Our $10k Live Streaming Studio Budget – How we spent it!

In episode 18 of StreamGeeks, we go over our entire budget of $10,000 and how we spent it to build our live streaming studio. $10,000 was just enough money to build out our entire office with new IP-based networking infrastructure that we can use for live streaming in our offices and our studio. We are also able to use the NewTek NDI inside our cameras and with compatible software (Such as vMix, Wirecast and Livestream Studio) to connect all of our devices over a gigabit ethernet switch.

Budgeting for a Video Production Studio

So this episode we take you on a behind-the-scenes tour of how we set up our live streaming studio with a custom PC, multiple live streaming cameras and all of the hardware switchers which includes the PTZOptics IP Joystick. Paul and Tess review everything from standup desks to wall painting and budgeting for the technical equipment used in the entire office. As you can see from the picture above we spent a good amount of our budget (roughly 20%) on the gigabit networking infrastructure which includes our 5 GHz WiFi system from Ubiquiti. The television and set decor took up another 40% leaving just $4,000 for office furniture and painting. Luckily we got our entire office space for a steal (Just $13/sq/ft) and only have to pay $2,500 per month in a downtown West Chester, PA location.

Items Purchased for our Live Streaming Studio

To build out and design our live streaming studio from scratch we use Pinterest to visualize our plan. As you can see, we purchased various items for our live streaming studio that are both functional and appealing to our target audience. We know our audience is technically inclined and perhaps a little “geeky”. So we chose furniture and shelving to help support various items that will enhance our live streaming environment. We also used our budget to build out areas of our office that are used for live streaming and spontaneous videos.

Our Super Tech Tool!

Our super tech tool of the week has to do with setting up a managed ethernet gigabit switch for QoS quality of service. In order to do this, we had to label each one of our 24 ports and use our ubiquity management software to identify which devices require priority for live streaming video production. Since many of our ethernet cables were installed inside walls we had to use our ethernet cable checker to identify which port is connected to which device. Once we had each port on our switch labeled with the correct device we are able to prioritize our live streaming IP-based network.

Our Secondary Studio Connected over IP

We also demonstrate our secondary live streaming studio which is also connected to our gigabit ethernet switch. Our secondary studio allows our primary producer int he main studio to switch to a second studio seamlessly without having to leave his location or run any traditional A/V cables like HDMI or HD-SDI long distances. Since everything is connected to the network our producer only has to search for the NewTek NDI sources from our secondary studio on the network and the come up automatically.

Our IP based gigabit ethernet network includes everything from IP phones to computers to printers and much more general office equipment. In order to streamline our managed gigabit ethernet network, we have to prioritize computers that are for video production and devices that are essential to low latency video streaming.

The StreamGeeks go over everything from QoS (quality of service) on their live streaming network to the importance of painting walls energizing colors in this episode. We hope you enjoy some of our live streaming in video production tips and hope to see you next week I’m stream six live broadcast Mondays at 11 AM Pacific 2 PM Eastern.