📨 🍽️ ♾ Online Speech Technical Features: Starter Pack 📻 👨🏻‍⚖️ 👵🏻

Recently, the head of Rospotrebnadzor called the restriction, which will be lifted last , this will be the lifting of the ban on mass events. Online with us for a long time!

So, let's start getting ready and talk today about the technical support of the online presentation. At our conferences, we plan to provide speakers with the missing equipment, but if you often speak, this short cheat sheet will be useful anyway.

These microphones seem to us not to be an obligatory attribute of an online speech, but about everything in order.

the Internet

The basis of everything is the problem of the last mile, and here, unfortunately, we can’t get any guarantees, but we can be safe.

First, it’s important to distinguish between connection speed and guaranteed bandwidth . You can be connected with a 100 megabyte channel to your provider (and this is true), but it is very difficult to check which channel your provider is connected to your upstream. Moreover, to find out how many users like you are shaping (sharing) traffic.

What concerns us is the bandwidth: for broadcasting picture quality in 720p, the minimum speed is 1.5-2 guaranteed megabits, and 1080p needs 3-4 megabits. And this is the speed of the outgoing channel - as a rule they are not symmetrical.

The easiest way to check is testing with SpeedTest or Yandex.Internet . Moreover, testing is best done several times on different days and at about the time your report will be. For example, the modern realities of Moscow show that after 18:00 the traffic exchange points feel very bad and are overloaded objectively.

Wired Internet is better than wireless, the presence of one or more backup channels are required. A good configuration looks like a wired Internet with one or two mobile just in case.

Camera

Almost any external camera is much better than the one built into the laptop. When choosing a camera, pay attention to the presence or absence of autofocus (by and large, it is not needed and can even be harmful if implemented poorly), camera megapixels (2 and higher) and the output picture quality (720p and higher).

Why do we think 720p is enough? Everything is simple - the listeners of the broadcast will have the same problems with the last mile, like yours. Now that everyone is surfing the Internet, only the lucky ones can download and watch the broadcast in 1080p :)

Sound

Sufficient quality is given by simple headsets with a conventional microphone built into them. The wire is more important here, so as not to think about what and when to discharge, and to ensure an uninterrupted signal.

Headphones are needed for feedback. For example, through headphones we keep in touch between the presenter, director, co-speakers and presenters. An online performance is more like a television shooting than a regular performance.

Shine

Lighting is the most important aspect in obtaining a beautiful picture. Think about it beforehand: what will be the lighting outside the window, where the lamps are located relative to you. Lighting from above is not great, it’s best to place several ordinary lamps or even a professional video light in front of you.

As a professional light, again, an ordinary ring luminaire or a simple LED illuminator, for example, YongNuo , is enough . We will try to deliver these to our speakers to the door :)

What is yours? Best of all is a plain white background. In any case, the background should be clean and tidy. A chroma key is not worth buying, you still need to learn how to work with it (both for you and the organizers), but a banner or rollup from the conference can be requested.

Do not forget to check the result in advance, that is, checks with collected equipment are required! If the organizers do not provide such a check, then it’s worth insisting.

Speech format

If you speak through Zoom or something similar, then everything is quite simple. If the organizers want to collect a good picture (for example, we are), then they will ask you to take the image from the camera in another way. For example, using vMixCall or OBS, it is almost an industry standard. It will be quite simple - you will go through the password-protected URL and then everything will happen automatically.

The second aspect is to take a presentation picture from you, we use Zoom for this. You start the broadcast of the presentation program window (or the entire screen) in the speaker’s Zoom and then on the servers the operators and editors will connect everything to the layout in the corporate style of the conference for broadcasting.

Feedback

In fact, it’s not so difficult to observe the chat and note the reactions of the audience while reading the report - in just a couple of speeches you will have such superpower :)

The only thing to remember is if the organizers use TCP or similar equipment or software for gluing pictures for broadcast, listeners will receive the final picture and sound with a significant delay.

If you are broadcasting an image from a webcam, then the smartphone can be used as a second screen and read on it, for example, chat or watch the results of polls launched by the organizers.

Looks scary? :) Like any action that we do for the first time!

P.S.: - -, — , . , , , YouTube-. — , .