The ability to stream in real time (live) video footage from action cams remains a bit of the holy grail of sports action. Today, 99.99% of what you see on TV is done via broadcast quality cameras and equipment, with almost nothing in the consumer realm. These solutions generally rely on cameras connecting to traditional near-range satellite uplink transmitters, which aren’t typically using cellular networks or WiFi.
Some folks within the Pro Cycling scene have been testing some GoPro based solutions down in Australia the past few months, using cellular LTE networks to broadcast that footage. But, the solution is very much home grown and not likely to easily find itself in the hands of consumers.
Over the past year or so a few solutions have come onto the market that allow you to pair a normal action camera with your phone and then broadcast that footage to the world. I figured it might be interesting to run through what’s available today and how well it actually works.
Note that this is all quite different from the solution that GoPro announced at CES for broadcast use, which is going to be shown this past week by ESPN as part of the X Games, and the NHL shortly in demonstration snippets. That solution is designed to relay the GoPro signal a short-distance wirelessly to other broadcast quality receivers where it picks it up and then transmits it like normal (no WiFi or Cellular used). Said differently: That solution will likely cost a boatload and be aimed at broadcast TV, whereas what I outline below is aimed mostly at DIY type deployments.
The Basics:
All of the solutions I talk about here are designed to leverage your cell phone to broadcast the action cam’s video stream to an online platform.
How each of these cameras does it varies slightly. Some have dedicated apps made by the same company as the camera (HTC), some have 3rd party apps that leverage the camera to broadcast on 3rd party services (GoPro), and then finally some are using a WiFi hotspot that your phone has to establish with no apps at all (Sony).
The point being though that at the end of the day, you’re using your phones cellular data connection to broadcast. Typically in order for you to have any hope of success you’ll need a 4G or LTE network connection on your phone. Additionally, you’ll likely want to have a data plan that is either unlimited, or enough GB’s so that you aren’t costing yourself a small fortune.
Note that there is one action camera out there that I saw at CES that has a built-in LTE chipset in it. Or rather, has it built into the action camera document.
HTC RE with YouTube:
I’m actually going to start with the camera that probably nobody knows about, yet actually does this quite well. You might think someone like GoPro would rock this, but today they’re more like a rock when it comes to live streaming.
So first up we’ve got the HTC RE action camera. While many on the playground might make fun of this little periscope shaped guy, I kinda like it. The software is silly simple to use, and they’ve thought through some of the pairing process pieces better than GoPro. For example, it goes off and finds the camera via Bluetooth and then takes care of the WiFi piece for you. Whereas GoPro with the Hero4 lineup also has Bluetooth pairing to kick start the process, but I find it often really finicky to get setup the first time and is overly complicated.
At any rate, when it comes to streaming, HTC announced the functionality at CES and followed up with Android-first streaming options. The iOS update for streaming is coming later this quarter. So in order to do this today you’ll need Android, along with the latest firmware version (which is done via the Android app, also a nice touch).
With that all set, you’ll see an option in the menu to live stream the camera, which then associates with a YouTube account.
You’ll then be asked to enable and verify your YouTube account for live streaming. The app poorly renders the YouTube pages, but it’s OK, it all works out.
Once you’re done there, go ahead and click the ‘Done’ button at the bottom of the app.
Then the app will walk you through setting up whether or not you want any contacts notified, or if you want the session listed as Public or Unlisted. Oddly, you can only notify people via text message and not via e-mail. In any case, once that’s done you can go ahead and actually start a live activity.
Now with that set you can simply go back to the main page and you’ll see a live streaming icon at the bottom. Just check that. That’s it. Note that you have to be connected to a mobile/cellular network, you can’t use WiFi in the house/office on your phone, because the WiFi connection is being used to connect to the HTC camera already.
Then, just click the big circular button to start. It’ll take a few seconds to get the stream up and running and during that time the aspect ratio of the preview image will change a bit. It’ll also start a 30-minute count-down timer, which is the per-video limit that HTC has setup.
Then it switches over and shows it as live:
If you were to go to YouTube, you’d actually see the broadcast there live as well – it’ll initially show up with a simple cover screen before going to the live feed once initialized.
However, you can also get the link for the broadcast by tapping the little sharing icon in the bottom right and selecting ‘Copy to Clipboard’. You could also use this to share to numerous apps like Twitter and others:
Also note that you could have changed the settings to be public or private:
Now, in my testing I had some initial troubles because the app wasn’t correctly recognizing/setting which YouTube account of mine to use (just a minor warning for those with multiple Google identities). Once I got past that though, it was smooth sailing.
Here’s an example of a simple recorded bike loop on it. Note that unlike the GoPro I’m able to simply power off my phone screen and stick it in my pocket, whereas with the GoPro options I have to be careful to not shut off the screen or it’ll kill the feed.
The resiliency is pretty good, as it doesn’t end the video session when the cellular connection isn’t strong enough – instead it just temporarily goes offline (whereas Sony resets the video). As a result, in the recorded video seen above you’ll see it briefly skip sections.
It does oddly though go from a 16:9 formatted video stream down to 4:3, so it looks weird on YouTube within the player, with the side black bars. Additionally, I found that the saving of videos after the fact on YouTube is often somewhat inconsistent. Sometimes it’ll save – and other times it’ll fire a blank. If there are a bunch of sections missing content due to cell dropouts though, it’ll take quite a while to post – but eventually the recorded video will show up with the missing sections removed.
