5 Benefits Of All-in-one Live Production

What is all-in-one live production?

Producing high quality live events is no easy task. There’s a lot to think about: venue lighting, network bandwidth, destination video CDN, and, most importantly, the actual live streaming equipment. A live production requires a combination of video switchers, scalers, capture cards, a powerful encoder and a recording device.

That’s a lot of moving parts, which also means a lot of potential points of failure. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a turnkey solution to live production? Well, this is where all-in-one live production devices like Epiphan’s Pearl-2 come in. They take all of these live production equipment components and combine them in one convenient appliance. It is a one-stop-shop for a reliable live video production, proven to help save time, money, and efforts.

The benefits of using all-in-one live production equipment

1) Have fewer points of failure

Live streaming is tricky as it is. Managing one device (instead of ten) where everything is in one place makes life a little bit easier. All-in-one solutions like Pearl-2 are easy to use and cause less stress for everyone.

Remember that mistakes can happen at anytime: people trip over cords, devices break, get misplaced, or get connected incorrectly. Using a robust all-in-one box reduces a lot of the risk by eliminating these points of failure. Pearl-2 is also able to simultaneously record the stream, storing the backup file on its internal hard drive or any other specified location.

2) Adapt to any situation

With an all-in-one solution, there is simply less equipment you have to carry to start live streaming. A device like Pearl-2 is very compact and portable. All-in-one live production equipment is able to adapt to your specific situation and workload. Pearl-2 is able to take in up to 6 video sources making it a very flexible solution.

Devices like these are highly compatible with other equipment such as cameras, projectors, audio sources, etc. There is no need to purchase additional capture cards or converters: just connect any HDMI, SDI, XLR or analog audio sources using a cable and the device will do the rest.

In addition, Pearl-2 gives you the ability to adjust the output bitrate depending on the network bandwidth you are working with. You can even control the unit remotely thanks to the remote login access feature, and with regular firmware updates, you can be sure that your files are secure.

3) Save money

All-in-one video production hardware comes in different configurations, so you don’t have to pay for what you don’t need. For example, Epiphan offers two different all-in-one production systems at two different price points: the Pearl Mini has a maximum of three inputs, whereas Pearl-2 has up to six and also supports 4K video.

Some may say that using computer software is a budget solution, however in the long run, all-in-one hardware may prove to have a higher value to price ratio. Compared to a software encoder solution (such as a computer with best live streaming software), using a hardware solution proves to be more reliable. You need a pretty powerful computer to successfully run live streams (which is an investment in and of itself), whereas a dedicated device is specifically designed for handling tasks related to scaling, encoding, and streaming.

All-in-one solutions are also cheap to own: they are built to last. Manufacturers offer free support and firmware updates to keep your hardware up-to-date with the current codec and security trends.

4) Save time

Naturally, all-on-one devices allow for a quicker setup and teardown of production equipment. This means reduced work hours and smaller production crews (more money saved!). There also is no need run around and purchase separate components (making sure they are compatible with each other!), which is also time saved.

Training to use an all-in-one system is usually fairly simple: after a few times the process becomes second nature. All-in-one production setup is generally the “set-and-forget” type: once everything is configured, all you need to do is press the start/stop streaming button.

5) Impress audiences everywhere with top-quality content

Devices like Pearl-2 are able to encode high-bitrate high-resolution live streams (HD and 4K). In Addition, multistreaming is a standard function in most all-in-one solutions, so you can stream in high quality to as many destinations as you want, provided you have the bandwidth. This also means you can stream to multiple CDNs at once, as well as tailor the output resolution/bitrate to each specific destination. Reach your social following by streaming to Facebook Live or YouTube, or stream to any other live video hosting with just one device.

CONCLUSION

All-in-one live video production solutions (like Epiphan’s Pearl-2) are powerful tools with a whole range of benefits. The bottom line is that it’s just easier, faster, and simpler to use all-in-one production equipment. It lets you get your live video out there quickly and reliably, which is what’s really most important to production teams. All-in-one production systems are a great option for those who want to stress less, save resources, and produce a successful live stream.