In March 2015 and March 2016, I led a team to broadcast the Students’ Union Election Results live from our on site venue.
2015 Results Show
In 2015, we broadcast the results from the RED Bar venue on the UWE Frenchay Campus. The broadcast reached over 300 students live, and continued to obtain views on YouTube and Facebook after the broadcast. This was all achieved on a very small budget, using resources that were already available.
Our team was responsible for setting up the stage, lighting, sound and visual streaming equipment. With assistance from the union’s graphic designer, on screen graphics and title cards were created within XSplit Broadcaster.
HP HD 4310 and Microsoft LifeCam Studio webcams were used for video capture, creating a four camera setup with two stage shots, an audience shot and an overall room shot.
The overview shot, showing the stage in full and part of the audience.
A custom PHP web application was created (XSplit Titles) to create and store the on screen titles. Text could be pre-loaded and recalled quickly, with the intention to expand functionality and introduce Twitter feeds.
An example of using PowerPoint slides combined with a live camera feed in the bottom right corner.
A late requirement to the broadcast was to run titles and VTs on both the stream and on stage. This was achieved by setting up a machine with PowerPoint and VLC, and then attach to both digital screens in the room/stage and capture in XSplit.
The stream was broadcast on UStream to over 300 students watching live, and later distributed on YouTube and Facebook.
2016 Results
Similar to 2015, we broadcast the Students’ Union election results from our new Students’ Union Bar in Frenchay. A similar setup was achieved, a wide angle camera showing most of the venue and a camera in the front for the stage. A plasma screen was placed in the background of the stage showing animations, a screen in front of the podium to help prompt the presenter. VTs were also run through both the webcast and the screens in the venue.
Screenshot of the 2016 results with live animations powered by an external computer and live podium.
Credits
I need to give a huge thanks to my “Stream Team”, for without these guys these amazing web streams wouldn’t be possible at such a high quality. Thank you to Mikey Burton, Edd Burrell and Emma Brown for assisting me with these projects.