A live news stream is a video broadcast that takes place in real-time, showing current events as they happen. It is often used to cover breaking stories and keep viewers informed about important political or cultural developments as they occur. In the digital age, many news organizations also use live streams to drive traffic and engage their audiences by delivering instant, real-time information snippets.
Breaking news live shots don’t get much planning; when something major happens, a reporter is sent to the scene (wherever that might be) and she gathers her information quickly, then relays it to viewers. For a live shot to work, the reporter will need both audio and video as well as a signal that tells her when she is supposed to begin talking. This is known as reporter IFB and is usually sent through a microphone in the reporter’s earpiece. It is usually fed a mix-minus so that the reporter doesn’t hear her own voice with a one-second delay; hearing your own voice can be very distracting to a reporter on a live shot.
A live stream must be encoded and compressed before it can reach Bob’s smartphone, so when Alice starts her live stream by turning the camera on herself and saying “Hello, world,” the little section of video that is recorded is sent from her phone to the app’s CDN servers where it is converted into a data packet and sent out for delivery to smartphones all over the world. This process may take a while, but in the end Bob on the other side of the country will hear her say “Hello, world” on his smartphone.
About the Author
