Finally Stable & Easy

I personally have invested a LOT of time figuring this one out. This scenario of streaming is for streaming speakers and consultants, in-person with them and streaming out to Zoom attendees — and serves as one of my personal greatest failures in the last year. Today I’m so incredibly proud to say that I finally figured it out that uses software and hardware that you don’t need a masters in anything to figure it out.

The Setup:

-The Tree-io -

•2 portable USB-C powered monitors (look just over the laptop screen). Up top is a Mevo (main cam) connected via Ethernet.

•Below that (monitor 1) is a mirror image of the iPad next to the laptop. This enables me to send that image to the on-screen talent to see the Zoom attendees or anything else they need to see like speaker bios, polls, etc.

•Below that is a screen connected to an iPad Pro. The external monitor displays the current slide for the presentation. The iPad show the next slide/speaker notes and is controlled via a Logitech remote via Bluetooth. The external monitor feed is being captured into Ecamm on the Mac —Pay attention to this one— via an Anker USB-C hub that has 2 hdmi outputs (for iOS and Mac devices is mirrors the image on both ports).

-The Mac:

•Used to control and route all other video and audio where needed.

•M1 MacBook Air (yes you read that correctly)

•Anker USB-C hub (with capture card from iPad slides, Ethernet from UDM, HDMI out for Monitor 1.

•External speaker out for music and zoom attendee audio

•Rode Go 2 receiver for 2 external mics

•Stream Deck Mini to control scenes and zoom control.

-Giant TV - Provided by venue. Displays Zoom Chat

-Networking:

•Ubiquiti Dream Machine

•Cameras connected via NDI over Ethernet.

•Mac connected via Ethernet.

Couple other capabilities:

-Remote Speakers - brought in via Ecamm Interview Mode. Live Q&A at the end of each remote presentation has Host of event and guest speaker on screen via Ecamm. Speaker audio router to external speaker so host can hear. Usually use AirPods for this, but for this gig, this worked better for everything else needed.

-CPU 40%. GPU 80%. Air body was warm, but not hot. No throttling. No issues.

In previous gigs using a similar setup the 2 breaking points were Intel i9 processor in a 2018 and 2019 MBP. It simply needed too much power that the thermal capacity could handle. Literally 120w for a similar gig. Throttling happened and even the computer turning off due to using 20w from the internal battery for hours — meaning the computer turned off DURING the event. Causing a major set back for the client. NOT GOOD. The M1 handles it like a champ. Unbelievable difference.

The 2nd biggest change is the cameras. Before we were using iPhones via NDI which is a disaster for lack of manual camera controls, NDI bandwidth (100+Mbps). Switching to Mevo Starts changed everything.

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