Streaming Media put together this excellent checklist of preparation tips & tricks to help ensure that your live webcasts and streaming productions go as smotthly as possible. When it's live you don't get a second chance, so you need to spend the time and effort on preparation and practice.

Streaming Media by Dan Rayburn Tips & Tricks For Producing & Manage Live Webcasts Without Failure On a recent StreamingMedia.com webinar about live streaming, David Kirk at Epiphan gave out some really good information during his presentation on No Fail Live Video Best Practices. I asked him to summarize his best tips and to answer some of the most popular questions we received. Whether you’re tasked with getting your CEO’s message to the company, or the president’s message to the country, use these suggestions to ensure a smooth live streaming event. Prepare for input problems: Although everyone expects their video inputs to be available during their live stream, sometimes they are lost. Whether a laptop with slides loses power or the camera’s cable comes loose, it’s best to be ready for these problems-waiting-to-happen rather than be caught unprepared. The best approach is two pronged: have a branded, custom no signal image that automatically appears when signal is lost; and have secondary video layouts ready to switch to when a signal is lost. Test and test again: For live events on location, get the most of your time before the show by making sure you test your gear offsite before the show and again on-site before the show. Start by creating configuration presets or changeable settings that let you test your expected inputs, create the layouts and add event branding before you go. If you have them, enter your CDN settings and test that everything works before you leave. Also create (or request from your client) pre and post show content that you can show in the stream before and after the event. For best results, use video with audio as your pre-show content. read more...