In a lot of ways, if HTC were to just slightly smooth out some of the setup pieces, it would probably take the cake as the best overall implementation – primarily due to the use of YouTube rather than for-pay companies like uStream and Livestream.
GoPro Hero3 & Hero4 with Livestream:
Next up we’ve got GoPro’s ability to connect with Livestream (that’s the name of the service). Livestream has been around a while in the internet streaming business, but they added support for GoPro units this past fall.
The way it works is you use Livestream’s app, which connects via WiFi to your GoPro. This is supported on the GoPro Hero3 and Hero4 cameras. The app uses your existing Livestream account. With their service you can get a free account to use for these purposes. There are some limitations with the free account, but most of it is related to branding.
Once you’ve got the app installed you’ll simply connect your phone to your GoPro’s WiFi network, the same exact way you might do if you were using the GoPro app to control your camera (except, don’t open the GoPro app up).
Once that’s done you’ll crack open the Livestream app and press the big red button at the bottom. This will allow you to then choose ‘GoPro’ from the list of video sources (in addition to your phone’s front/rear cameras).
Next, you can start streaming by pressing the red button. You’ll then see the current streaming rate available for the connection to the interwebs.
At the top you’ll have the option to tap to lock the screen. This is important, because you can’t tap the power button on your phone, as it’ll kill the app’s streaming. So you have to use their lock function and then carefully store the phone so it won’t turn off (good luck on that).
Now, it’s time to go for a ride. The service will have been streaming automatically to your account since you pressed the red button.
Now, as you can see below the quality is pretty poor (click on link to see on Livestream site)):
Afterwards when you end the session you’ll get the option to save and post the session, which will save it to Livestream’s web platform. The recordings will eventually get deleted though, assuming you have a free account. The good news is that you can at least download them after the fact. So with that capability, I downloaded the raw 540p clip and uploaded it to YouTube so you could easily see it:
Again, as noted, the quality is pretty poor. This is because Livestream isn’t using some fancy GoPro API to access the raw HD video stream. That’s in turn because no such HD video stream actually exists. Instead, the only thing accessible is the preview stream, which is super low resolution.
Here’s another clip I did while skiing. This one actually worked out fairly well given the conditions, in terms of maintaining the connection.
The one thing I wish here was that Livestream had a paid tier that didn’t cost as much as a cocaine delivery from Colombia. As services get more popular, and companies simply leverage YouTube, it’ll make Livestream much less appealing. Ironically, since you can download the recordings from their service after the fact, you can then put them up on a competitor’s site (YouTube, as I did above) – all without Livestream getting any money. Go figure, I would have paid a few bucks a month to just store them there.
(Side Note: 3rd party company Hang with (Hang W/) also just recently released support for GoPro cameras in doing something very similar. I’ve toyed with it a little bit, but it wasn’t working for me on the Hero4, just the Hero3. The app isn’t really targeted as much at sports though, but other events where you might have a more interactive conversation via text/chat as well.)
Sony Actions Cams with Ustream:
Next we’ve got Sony’s implementation that’s available on a few of their more recent action cameras. In my case I tested it on the HDR-AS100V (seen above). For streaming, Sony has partnered with Ustream as the ‘display’ side of the equation.
In Sony’s case the setup isn’t quite as clean as some of the others, but it’s not horrible either. You’ll need to first start by ensuring the firmware on your camera is from at least June of 2014, and then you’ll need to use their “Network Setting Tool” with your desktop computer to configure your WiFi networks.
With the Sony system you use WiFi to stream and there’s no dependency on a Sony app itself. So this can be connected to both regular house/office WiFi, or the WiFi hotspot on your phone. Whatever floats your boat. This does have the advantage of working with virtually any phone on the market – such as a Windows Phone where action cam support is highly limited.
Then we’ve got configuration of the streaming service, which is currently limited to Ustream. You can configure the title and description, as well as the resolution to either 720p (1280×720) or a sorta 480p (640×360).
Finally, you can configure it to automatically notify your social buddies on Facebook or Twitter.
Then you’ll push the settings to your camera:
Once that’s complete, you’re good to go settings-wise. Now, the one downside is that the unit can’t save more than one WiFi network. So in my case I had to reconfigure it after validating it on my regular WiFi network before changing it to my mobile phone network. Of course since there isn’t a phone app for that you have to think ahead a bit before leaving the house.
With that all set it’s time to go over to your action. This is where it actually gets super easy. All you do is just tap the next button until ‘Live’ shows up, which gets you ready to start broadcasting live. Oddly, it doesn’t actually connect to the WiFi access point quite yet – it just sits there:
Then, you’ll hit the ‘Record’ button on the back, which will show you a Prep (for Preparing) message, followed by a confirmation that you’re live.
Now you’re actually live. Meanwhile, up top it’ll show you a light when someone connects, as well as the current viewer count on the display screen itself in the lower right corner (which is a nice touch):
Finally, over on the Ustream site it’ll show the video being streamed:
Well, in theory anyway. I found about half the time it just flat-out didn’t work. I’d get super-short snapshots seen afterwards in the videos section, but it would never render the screen itself. And other times I could see the stream being shown in a bit of a ‘manager’ view, but while showing the channel as ‘Live’, it didn’t show anything more than a blank screen. It’s very finicky.
Now, the image resolution of the Sony with Ustream connection was clearly much better than that of GoPro with Livestream. However, it wasn’t much better on the frame rate site, so it was only a few frames per second with 720p footage, though with 480p it was a wee bit better.
