Poynter News University (NewsU), based in St. Petersburg, Florida, recently produced a webinar on “Livestreaming the News: Replacing the Satellite Truck With a Cellphone.” The more than one-hour session was taught by Rodney Gibbs, who oversees technology, product development and user engagement at The Texas Tribune, a non-partisan online news organization focused on politics and policy.

Gibbs oversaw the Tribune’s 2013 live stream of a Texas Senate filibuster that went viral on YouTube, which spurred the Tribune to expand its live stream efforts from a novelty to a norm in its reporting. Now the news site live streams about 60 stories each year.

Gibbs was joined in the webinar by Ren LaForme, interactive learning producer at NewsU. Though Poynter normally charges a fee for its webinars, NewsU allowed Broadcast Bridge to report on the session at no cost.

“We’ve been livestreaming about two and half years,” Gibbs said. “During that time, the prices have come way down and there is a lot more competition on the hardware and the service provider side. There are more options out there. If you are covering breaking news or live events, it’s great if you have a reliable way to do that. You no longer need a satellite truck or feed.”

Prior to doing its own streaming, The Tribune relied on broadcasters for their live feeds. “We found them to be unreliable,” Gibbs said. “TV stations are not batting a thousand (with live video). Often we’d find they have audio trouble. They had the English and Spanish audio tracks mixed up on one event. You can sometimes hear the cameraman talking to his buddy because the wrong microphones are on during a press conference. Sometimes they’d lose patience with the event and cut away to the anchor or weatherman. This was very frustrating to us. Steaming gives us far more control.”

The Tribune uses three levels of streaming technology, depending on the story. They recognize streaming as a new medium and do not try to replicate the special effects and tight programming limits imposed by commercial broadcasters.

“Because the video is consumed online, all the bells and whistles are not necessary,” Gibbs said. “It’s not that we want cruddy production values, but we’re not producing HD programming for 70-inch TV sets. Our video has to be a satisfying professional production for a website.”

All three production levels used by Tribune produce good quality video, Gibbs said. “The quality we have found is good to very good. It’s not like you looking at a surveillance-type pixelly image. You can often get a good HD image without a ton of bandwidth or equipment.”

On the lowest cost “bare bones” option, the Tribune uses an iPhone or iPod with either Periscope, Meerkat or Livestream. With a reliable WiFi connection or data plan, the examples shown of video done this way was quite good.

Two major recommendations Gibbs made on this option is to mount the camera (iPhone) on a steady tripod and to feed audio to it from an outside source using a low cost adapter, which sells for about $10. Handheld iPhone video is too shaky for most productions and the built-in iPhone microphone is not good enough, he said.

The upsides of using Twitter’s Periscope live streaming application is its “dead simple” and offers a free account. Users can watch in Twitter or on a web browser. The downsides are the quality is lower, its hard to promote a live stream ahead of time, the link is only generated when the stream goes live and the video is available online for only 24 hours. That said, Gibbs, it can be useful for certain kinds of situations where getting some footage is better than getting nothing at all.

The medium level solution — one that The Tribune uses 80 percent of the time — involves purchasing a dedicated video camera and an encoder. The Tribune uses the Canon VIXIA HF R600 HD Flash camcorder, which is discounted to about $199. The main criteria is the camera has a high-definition sensor and an HDMI output.

A couple of recommendations for the encoder include the Broadcaster Pro ($599) or Broadcaster mini ($399) from Livestream and the Teradek Vidiu series, which range in price between $499 and $999. The high-end of the Teradek line features ShareLink, which allows bonding multiple Internet connections from different sources. Users can use any combination of interfaces, including Ethernet, WiFi, a USB Modem or up to four iPhone cellular connections.

The Tribune, Gibbs said, likes Livestream because the technology is very simple to use and the customer service is excellent. Livestream’s encoder, he said, works only with Livestream and is very easy for non-skilled people to use, while the Teradek Vidiu series works with multiple platforms, but is slightly more complex to set-up by novices.

Other considerations in the medium range set-up is audio, including microphones, a mixer, wireless mics and in some cases, a small PA system for remotes. Also, the crew should have a small light kit. This support gear makes a huge difference in program quality, Gibbs said.

The upsides of the medium level kit with Livestream said Gibbs, is low technical demands on staff, high-definition quality (with the proper amount of bandwidth), excellent portability, good customer support and low maintenance. The user can instantly publish the video on any website and also receive the benefit of having it on Livestream's website as well. When the live stream is over, The Tribune can instantly publish VOD on its site.

The main downside of Livestream, he said, are ongoing costs. Livestream plans begin at $42 a month and range up to $799. The Tribune uses the $199 a month plan, which includes live embedding on any website, live embedding on Facebook, Livestream Analytics and constant phone support. “They do one thing well, but it’s not very configurable,” Gibbs said.

Finally, on the high-end, The Tribune uses Livestream’s HD550 portable switcher and encoder, which is priced about $7,999. It supports up to five cameras (with HDMI inputs) and has traditional production effects like transitions, titles, B-roll and lower thirds. It’s about the size of a portable laptop computer.

For major events, the switcher not only allows multiple cameras to be switched, but offers a more professional presentation. However, Gibbs said, it requires several crew members, has a steeper learning curve and is for more expensive. Also, he noted, the video quality is no better than the medium option. It’s just more polished.

In the end, Gibbs offered several pieces of advice to those who would begin live streaming. First, make sure what you live stream is worthy of live streaming. “Not everything is worth livestreaming,” he said. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. We try to livestream things that are of the moment or engage people in realtime around a conversation.”

He also warned webcasters not to try to be a TV station. It’s a new medium. Use it differently. Choose the right technology for your needs. “Simple often suffices,” he said.