidth. This product is called the Pro3 series and is a camera mounted mobile transmitter. (AVIWEST, 2018)

These are main companies I can find online, I thought I would show this to show you do have choice of what you use so you can tailer it for what you need it for. The first two comes with backpacks with the transmitter but Aviwest, it just looks like the transmitter is build in with the box mounted on the back of the camera. I didn't look deep into specifics at this moment in time as these websites have a lot of variables but when I dive more into what I am filming I will then look at what piece of equipment will be most suited for the production. 

Advantages and Disadvantages of Cellular Bonding

Now that the technical workings have been explained I would like to look at the advantages and disadvantages of the technology because of how great it seems there are limitations to it. 

Advantages:

- Very cheap to run and access

- Portable and light weight

- It uses H.264 encoding which is well established

- Good in very populated areas

- Good for single man operations 

Disadvantages:

- Cars are being made instead of trucks, this allows you to still get where you want to go but also the cellular connection with be even more reliable. 

- The connection is good but it still isn't the most reliable way of broadcasting.

- 'Microwave' remote trucks can still do more, it's also rare that is technique hasn't worked and we can't broadcast. 

- Limited to areas that have good internet connection

- It has limited bandwidth, so for a big show it isn't going to work, for example football.

(Kovacs and Kovacs, 2018)

These are just some of the advantages and disadvantages of cellular bonding. In a way I feel they complement each other as even though it can't do what a truck does, it had very good advantages for productions on a small scale and budget. It's about taking this type of technology and using it an environment where it can thrive.If you put it in a situation where it is very likely to fail then it will. 

Compressions, Encoding and Decoding

For the signal to get sent from the camera to the your own servers for transmission, the data needs to be compressed. Encoding works along side this. In an earlier post we spoke about bandwidth which plays a key part in this section. 

As I explained earlier the data is broken up into different sections when it leaves the transmitter on the back of the camera. But for this to be sent over cellular data it needs to be encoded and compressed.

What is compression?

"Compression is a reversible conversion (encoding) of data that contains fewer bits. This allows a more efficient storage and transmission of the data. The inverse process is called decompression (decoding). Software and hardware that can encode and decode are called decoders. Both combined form a codec and should not be confused with the terms data container or compression algorithms." (Mitrovic, 2018)


But before we go any deeper we need to know what the difference between Intraframes and Interframes. 

Intraframe codecs are used on still images to compress them as it only uses the data in that frame to do it. To use this for videos would take along time, this is where Interframe codecs comes in. When filming the standard is there are 25 frames per second and to compress every frame individually would take a while. Inter frames look at a few frames at a time and compresses them together. These frames are alway decided beforehand to avoid confusion, this known has the GOP (group of pictures). To make compression more efficient it now uses both of these so it looks at the frames around but also individual ones as well. (Wolfcrow.com, 2018)

Because each frame is normally slightly different then the last within the GOP, except in a scene change. Three different types of frames are used to predict the image.

I-frames:

This follows a cut or a minor change in detail which means it has to reference only whats in that frame which means the compression isn't great.

Predicted Frames - P Frames:

The last from is the p frames as we have most of the information already from previous frames. It can be predicted from an earlier P or I frame. Compression is a lot less because other information is already stored. 

Bidirectional frames - B Frame:

This is the middle frame, it looks at the first and last frame for data, for it to do this there needs to be a delay in the broadcast. 

To link what was said earlier P and B frames are inter coded frames and I frames are intra coded frames. 

 Once each frame has enough data to guess what it is, in terms of colours and movement. This means it doesn't need all of the pixels within frame. When this is broadcasted it will take less time and bandwidth as there is less data.(Mitrovic, 2018)

  As I have said before when doing cellular broadcasting you need to make sure you have the correct size bandwidth. There are ways to make this easier. For example, when filming a news story not much is moving, there aren't any hard cuts and the colours are more blocky and don't change. This will be easy to compress as it will be easy to guess what's coming next. Where as if you have a lot of moving images, hard cuts and colour then it will struggle to compress it.

This could cause artifacts, glitches in the video. One artefact is called macro blocking where parts of the image temporarily turns into solid blocks. This is mistaken for pixilating, which is slang word for the term. (Garden, Video and Technology, 2018)

  

    

How does cellular bonding work?

As we know this technology uses different sources of internet, for this lets keep to 2g, 3g and 4g. 

For this explanation we are using one camera which is pointed at an individual. When the camera is running, the box on the back of the camera, which holds all of the sim cards and each one is called a modem, breaks down each frame into small chunks. This data then gets sent to the nearest cellular telephone tower and transmits the data to the servers in the studio which can then broadcast it out. 

If one of these sim cards or modems were to get blocked or fail then the data will be sent down one of the others. This is why it is so reliable for broadcasters.  

What is cellular bonding?

Cellular bonding uses multiple modems which combine 2G, 3G and 4G, even wifi. By using this if one of the signals were to get blocked we can rely on the others to deliver the final product to the audience watching. 

This method is generally used for live broadcasts like news as it is a portable and quick solution to broadcast from nearly anywhere in the world. It is also used for live events as it is also very affordable for those that don't have a big budget.

Now a days there are a lot more 'casual producers' with the rise of Facebook lives and streaming our own content in general. This means there is a higher demand for cellular bandwidth.
(Ozer, 2018)


Keys Terms:

Modems - 'A modem is a network device that both modulates and demodulates analog carrier signals (called sine waves) for encoding and decoding digital information for processing. Modems accomplish both of these tasks simultaneously and, for this reason, the term modem is a combination of "modulate" and "demodulate."'
(Techopedia.com, 2018)

Bandwidth - 'Bandwidth is the capacity of a wired or wireless network communications link to transmit the maximum amount of data from one point to another over a computer network or internet connection in a given amount of time -- usually one second.'
(SearchNetworking, 2018)

Introduction

This blog is to showcase and display the research I have carried out for my Professional Initiatives project, in my final year. 

For my project I will be researching into cellular bonding and how we can use it to live stream events. I am looking into this because more and more companies/events are wanting to get what they are doing or showcasing out to a greater audience. Cellular bonding is a cheaper and more reliable way of making sure this will happen. Also with traditional broadcasting methods slowing being challenged, cellular bonding is coming more popular. 

I will research into the technical side of cellular bonding so that myself and other individuals can implement and use it easily in the future. I will also research into possible events where I could take this technology and film/stream it live. Tis will hopefully be put into action in the next project.