In many ways, the Sony solution is cleaner once you get past setup pieces, since it only requires any WiFi connection. That makes it great if you’re outside the Android/iOS universe. On the flip side, if your cell phone plan doesn’t have tethering enabled then you’re completely hosed since it can only connect to a WiFi network directly, not just using your phone’s LTE indirectly.
The Future:
As you can see, at this point things ‘sorta work’. It streams some of the time, but that’s highly dependent on the connectivity. The individual solutions are further dependent on differing mobile app versions. Then you’ve got the quality aspect – which on the whole somehow takes us back to 1996 and AOL.
What’s interesting here is that there’s actually no technical barrier for any of these issues to exist. Ironically each company does one element of the service ‘correctly’. But putting them altogether in a single cohesive solution has remained elusive. As FaceTime will show you, you can get near-HD (or straight up HD) streamlining quality just fine over cellular LTE networks. In some way’s Sony is the closest to getting it right, though the setup of their solution is clunky having to use a desktop app. However, the ability to use it with any WiFi network (not dependent on Android and iOS is ideal).
I suspect you’ll see the ESPN and GoPro demonstration kick other action cam companies into gear though, as in the highly competitive action cam business nobody wants to feel as though they’re too far behind GoPro. Keep in mind though that solution is really aimed at broadcast companies though and not consumers.
Still, it’ll improve and I bet by the end of the year you’ll see some streaming solutions that work easily and don’t look so fugly.
Thanks for reading!
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It’s tricky, in some ways – none were my favorite, and in other ways, all were my favorite.
Software: The HTC RE App is probably the best in terms of making it straight forward
Streaming Platform: Here, Youtube (via HTC) works really well. It’s just a much easier platform to utilize and also broadcast to friends and family
Hardware: For this, probably would hand it to the Sony. It’s a bit more clear-cut that you’re about to broadcast to the interwebs, and it has a dedicated mode. Also, it can connect to any WiFi access point – so that’s ideal for non-Android/iOS people. Or, just in cases where you might be at a building and want to broadcast. Also, the ‘number of people watching live’ on the side of the camera feature is kinda cool.
Just out of curiosity, have you done an update on this since 2015? I would love to know what you think about the options now as I am in the market to purchase a camera for traveling and streaming. Mostly conferences and meetings and maybe concerts on occasion. Any recommendations?
GoPro: Via Persiscope
Garmin: Via YouTube
Sony: Via YouTube
In general the GoPro setup is easiest to do when it comes to live streaming. Whereas Garmin/Sony gives you more flexibility as a producer and owner of content within the YouTube space.
For Sony you mentioned uStream in your review, is it possible on YouTube too now ?
Are you still able to live stream to YouTube using the HTC Re ? I tried today after getting one and it gets stuck at the “Done” button complaining that the “Live settings have not been finalized”. They have though as streaming is possible via YouTube Android. I also double checked the Google accounts being used since you mentioned you had an issue there but no go. I wonder if their app possibly doesn’t make the correct calls anymore ? Thanks.
Interesting that you can easily FaceTime on an iPhone for some time now, and though it is a live stream point to point with another user, the connection could just as easily be linked to a live feed for redistribution. The only link left is pairing the phone to an external camera, which as you say is technically easy to do today.
One would think that a manufacture wants a competitive advantage, and a clean simple live streaming capability seems so obvious.
While they are at it, can they please add the GPS and gauges automatically to the stream and save yet another step….
Facetime is not a conclusive proof of HD streaming working OK over cell-phone connections. Video encoders are very tunable, and video-conferencing is an “easy” case: largely static background, with a small amount of local, fairly smooth motion and good detail desired mainly in the central face area. Action cams are a harder case: lots of global motion, less predictable, and ideally uniformly good detail everywhere in the frame. So either it’s a lot less compressible, overwhelming a narrower bandwidth connection with dropped frames, or it requires a lot of compute which a small portable solution cannot supply, or the quality will suck. Or all three in practice :-(.
Absolutely, video conferencing is not action streaming. The point was the the base technology has been out there since at least 2011, and little progress has been made since then. News media has been using viewer video content to supplement broadcasts for several years too. Again, it is interesting that there hasn’t been more focus on building out the live streaming given the huge volume of phone and action cams sold, and the use cases where video is being used today.
Hi Ray,
i’m a big fan of your site and in depth reviews, i’m an age grouper triathete from Colombia and sadly you mentioned today in your post a part of Colombia that many peolpe talk about but really doesn´t know. Colombia is a very beautiful place with many good things including sport, but for the Colombian people like is always sad that the only topic the people outside Colombia talk about is drugs. Hope you can visit Colombia any time so you can meet the people and get to know the real country.
Hi Juan
Never went to Columbia
So is cocaine producing, selling and trafficking in Columbia a myth ? It’s not worse than in other countries like USA or Australia ? Please informe me
I have been to Colombia and it was such an amazing experience. A lovely country with the most friendly people I have ever met and breath-taking nature.
Yes! It is one of the most dangerous places ( I have been to Bogota , Barranquilla and a few more), but if I had the chance, I would visit it again.
I was reasonably surprised how good the LTE/4G coverage was within the Alps for the skiing sections. Of course, as you noted, every country varies quite a bit.
Ironically I got better test clips in the Alps than in the center of Paris. Go figure.
