Stream Live Video: YouTube Makes it Easy

2013 was the year live online video broke through, and 2014 will be the year it builds up a sizable audience. If your company holds events that you'd like to stream live, or if you'd like to bring live product announcements or help sessions to your customers, this is the perfect time to jump in.

In mid-December, YouTube announced that YouTube Live is now available for free to all members with accounts in good standing, so YouTube is certain to dominate live video as does on-demand video. At the recent Streaming Media West conference in sunny Huntington Beach, California, YouTube partner product manager Varun Talwar walked attendees through the necessary steps for streaming live.

"We are streaming based on HTTP, so it allows us to do a few things -- things like adaptive bitrate in the player and the ability to go back in the stream," Talwar explained. "Users come in, they don't miss action. You can scrub back. We automatically record, or give you the option to record, as a video. And a YouTube Live event is just like another YouTube video, so you can share it, embed it, you can spread it as if it was a YouTube video."

While creating a live video stream is more complex that uploading a recorded video, YouTube is working to reduce that complexity.

"The other thing which was a big focus, and I think still is a focus, is to make the product simple," Talwar said. "I think live streaming is pretty complicated if you take all the pieces from acquisition to playback and analytics. One of the things we wanted to do -- and I think we're still not there, but we've come a long way -- is to get it very simple for people to go live. It shouldn't look like a whole lot of controls."

For a step-by-step walkthrough on setting up a YouTube live stream, download Talwar's presentation and watch the video below.

Troy Dreier's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net