From the course: Delivering Video to Facebook Live

Suggested equipment and gear - Facebook Tutorial

From the course: Delivering Video to Facebook Live

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Suggested equipment and gear

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- Throughout this course, we're gonna look at several different ways to publish to Facebook Live and I'd like to give you a general heads-up on the type of equipment that will be handy for different sections of this course. When we discuss going live from a phone or a tablet, it's pretty straight-forward. Make sure you have either a smartphone or a tablet and that you've downloaded and installed the latest version of the native Facebook app for your operating system. It's also quite useful if you have a tripod for the camera or a stabilizer, such as a walking gimbal, so you can get higher quality shots. That's not a requirement but it will be helpful. And I do suggest that you have a microphone. Now, we'll talk more about this different type of equipment within that section, but this just gives you a general idea of what gear is useful and how I'll be showing you a workflow. We'll also be exploring some workflows using just a laptop or a desktop computer. And in this case, any modern computer should work fine. I'd suggest that your desktop or laptop computer has a current operating system and that you download and install the Google Chrome web browser. It'll also be helpful to have a web camera. Now, many laptops and computers have this built-in, but if you have a dedicated external web camera that adds some extra benefits. We'll also take a look at a microphone and, if you have one of those handy, be sure to grab it. And we'll talk about using an ethernet connection, if available. Now, all of these items, other than a computer and the Google Chrome web browser, are optional but these will improve your experience and allow you to follow along with me a little bit better. Now, we'll also take a look at a more advanced workflow and I don't expect that you necessarily have this equipment available. But if you work in video production, you might have some of this gear and I'll show you how to use it. Otherwise, you can still watch this section and learn what's possible. In other words, how Facebook Live can be used as a professional broadcasting platform. We'll talk about a multi-camera workflow with Facebook Live. For this, you'll need multiple cameras. This could be as simple as multiple USB cameras or you can use DSLRs or other types of camera. You'll need some sort of video interface to adapt the cameras to your computer. I'll show you some simple ones that take HDMI and SDI signals and convert them via USB or Thunderbolt. And you'll need some sort of switching hardware or software. Now, in this course, we're gonna explore a couple of different pieces of software, including OBS Studio, which is open-source, and Livestream, which is a paid software platform. Now, there are other tools out there and you can also use hardware from other manufacturers. We're gonna focus more on the general concepts here but I will share with you specific techniques for a few different platforms that you should be able to adapt to others. And again, it would be helpful if you had an ethernet connection so you had a good, solid connection to the net. Now, across the board, make sure you have a general familiarity with Facebook. You don't have to be a social media expert to go live but it'll help if you're comfortable navigating Facebook, already have an account set up and already have some connections with friends. If you have a business page, or you're thinking about using a business page, you should go ahead and get access to that, as well. In fact, you might find it helpful to set up a test business page. In other words, a business page that you don't heavily promote that you can use with a few clients or some internal folks to test out so you can try out these concepts and ideas without posting 'em to your main business page. Now, you don't have to have a business page but there are some distinct benefits to using a business page. If you want to set up a temporary business page or a fake account, that can also be useful. You can use this for testing purposes and then delete it later. But go ahead, make sure you have access to Facebook, that you have an account in good standing and a good, solid internet connection, and we're ready to begin.

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