In rural areas, often you’ll get great cellular coverage as you have line-of-sight to the base-station over a wide area, with no buildings/obstructions in the way. That is, until you go around to the other side of the mountain, and can no longer see the antenna… So extra-urban areas are often characterized by large areas of good coverage with large-ish areas of zero coverage (sometimes a whole village, say). Conversely, in urban areas, you have lots of obstructions (buildings) that cast shadows (and also reflect signals), so there are likely to be more base-stations dotted around. In this way, urban areas are often characterized by ‘patchy’ coverage; go round the corner or even across the street and you may get a decent signal when just now you had a poor one. Covering rural areas in cellular networks is easy (base-stations widely spread), metro areas expensive (densely packed base-stations). Covering a ski area (even 3 Valees) is a relatively straightforward challenge.
The one thing I wish here was that Livestream had a paid tier that didn’t cost as much as a cocaine delivery from Colombia.’
There are good people in Colombia trying to prevent the problem, even some of them have given their own lifes. Ray unfortunately that was a bad choice for the comparison.
Thanks for your thoughts. Ultimately, one of the reasons people read a lot of what I write here is that it’s not some stiff review, but is full of humor. I tend to have dry humor, often sarcastic…but almost always based in fact. As is the case here. No matter how many people may be working to resolve the problem – Colombia is still one of the leading exporters in Cocaine (and, to those exporting’s credit, I must say the subs are brilliant).
In the meantime, feel free to make fun of an American (or French if you want). Don’t worry, it’s just a joke.
while good humor is nice from time to time and some sarcasm doesn’t kill anyone… its just not fair to see cocaine comments on here… particularly when us Colombians try to live through that bad reputation and make up for it with people like Rigo Uran or Nairo Quintana (2014 Giro champion) orJames Rodriguez (#10 Real Madrid) or in my case being a Civil Engineer trying to bring clean water to people in the US… oh right. you take that for granted.. or many other people that are so great at what they do but not necessarily export cocaine. I’m sure you like a good coffee from time to time right??? well.. guess where most of it comes from.. oh that’s right.. France is such a great producer of coffee right? Oh well..I guess let’s stick to the tech reviews for now… politics really suck in a tech review blog
What I find amusing is that you are heckling rural farmers for producing a crop that challenges the old American cliche that “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” I’m not sure…unless you are American…why you don’t poke fun at the USA’s insatiable drug appetite! After all, it fuels cartels on at least three continents and is one of the only nations on Earth with a growing market for alcohol! Bravo, USA! You’ve proven there is a place for everyone in life! Including sociopaths, drug dealers, and others who build fortunes on exploitation!
Now can we get back to technology that helps us share realities instead of wasting technology on perpetuating tires and intellectually suspect tropes?
Phones might be a pretty good option too. I know the Sony Xperia Z3C has a built-in Youtube streaming app, and an excellent camera. You’d have to MacGyver up some kind of mount, but I doubt it would look worse than the HTC thing (!!)
I haven’t tried live streaming on my AS100V yet but I’d tried it on a cheap UniEye U30 (aka HP F150) I got on sale at €29 (yes !) which had a similar setup relying on Ustream and wasn’t too impressed, the mobile app lets you configure the wifi though. For a start there was 20 second delay (probably not a huge problem) and with a free account you couldn’t save a video. Also I don’t think you can get a link easily, you have to log in to an account that’s subscribed to that live account. Is it any different with the Sony ?
Was there a delay on YouTube too? It does seem like the way to go, not sure why UniEye or Sony would go with Ustream…
For Livestream with a free account* I could download the file, which is nice. For Ustream as you noted, no download option unfortunately.
Starting delay-wise Livestream appeared the fastest, with Sony/Ustream in the same range as you noted (20-30 second), and then HTC the worst at about a minute of starting delay.
(*I’d actually be totally up for paying a reasonable amount for slightly more advanced functions, but $200/month or even $42/month to access older than 30 days is not reasonable, being in the datacenter biz, that’s just beyond price gouging – so I go elsewhere)
Thanks for the additional details Ray. So YouTube has an even larger delay, hum…on the other hand I’m not sure it really matters for “real life” usage. The fact that you can download the file after the fact is a lot better of course…considering you can’t record locally while you’re streaming.
I looked up the pricing for Ustream and it is indeed rather “silly” : link to ustream.tv. I don’t understand why Sony would partner with them…since “UniEye”/Whitelable (link to whitelabel.co) relied on the same setup I wonder if Sony didn’t just tap into an existing resource…
Cool stuff. We’ve been looking at the hybrid method, Using Ubiquiti radios to shuttle wifi as if it is an ethernet cable. We used this method for local football games where the field had no service. We sent our web stream a half mile to the school building where we connected to their ether network and sent to YouTube Live. Flawless 720P. Want to use that same idea and system to send a roaming camera to a home base – whether that’s a laptop or cell phone. Looking to give it a shot at an upcoming fun ski race, BodeFest at Cannon Mountain, NH.
Hi DC
Thanks for the summary. I would like to pick your brain a little regarding this if it’s ok.
I would like to provide live streaming of a sport played indoors (small self contained area) that the public would have access to on a real time basis.
Could you email me?
Thanks!
Mike
More likely two main reasons here, location of uplink server location and live delay.
Youtube perhaps has better servers/presence in Amsterdam than Livestream or Ustream ( mostly US focused companies). That will make big difference if you havw to send signal to say London or even East Coast, vs Amsterdam over poor cell network.
Secondly, higher delay ( 10 seconds makes a difference, a minute – is huge!) allows to recover from poor connection way better.
