Hello, I wanted to start a thread where people can share their own recording and live streaming experiences and lessons learned apart from the discussion on GOLS.
I’ve been live streaming water polo over many years for both high school and club. There is a small A/V community that discusses this stuff on the top row of the bleachers passing on tips and tricks. I’ve tried a few solutions and settled on this two years ago for the relative simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and reliability. With this setup, you can live stream anything, anywhere.
I use the Scorecam app (frankly, I rarely use the embedded scoreboard that gives the product its name) with my iPhone and stream to YouTube. Seriously, anyone can do this for as low as $50 ($30 for the app, $20 for a cheap tripod).
Scorecam allows you to create separate highlight videos on the fly. I can quickly send these to the social media team for rapid posts, give to players for their own purposes, and facilitate the creation of the team’s year-end highlight videos.
I then edit the 4K source video, add my own scoreboard and share that with the team.
I’m happy to answer any questions or share more details.
With JOs over and my career as a youth sports videographer coming to an end, I made this video to help anyone else. I’m not in anyway associated with Scorecam nor am I an accomplished YouTuber.
When upgrading to something new, research “overheating” issues during 4k recording. I use a Lumix GH7 which has an internal fan and has never complained about socal / east bay heat.
LOCATION: Film up high in the bleachers. I prefer to be off-center as this keeps the ref out of frame when they setup around the 5-6 meter line.
If you are doing a 12u or under game, you might need to be behind the goal or the corner of the pool. (I hate filming these games.)
Location of the sun changes everything. I’ll take a sub-par filming location to keep the sun to my back or off to the side.
SETTINGS: Record in 4k if you actually want to see cap numbers. 60 frames / second is ideal if you want to do slow-mo replays. Drop to 30 fps in a low-light situation.
Stay away from the free youth sports apps (game changer / sideline hd). They make things easy, but they limit you to 720/1080p. Grandma is not going to find Little Jonny at 720p.
I have not personally used these, but both scorecam / SportCam support 4k and streaming. There is a nominal monthly fee.
FRAMING: Keep the majority of the play in frame and minimize adjustments once the players get set. My old videos will give you motion sickness. Your videos will be horrible at the start and will improve with repetition.
AUDIO: A shotgun mic is a huge upgrade. This will directionally pick up sound and reduce a lot of the background bleacher chatter. You no longer hear about uncle mike’s love life or “that mom” trash talking the coach in the audio. (If you are using a cell phone, this snaps into the could shoe of your mount)
EDITING: Edit the final “replay” of you game and respect your viewers time. Strip out timeouts, technical issues and quarter ends. Alternatively, if you stop filming during these stoppages, stitch everything back together. On a mac, quicktime can do some basic trimming/merging. If you want to add replays, scoreboards or other creative elements, imovie, premiere or resolve can be used.
Note: I usually just let it roll for the entire game. I’ve forget to hit the record button after some breaks.
DISTRIBUTION: Youtube is a great place to host your videos and they will happily take hours of 4k footage. With fast internet, I can have a 4k video uploaded and processed in about 30 minutes. (This used to take 3-4 hours.)
I recommend you upload “unlisted” as the default and videos are only available via direct link as:
I do not want to be responsible for putting someones else’s kid on the internet
public videos makes it very easy for the competition to scout your team
Playlists should be used to keep everything organized. I usually do:
One playlist / season
One playlist / tournament
STORAGE: Backup all source material and edited footage to local hard drives. It is much easier to work with raw footage for future highlight films.
AI RANT. Have you seen the price for SSDs??? These used to be $200 for 4TB. I’ve had to go back to spinning platters
ccl, you and I are tackling this completely differently. Respect to your setup. Mine is more for the Everyman/woman. How are you getting the video to OBS for live streaming? HDMI to a laptop?
I used a Zhiyun gimbal in the beginning with integrated low quality streaming. I loved having the gimbal functionality but the streaming ease and quality from Scorecam won me over. I still use a gimbal but basically only as a steadycam.
hdmi output from the camera → hdmi capture card → macbook pro → OBS → youtube
It’s a pain in the ass, but I can do:
live steaming
replays
scoreboard
random graphics like goalie blocks
I can also do ~13 minute game recaps from the replays created from the game. During the live steam, I only show replays from scores, but I create replays during the end of each series. All replays are copied to another location for a game recap that are stitched together and sent to youtube.
For final game replays:
Camera → editing software → youtube
If I am lazy
hdmi output from the camera → hdmi capture card → macbook pro → OBS → [minimal editing] → Youtube
With OBS, I can also pull in the shot / game clock into the feed. An iphone will show up as a capture device using the “continuity camera” feature and can be added as an additional (wireless) video source. You can point your camera at the scoreboard and crop/zoom it into place.
This screen grab is from Sentinel (corona) and I used a tri-pod pointed at the scoreboard. Santiago is one of the best locations for this as the scoreboard is directly across from the bleachers and you can prop the phone on the railing/ledge across from the bleachers.
When I create the final high resolution version post game, I can optionally pull in the clocks using a mask in adobe premier from the live video source.
For 4k / 30fps, you need at least 10 mb/s upload, but ideally 15-20 mp/s. I find fast/free public wifi is the exception, so your options are cell providers or starlink. Even if you do have enough upload bandwidth, you can quickly chew through your hotspot data cap in 2-3 games. For the big three networks, I have used:
Visible (verizon): unlimited hotspot data. They do limit it to 15 mb/s which should work for 4k streaming.
US Mobile: They support all three carriers and with at&t (darkstar) they support up to 100gb / month.
Shield internet: Non-profit that provides hostpot devices through Tmobile with up to 100gb / month and dirt cheap (Computers 4 People). Just make sure you qualify: "Shield Internet is built for people who need affordable, reliable service - including students, families focused on education, and those working toward new career opportunities." Water polo filming is a career opp, right?
(You can also change your network TTL settings on a laptop to bypass mobile hotspot detection, but I’ll let you google that on your own.)
If one individual device does not have enough bandwidth you can bond multiple devices with something like https://speedify.com/.
!!! We are barely talking the same thing at this point. I’ve got an iPhone and a $100 gimbal. . You’ve got a production van . My buddy has a tower camera controlled by a Xbox controller. Thank goodness it’s not a competition.
I’ve actually migrated the other direction. I used to use a laptop running OBS connected to a cellular modem with mangled TTL to get around hotspot caps, but have gone back to using a phone on a tripod.
The main reason I favored OBS on a laptop before was the ability to use HEVC / NVENC / H.265 compression. The streams are vastly better when using H.265 or AV1 than when using the H.264 compression nearly all steaming apps used to use. Now phone apps are starting to support H.265 and I think AV1 support is just around the corner.
The app I currently favor is Larix Broadcaster. It supports H.265, lets me manually set the bitrate, and supports third party scoreboards.
I would note that TTL mangling violates the terms of service and if carriers catch you doing it, they’ll ban you. Steaming directly from the phone does away with that risk.
Mostly, it is a lot less work setting up and breaking down when all you have a is a tripod and phone. My phone holder is magnetic. I don’t even need to tighten anything down to attach the phone to the fluid head. I can go from sealed camera bag to tripod being set up and filming in under 60 seconds.
One tip I would give to phone streamers is to bring a power bank. If you need your USB-C to attach microphones, then get a splitter so you can charge at the same time. Most of the heat from filming comes from the battery. In using a power bank and a tiny camera shade over the phone, I’ve never had a heat shut-down.
. You’ve got a production van 
. My buddy has a tower camera controlled by a Xbox controller. Thank goodness it’s not a competition.