IRL Stream Setup – Gear You Need for High Quality Streaming

When you’re streaming IRL on Twitch (or on any other platform), it’s essential to have a good video quality. Your viewers shouldn’t have to deal with choppy videos, buffering screens or even disconnects when watching your IRL stream.

Assuming you don’t get limited by the IRL stream setup hardware you’re using, an essential element is a stable Internet connection. Especially if you’re streaming from different locations. Even if you only use your smartphone for that, you still need the reliable connection.

Read below to see what you should look at when choosing your IRL stream setup.

We’ve all experienced unreliable Internet at some point. But it’s most annoying when you’re streaming live to your followers.

The most common situations where you might encounter these type of connectivity issues live streams include:

• When traveling / on the go – on the street, bus, train. You may be connected to a bad / spotty WiFi hotspot.
• In crowded areas – the available bandwidth for both WiFi and cellular data connections may not be sufficient to serve everyone on a stadium, at a concert or at a frat house party.
• At home – if your ISP is doing maintenance work right when you’re broadcasting live streams. Or if they’re throttling your connection.

Here’s what happens: if the connection is unreliable, you may not be live streaming at a high resolution due to limited available bandwidth, so your videos may appear jittery or choppy. Plus – if your Internet connection is spotty and disconnects for some reason – you will lose many of your viewers at least for that specific stream.

So – your IRL stream setup needs to be able to handle unfriendly Internet conditions while streaming live.

You can go ahead and live stream IRL from your smartphone – it’s the easiest way to do this. But if you want to level up the quality of your videos, your IRL stream setup should include the following:

1. Computer or mobile device that you would use for live streaming. For IRL purposes, we recommend a mobile device - smartphone or tablet. You can also use a dedicated streaming device like the LiveU Solo.
2. Video camera – it should stream video at least 720p / 60 fps. You can definitely go with your smartphone camera or with the GoPro live streaming functionality.
3. Two or more cellular modems – to get a fast and reliable Internet connection. These should be connected either directly to the streaming device, if it supports multiple USB network adapters, or you can use a Raspberry Pi as a bonding router.
4. Channel bonding software – this will help you combine the connections available to you at once. No more buffering or stream disconnects!
5. Battery pack – get one with at least 20,000 mAh. Also check the rated power – should be max. 100 Wh, to avoid issues when traveling by plane.
6. Selfie stick or special camera mount for you to hold when streaming. Look for something with a stabilizer for smoother video.
7. Backpack or something to carry all this equipment in an organized way. It’s even better if it’s waterproof.
8. Streaming apps – these generally depend on the platform you wish to stream to. Twitch, YouTube, Facebook Live – they each have their own app that should recognize the video camera so you can set it up for live streaming. These include Streamlabs OBS, Streamyard, Melon, Restream, Ecamm Live, etc.

Speedify allows you to use multiple Internet connections at the same time. Speedify runs on computers, smartphones, tablets and various devices that run Linux, including Raspberry Pi. Depending on the device, you can combine any mix of two or more WiFi networks, cellular networks and wired networks. By doing that, you’re not only solving the reliability aspect of live streaming through the automatic Internet failover mechanism, but also the  bandwidth and latency issues.

Channel bonding technology is key to a fast and reliable Internet connection when live streaming. It is not restricted to a single implementation architecture. You can choose a mixed hardware-software solution from companies like Peplink and Mushroom Networks. Or just go with the software-only implementation by Speedify, which you can also deploy on a hardware device of your choice running Linux.

Many people choose broadband bonding solutions that include dedicated bonding hardware pieces, such as bonding routers or multi-wan (SD-WAN) networking devices. If you’re planning to adopt a hybrid hardware-software solution, here are some things you should consider.

• Performance – You will be limited by the performance of your bonding hardware and sometimes even by the software. You may have smartphones or computers that can go faster, but it won’t make any difference.
• Flexibility – Will this solution still be usable if you change something in your current setup?
• Scalability – Hardware gets old quickly. Does the solution include free upgrades for hardware?
• Cost of implementation – Hardware adds a cost to the final solution.

On the other hand, if you choose a software-only bonding VPN solution like Speedify, the benefits are straightforward. The only limitations you’ll have are related to:

• the devices you’re using and what type of network connections they support.
• the speeds of the Internet connections you’re planning to combine. 

There are no flexibility or scalability issues. When it comes to cost, Speedify is only a fraction the price of mixed hardware-software solutions!

Speedify doesn’t just get you a fast and reliable Internet connection when live streaming in real life. Speedify also protects you from compromised WiFi networks and snooping hackers. It uses advanced encryption to make sure your private data stays under your control.

Before Speedify, users often had to choose between security and speed. As Speedify was designed with speed as one of its primary goals, you no longer have to sacrifice speed for security. You can have both.

Forget about low quality video streaming, buffering or even disconnects when IRL live streaming! Get started with Speedify today!