More likely results in US will be different.
Minor difference could be bands availability in Android vs iPhone even with the same SIM/provider especially if you are moving between towers, and phone changes from LTE to 3G etc.
(PS. not affiliated with either companies in the review)
I’d agree if we were to the point of comparing 720p vs 1080p, or comparing two 720p streams. The challenge is, we’re just so far from that point right now with the quality. :-/
this was regarding first part of the test in Amsterdam. Basically, your first bottleneck is connectivity. Until it’s solved in one way or another, secondary issues are generally less relevant to the end result, at least in my experience.
There is a button to download it, its in raw FLV so you can ether directly upload to youtube or convert using something like handbrake to ingress into an MP4 editor: link to flickr.com
PS. I forgot to mention that the download option is only available if you select 1 clip at a time with the free trial of Ustream Pro. If you select multiple then the option is greyed out.
I ride a bicycle extensively in London UK (hectic traffic). Is there a live stream set up that could be utilized as a rear view camera. I think there is a market for such a technology. Some stand alone devices were developed a couple of years ago but vibration and screen brightness in direct sunlight were problems. All in all, thank you for an excellent article.
well, for live streaming over cellular networks, best way to go is with ElSight (www.el-sight.com).
it’s a little bit expensive equipment because it mostly in use for military purposes, but it works amazing by combining 4 cellular networks (you can actually insert 4 SIM cards).
I use bike with means of transport here in São Paulo (Brazil), I want to use my phone (smartphone ) with a camera as rear mirror for my bike.I don’t want to broadcast it, just to live stream the video to mobile screen.
What do you suggest, considering minimum investment possible?
Are the AliBaba (chinese cheaper cameras) a possibility?
best regards
Omar
Virtually all cameras out there today stream to phone apps as a secondary display. I haven’t followed much of the cameras on Alibaba, because the quality tends to be pretty low. So I can’t really say as to which devices work well there.
What is the range on each of these like? If I were to attach one of these to a drone, how far away from the source could I fly and still maintain a connection?
Technically speaking, it’s the range of WiFi, which in these units varies quite a bit. Some are just a few meters, others can be a hundred feet.
That said – you really want to avoid enabling WiFi on any action cam when it comes to drones. It’s fairly well known that enabling WiFi cams on drones not designed for it (i.e. DJI Phantom) can often lead to interference and fly-away/non-response issues, unfortunately.
You may also try this way to download and save Ustream Videos to your PC, Ipad, Iphone, Cell Phone, PSP, MP3 player with one-click at link to allavsoft.com.
Hi,
Is it possible to live stream two Toshiba Camileo X-Sports cameras simultaneously as a split screen onto Youtube?
If so, what software would I require?
I really would like to re-stream a GoPro feed to an IP address which I determine – this would be for a private IP network, basically so I can move it to another location on my network (ie to a network server or re-streamed to another client). Anyone have any ideas?
Ray if you were to set up cameras at home to record your Time Trial Position, would you use a Garmin Virb to also display cycling metrics ….? not really live streaming as such, but say, i wanted to live stream to my coach, he could see….
If you care about live streaming, the VIRB Ultra 30 won’t actually livestream the metrics to your coach. Only after the fact unfortunately.
But if you want to live stream the video only, and then if you had another Garmin you could live stream those metrics to him on a separate web page. He’d have to have two tabs open – but it’d work.
Or, after the fact the VIRB can overlay it all together easily.
Much appreciated. So its best to do after the fact. But the only camera for this at the minute (without messy software use) is the Virb to get the metrics in as accurate as possible (as per lap if you doing power sets on the turbo…)
better order me some virbs… the older ones should be ok for indoor use only
One caveat to the older ones is that they don’t understand the speed sensor (the Ultra 30 does), which means if you wanted speed sensor data. It looks like X/XE got an update a while back that should fix it – but I haven’t tried it (3.70). It may be worth dropping a note on the Garmin forums or the VIRB XE review just to see if someone can validate that they’ve tried it.
I would Like to get an action cam on my friends race bike so I can watch his races (on track) live… Im a noob with this so what would people reccoment… he cant take a phone with him, so it needs to connect a pc on the paddock or needs an 4G abonnement right? And if it connects wil that work sinds the track is Like 1 km radius… please help… I thought about sony az1, lg action cam lte or yi 4K
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You probably stumbled upon here looking for a review of a sports gadget. If you’re trying to decide which unit to buy – check out my in-depth reviews section. Some reviews are over 60 pages long when printed out, with hundreds of photos! I aim to leave no stone unturned.
I travel a fair bit, both for work and for fun. Here’s a bunch of random trip reports and daily trip-logs that I’ve put together and posted. I’ve sorted it all by world geography, in an attempt to make it easy to figure out where I’ve been.
The most common question I receive outside of the “what’s the best GPS watch for me” variant, are photography-esq based. So in efforts to combat the amount of emails I need to sort through on a daily basis, I’ve complied this “My Photography Gear” post for your curious minds (including drones & action cams!)! It’s a nice break from the day-to-day sports-tech talk, and I hope you get something out of it!
Many readers stumble into my website in search of information on the latest and greatest sports tech products. But at the end of the day, you might just be wondering “What does Ray use when not testing new products?”. So here is the most up to date list of products I like and fit the bill for me and my training needs best! DC Rainmaker 2023 swim, bike, run, and general gear list. But wait, are you a female and feel like these things might not apply to you? If that’s the case (but certainly not saying my choices aren’t good for women), and you just want to see a different gear junkies “picks”, check out The Girl’s Gear Guide too.
