Epiphan Pearl Guide Part 1: Simplicity in Streaming
Simplicity in Streaming: Epiphan Pearl Guide Part 1
We’ve heard a lot from customers over the years about the huge variety of uses they’ve had with their Pearl systems. We know the system is versatile, but our users continue to surprise us with their ingenuity and creativity! That’s why this year we started compiling a few of these innovative ideas, along with our own suggestions, into a user tool we call Pearl Plays, found in our Epiphan Pearl Guide.
Pearl and Pearl-2 are extremely flexible with lots of different options, so Pearl Plays can help clarify which of many uses you want most. Since the guide is full to the brim with diagrams and easy instructions, you can even put it to use right away.
Our first installment in this guide series looks at the first Play in the book, the aptly named Simplicity.
Who Wants Simplicity?
Just about everyone! The Simplicity Play does exactly what it promises: it gets you up and running quickly and easily without too many bells and whistles. Sometimes you want something more complex, for instance if you were using Pearl or Pearl-2 for security and video wall operator monitoring, but in just about every other use case there’s going to be a time where you just want to keep things simple. As just a few examples, we have clients using this Play for recording and streaming:-
Live events - Education / Lectures
- Worship services
- UX labs
- Sporting events
- Performance rehearsals
- Courtrooms
- Corporate events
- And many, many, more!
Putting it into practice
This play is perfect for when you are already keeping things simple, and have just one or two video sources, maybe accompanied by an audio mixer. This could be a presenter and her slides, a teacher with a whiteboard or one camera on the performer and the other on the crowd. This configuration makes live streaming so easy to use, that the operator doesn’t need to do anything beyond give it the touch of a finger to start streaming and recording. Whether your main goal is live streaming or recording or both, you’ll get exactly what you need.Make it work for you
Part of the usefulness of the Pearl Playbook is that it outlines exactly how to make the play work. It doesn’t just suggest an idea, but shows you how to put it into practice. With Simplicity, the method is appropriately simple. Let’s walk through the four easy steps (this example uses a laptop and a LUMiO 12x as the two video sources):- Connect your laptop to a port on row A at the back of Pearl, or into the HDMI-A port on the back of Pearl-2. Connect a LUMiO 12x camera into the ‘B’ HDMI port, and then finally connect the audio from your mixing panel, using TRS on Pearl or XLR on Pearl-2.
- Use the two default channels for your program ISOs, each with simple full-screen single-source layouts.
- Create a third channel with a layout that includes your two video sources arranged attractively over-top of a background image. Configure streaming to YouTube or CDN of your choice.
- When you’re ready to start streaming and recording, just touch the streaming and recording controls on Pearl or Pearl-2’s touchscreen and you’re live!
You can get even more out of this play with just a few small upgrades. Most commonly, you might use Pearl and/or Pearl-2 to crop or otherwise arrange your two sources when you put them together in a layout. Using the Pearl Admin Panel, the process of resizing videos in a layout becomes very easy, and you can make them look how you want: you can crop out an unneeded background, tighten up an angle, or highlight the speaker’s face.
And, if you’re looking to record the video, you can take advantage of Pearl’s automatic file upload feature. With an AFU in place, you can copy your recordings instantly and automatically from Pearl or Pearl-2 directly to your content management server.
Even with a setup this simple, the possibilities are endless!
Make it work for you
The first setup in the Pearl Playbook is just a teaser for the many other use cases in the book! The other plays in the book are more versatile and intricate, with thousands of uses. You can take a look at all of them right now, or keep an eye on our blog to see more posts like this in the months to come! What Pearl Play do you use the most?Go to Part 2: Dynamic Live Events.
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