How To: Broadcast live online

Systm is the Do-It-Yourself show designed for the common geek who wants to quickly and easily learn how to dive into the latest and hottest tech projects. They will help you avoid pitfalls and get your project up and running fast. In this DIY episode, see how to broadcast live online.

Live video broadcasts from a cell phone? On the flight home from CES 2008 we realized watching Robert Scoble walking and streaming live video with Qik was way cool... and something we wanted to play with on Systm.

It's pretty cool to watch somebody streaming video (and audio) live from a cell phone over the cell phone's network to an audience that can ping questions back thru the cell phone's monitor.

That's what we saw Robert Scoble, of Scobleizer fame, doing down at CES.

Unfortunately, it turns out the secret ingredient for live video broadcasts from his cell phone is Qik. It works great, but it won't work with any of the cell phones we own. It's a Nokia and Nokia only kind of deal.

So to hold us over until we can a) dump either the resident Blackberry Pearl, iPhone or Cingular 2125 for something like Scoble's Nokia N95 we set up a live broadcasting notebook.

OK, a notebook and camera isn't nearly as slick (or as portable) as using a cell phone to broadcast video over the net... but it's a lot easier to set up.

Seriously:

1) Get a remote connection to the net: we used our EVDO modem, since it's the most portable net connection we have.

2) Get a live streaming video account from Ustream.TV, Stickam, or one of the umpteen competitors.

3) Connect your camera, whether it's the camera built into your Macbook, or a USB or Firewire video camera.

4) Fire up the stream, and let the folks back East see that soccer game, Bat Mizvah, birthday or, hey, the annual burning of the log in your backyard.

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