So which was your favorite?
It’s tricky, in some ways – none were my favorite, and in other ways, all were my favorite.
Software: The HTC RE App is probably the best in terms of making it straight forward
Streaming Platform: Here, Youtube (via HTC) works really well. It’s just a much easier platform to utilize and also broadcast to friends and family
Hardware: For this, probably would hand it to the Sony. It’s a bit more clear-cut that you’re about to broadcast to the interwebs, and it has a dedicated mode. Also, it can connect to any WiFi access point – so that’s ideal for non-Android/iOS people. Or, just in cases where you might be at a building and want to broadcast. Also, the ‘number of people watching live’ on the side of the camera feature is kinda cool.
Hi guys I was wondering if and how to watch your GoPro when it’s home and your on the road how can you watch it or can you
Just out of curiosity, have you done an update on this since 2015? I would love to know what you think about the options now as I am in the market to purchase a camera for traveling and streaming. Mostly conferences and meetings and maybe concerts on occasion. Any recommendations?
Nothing since. In short, the options are:
GoPro: Via Persiscope
Garmin: Via YouTube
Sony: Via YouTube
In general the GoPro setup is easiest to do when it comes to live streaming. Whereas Garmin/Sony gives you more flexibility as a producer and owner of content within the YouTube space.
For Sony you mentioned uStream in your review, is it possible on YouTube too now ?
Are you still able to live stream to YouTube using the HTC Re ? I tried today after getting one and it gets stuck at the “Done” button complaining that the “Live settings have not been finalized”. They have though as streaming is possible via YouTube Android. I also double checked the Google accounts being used since you mentioned you had an issue there but no go. I wonder if their app possibly doesn’t make the correct calls anymore ? Thanks.
Good stuff!
Great summary!
Interesting that you can easily FaceTime on an iPhone for some time now, and though it is a live stream point to point with another user, the connection could just as easily be linked to a live feed for redistribution. The only link left is pairing the phone to an external camera, which as you say is technically easy to do today.
One would think that a manufacture wants a competitive advantage, and a clean simple live streaming capability seems so obvious.
While they are at it, can they please add the GPS and gauges automatically to the stream and save yet another step….
Facetime is not a conclusive proof of HD streaming working OK over cell-phone connections. Video encoders are very tunable, and video-conferencing is an “easy” case: largely static background, with a small amount of local, fairly smooth motion and good detail desired mainly in the central face area. Action cams are a harder case: lots of global motion, less predictable, and ideally uniformly good detail everywhere in the frame. So either it’s a lot less compressible, overwhelming a narrower bandwidth connection with dropped frames, or it requires a lot of compute which a small portable solution cannot supply, or the quality will suck. Or all three in practice :-(.
Absolutely, video conferencing is not action streaming. The point was the the base technology has been out there since at least 2011, and little progress has been made since then. News media has been using viewer video content to supplement broadcasts for several years too. Again, it is interesting that there hasn’t been more focus on building out the live streaming given the huge volume of phone and action cams sold, and the use cases where video is being used today.
Surprised how well the HTC did. Considering that you can buy it new for $129, may not be a bad little splurge.
Hi Ray,
i’m a big fan of your site and in depth reviews, i’m an age grouper triathete from Colombia and sadly you mentioned today in your post a part of Colombia that many peolpe talk about but really doesn´t know. Colombia is a very beautiful place with many good things including sport, but for the Colombian people like is always sad that the only topic the people outside Colombia talk about is drugs. Hope you can visit Colombia any time so you can meet the people and get to know the real country.
Hi Juan
Never went to Columbia
So is cocaine producing, selling and trafficking in Columbia a myth ? It’s not worse than in other countries like USA or Australia ? Please informe me
I have been to Colombia and it was such an amazing experience. A lovely country with the most friendly people I have ever met and breath-taking nature.
Yes! It is one of the most dangerous places ( I have been to Bogota , Barranquilla and a few more), but if I had the chance, I would visit it again.
The big problem is still the battery life
Even if there was a perfect solution, the lack of LTE outside of city centres (at least in the UK) would very much limit their use
I was reasonably surprised how good the LTE/4G coverage was within the Alps for the skiing sections. Of course, as you noted, every country varies quite a bit.
Ironically I got better test clips in the Alps than in the center of Paris. Go figure.
Not totally unexpected;
In rural areas, often you’ll get great cellular coverage as you have line-of-sight to the base-station over a wide area, with no buildings/obstructions in the way. That is, until you go around to the other side of the mountain, and can no longer see the antenna… So extra-urban areas are often characterized by large areas of good coverage with large-ish areas of zero coverage (sometimes a whole village, say). Conversely, in urban areas, you have lots of obstructions (buildings) that cast shadows (and also reflect signals), so there are likely to be more base-stations dotted around. In this way, urban areas are often characterized by ‘patchy’ coverage; go round the corner or even across the street and you may get a decent signal when just now you had a poor one. Covering rural areas in cellular networks is easy (base-stations widely spread), metro areas expensive (densely packed base-stations). Covering a ski area (even 3 Valees) is a relatively straightforward challenge.
(Source: Electronic Engineer)
Please Garmin, read this post ! You should be the next one to provide Live Streaming experience with Virb and Virb Elite !
The one thing I wish here was that Livestream had a paid tier that didn’t cost as much as a cocaine delivery from Colombia.’
