Twitter recently announced that Periscope Producer is now available to all users on Periscope. There wasn’t a lot of fanfare about the announcement which is a shame because it opens up a whole new world for live streaming on Periscope .
What is Producer?
Producer is the term that the Periscope team is using for the features that allow for “professional” streams. In reality, it means they allow you to broadcast to an RTMP endpoint.
This is huge. It means that any application or equipment that can broadcast to RTMP can now broadcast to Periscope!
The flow is simple enough;
- open up Periscope on your mobile device
- click the “People” icon
- in the top right, click on your “Profile”
- scroll down to “Settings”
- under “Advanced Settings”, select “Periscope Producer”
This group of settings providers access to the RTMP settings you’ll need setting up your application or equipment.
Broadcasting
Here’s an example of what you can do:
This is a huge improvement over the standard selfie show from your mobile…not that that shot isn’t useful.
As I mention in the broadcast, I’m using Open Broadcast Studio (OBS) to pull this set of shots together. This is a community support effort that produces fantastic results. Looking for a commercial solution? Try Wirecast on Mac or LiveStream Studio on Windows.
These products can be a little intimidating to get started with but that shouldn’t stop you. OBS has a great community and some easily accessible tutorials to get you up and streaming.
The key to understanding OBS simple:
- you will have one or more “Scenes”
- in each Scenes, you add one more “Sources”
- you push a Scene to your broadcast
Once you’ve set that up, you’re ready to go!
You can easily setup hotkeys that automatically switch between scenes and OBS will handle the transition for your automatically (a/k/a make “smooth cuts”).
With a little preparation ahead of time, you can setup a very cool broadcast that can easily be run by one person.
And that for me is key.
OBS + Periscope Producer gives you — even if it’s just you — the ability to create a highly polished broadcast with minimal effort. You don’t need to invest a ton of time or money or have a team to work with you.
Of course if you do invest a bit of money (start with your microphone), time (start with on-screen graphics), or have a team (start with someone to run the show) you can make an even more impressive broadcast.
I’m excited to see what you come up with! Let me know as a response below or on Twitter where I’m @marknca.