There are good people in Colombia trying to prevent the problem, even some of them have given their own lifes. Ray unfortunately that was a bad choice for the comparison.
Juan/German-
Thanks for your thoughts. Ultimately, one of the reasons people read a lot of what I write here is that it’s not some stiff review, but is full of humor. I tend to have dry humor, often sarcastic…but almost always based in fact. As is the case here. No matter how many people may be working to resolve the problem – Colombia is still one of the leading exporters in Cocaine (and, to those exporting’s credit, I must say the subs are brilliant).
In the meantime, feel free to make fun of an American (or French if you want). Don’t worry, it’s just a joke.
In line with the humor aspect….it turns out there is a reason the Australians are interested in streaming action cam footage:
link to smh.com.au … 2u4zr.html
link to youtu.be
Please take note for your travels Ray – #onlyinAustralia
Ouch! When I was last cycling in Sydney, I kept seeing the Kangaroo warning signs. I was secretly hoping to see one…though, not quite like that.
while good humor is nice from time to time and some sarcasm doesn’t kill anyone… its just not fair to see cocaine comments on here… particularly when us Colombians try to live through that bad reputation and make up for it with people like Rigo Uran or Nairo Quintana (2014 Giro champion) orJames Rodriguez (#10 Real Madrid) or in my case being a Civil Engineer trying to bring clean water to people in the US… oh right. you take that for granted.. or many other people that are so great at what they do but not necessarily export cocaine. I’m sure you like a good coffee from time to time right??? well.. guess where most of it comes from.. oh that’s right.. France is such a great producer of coffee right? Oh well..I guess let’s stick to the tech reviews for now… politics really suck in a tech review blog
The mere presence of having a good cyclist or two from your country doesn’t exempt you or anyone else from jokes.
What I find amusing is that you are heckling rural farmers for producing a crop that challenges the old American cliche that “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” I’m not sure…unless you are American…why you don’t poke fun at the USA’s insatiable drug appetite! After all, it fuels cartels on at least three continents and is one of the only nations on Earth with a growing market for alcohol! Bravo, USA! You’ve proven there is a place for everyone in life! Including sociopaths, drug dealers, and others who build fortunes on exploitation!
Now can we get back to technology that helps us share realities instead of wasting technology on perpetuating tires and intellectually suspect tropes?
Phones might be a pretty good option too. I know the Sony Xperia Z3C has a built-in Youtube streaming app, and an excellent camera. You’d have to MacGyver up some kind of mount, but I doubt it would look worse than the HTC thing (!!)
Thanks for the comparisons.
I haven’t tried live streaming on my AS100V yet but I’d tried it on a cheap UniEye U30 (aka HP F150) I got on sale at €29 (yes !) which had a similar setup relying on Ustream and wasn’t too impressed, the mobile app lets you configure the wifi though. For a start there was 20 second delay (probably not a huge problem) and with a free account you couldn’t save a video. Also I don’t think you can get a link easily, you have to log in to an account that’s subscribed to that live account. Is it any different with the Sony ?
Was there a delay on YouTube too? It does seem like the way to go, not sure why UniEye or Sony would go with Ustream…
For Livestream with a free account* I could download the file, which is nice. For Ustream as you noted, no download option unfortunately.
Starting delay-wise Livestream appeared the fastest, with Sony/Ustream in the same range as you noted (20-30 second), and then HTC the worst at about a minute of starting delay.
(*I’d actually be totally up for paying a reasonable amount for slightly more advanced functions, but $200/month or even $42/month to access older than 30 days is not reasonable, being in the datacenter biz, that’s just beyond price gouging – so I go elsewhere)
Thanks for the additional details Ray. So YouTube has an even larger delay, hum…on the other hand I’m not sure it really matters for “real life” usage. The fact that you can download the file after the fact is a lot better of course…considering you can’t record locally while you’re streaming.
I looked up the pricing for Ustream and it is indeed rather “silly” : link to ustream.tv. I don’t understand why Sony would partner with them…since “UniEye”/Whitelable (link to whitelabel.co) relied on the same setup I wonder if Sony didn’t just tap into an existing resource…
For the YouTube delay, it’s unclear to me if that’s an HTC issue or a YouTube issue.
Thank you for an outstanding overview and great side-by-side testing
Any word from our Garmin friends wrt the Virb in this context?
Your WiFi hotspot SSID on the Nokia is ‘FrenchMoose’ – 10/10
:)
In case anyone hasn’t yet seen the GoPro x NHL video promo, here it is:
link to youtube.com
Cool stuff. We’ve been looking at the hybrid method, Using Ubiquiti radios to shuttle wifi as if it is an ethernet cable. We used this method for local football games where the field had no service. We sent our web stream a half mile to the school building where we connected to their ether network and sent to YouTube Live. Flawless 720P. Want to use that same idea and system to send a roaming camera to a home base – whether that’s a laptop or cell phone. Looking to give it a shot at an upcoming fun ski race, BodeFest at Cannon Mountain, NH.
Hey Bill. What was the Ubiquiti product you used and do you have any examples of the video?
Hi DC
Thanks for the summary. I would like to pick your brain a little regarding this if it’s ok.
I would like to provide live streaming of a sport played indoors (small self contained area) that the public would have access to on a real time basis.
Could you email me?
Thanks!
Mike
Have you tried Live4 app for GoPro live streaming?
No. Just downloaded it though, will poke at it a bit.
More likely two main reasons here, location of uplink server location and live delay.
Youtube perhaps has better servers/presence in Amsterdam than Livestream or Ustream ( mostly US focused companies). That will make big difference if you havw to send signal to say London or even East Coast, vs Amsterdam over poor cell network.
Secondly, higher delay ( 10 seconds makes a difference, a minute – is huge!) allows to recover from poor connection way better.
More likely results in US will be different.
Minor difference could be bands availability in Android vs iPhone even with the same SIM/provider especially if you are moving between towers, and phone changes from LTE to 3G etc.
(PS. not affiliated with either companies in the review)
I’d agree if we were to the point of comparing 720p vs 1080p, or comparing two 720p streams. The challenge is, we’re just so far from that point right now with the quality. :-/
this was regarding first part of the test in Amsterdam. Basically, your first bottleneck is connectivity. Until it’s solved in one way or another, secondary issues are generally less relevant to the end result, at least in my experience.
There’s one more app which does live streaming from your gopro using your smartphone only…
live4.io
What resolution do you pull from the camera at?
Here is a comparison video I did for the sony a while back:
link to youtube.com
I did not run into any of the streaming problems you did, but my LTE connection had solid coverage in Silicon Valley.
Very cool, the split-screen in this case works out beautifully to see the differences.
Nice, how did you download the video from uStream ?
There is a button to download it, its in raw FLV so you can ether directly upload to youtube or convert using something like handbrake to ingress into an MP4 editor:
link to flickr.com
PS. I forgot to mention that the download option is only available if you select 1 clip at a time with the free trial of Ustream Pro. If you select multiple then the option is greyed out.
I ride a bicycle extensively in London UK (hectic traffic). Is there a live stream set up that could be utilized as a rear view camera. I think there is a market for such a technology. Some stand alone devices were developed a couple of years ago but vibration and screen brightness in direct sunlight were problems. All in all, thank you for an excellent article.
well, for live streaming over cellular networks, best way to go is with ElSight (www.el-sight.com).
it’s a little bit expensive equipment because it mostly in use for military purposes, but it works amazing by combining 4 cellular networks (you can actually insert 4 SIM cards).
I use bike with means of transport here in São Paulo (Brazil), I want to use my phone (smartphone ) with a camera as rear mirror for my bike.I don’t want to broadcast it, just to live stream the video to mobile screen.
What do you suggest, considering minimum investment possible?
Are the AliBaba (chinese cheaper cameras) a possibility?
best regards
Omar
Virtually all cameras out there today stream to phone apps as a secondary display. I haven’t followed much of the cameras on Alibaba, because the quality tends to be pretty low. So I can’t really say as to which devices work well there.
What kind of battery does the HTC uses, how long does it last operating in video only?
What is the range on each of these like? If I were to attach one of these to a drone, how far away from the source could I fly and still maintain a connection?
Hi Cole-
Technically speaking, it’s the range of WiFi, which in these units varies quite a bit. Some are just a few meters, others can be a hundred feet.
That said – you really want to avoid enabling WiFi on any action cam when it comes to drones. It’s fairly well known that enabling WiFi cams on drones not designed for it (i.e. DJI Phantom) can often lead to interference and fly-away/non-response issues, unfortunately.
The JVC GC-XA2 ADIXXION Action Cam has built in W-Fi streaming via Ustream and doesn’t require pairing with a cell phone.
link to adixxion.jvc.com
You may also try this way to download and save Ustream Videos to your PC, Ipad, Iphone, Cell Phone, PSP, MP3 player with one-click at link to allavsoft.com.
Hi,
Is it possible to live stream two Toshiba Camileo X-Sports cameras simultaneously as a split screen onto Youtube?
If so, what software would I require?
Thank you.
I really would like to re-stream a GoPro feed to an IP address which I determine – this would be for a private IP network, basically so I can move it to another location on my network (ie to a network server or re-streamed to another client). Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks for the info. I thought the Columbian remark was funny. People are too easily offended these days.
Ray if you were to set up cameras at home to record your Time Trial Position, would you use a Garmin Virb to also display cycling metrics ….? not really live streaming as such, but say, i wanted to live stream to my coach, he could see….
Sorta.
If you care about live streaming, the VIRB Ultra 30 won’t actually livestream the metrics to your coach. Only after the fact unfortunately.
But if you want to live stream the video only, and then if you had another Garmin you could live stream those metrics to him on a separate web page. He’d have to have two tabs open – but it’d work.
Or, after the fact the VIRB can overlay it all together easily.
Thanks for the reply!!! :-)
Much appreciated. So its best to do after the fact. But the only camera for this at the minute (without messy software use) is the Virb to get the metrics in as accurate as possible (as per lap if you doing power sets on the turbo…)
better order me some virbs… the older ones should be ok for indoor use only
Yup, correct.
One caveat to the older ones is that they don’t understand the speed sensor (the Ultra 30 does), which means if you wanted speed sensor data. It looks like X/XE got an update a while back that should fix it – but I haven’t tried it (3.70). It may be worth dropping a note on the Garmin forums or the VIRB XE review just to see if someone can validate that they’ve tried it.
link to www8.garmin.com
I would Like to get an action cam on my friends race bike so I can watch his races (on track) live… Im a noob with this so what would people reccoment… he cant take a phone with him, so it needs to connect a pc on the paddock or needs an 4G abonnement right? And if it connects wil that work sinds the track is Like 1 km radius… please help… I thought about sony az1, lg action cam lte or yi 4K