How To Capture Digital and Stream Videos

If you are a newbie digital video maker and are looking for a manual on how to create and stream those fascinating videos you see on You Tube, you have come to the right place. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to capture, save, upload, and share your digital videos using the resources that you have.

What you need:

1. A video camera with fire wire ports.
2. A computer with fire wire ports (for the sake of discussion, a Windows PC is advisable).
3. Windows Media Encoder.
4. External microphone system.
5. Windows media services.

What you need to do:

1. Determine where you will host your video stream. If you decide to use Windows Media Encoder, it can handle as much as four streams. This is also the maximum number of streams that a home or a home office Internet connection can handle. Should you need more clients, you need a dedicated Windows-based server that runs on Windows Media Services.
2. Connect your video camera to your Windows computer through the fire wire ports. For this particular step, you should first make sure that your computer has the fire wire port and is properly installed. If you are running Windows XP, it should automatically be detected. A fire wire port is a hardware you have to add to your computer. Rarely does a computer already come with it right from the factory. A fire wire looks like a USB port, only it is bigger and faster.
3. Broadcast your event. To do this, you have to open Windows Media Encoder. When the new session window pops up, select the option that says, Broadcast a Live Event. It will then switch to a different window asking you about your video and audio devices.
4. Select your devices. Your capture devices, being connected to your computer using the fire wire cables, should be detected properly. Select the right audio and video components using the drop down button. If your devices aren't detected, try to power up your devices. If that didn't help, you might need to reinstall. You can also configure the device as necessary. But the default configuration should do fine.
5. Select your broadcast method. To avoid opening inbound and outbound ports on your firewall, select the option that says, Opus to a Windows Media Server. Choosing this option means your connection is initiated by the encoder.
6. Identify the server name and publishing point. For the server name, you can simply put the DNS or the IP address of the server that runs the Windows Media Services that you are going to tap into. For the publishing point, you have to assign a name for your stream. The name needs to exist so if it is your first time to capture and stream video, just choose a name and type it in.
7. Select the right encoding options. If you have any other video and audio encoding preference rather than the default setting, you just have to click on it. Or else, select live broadcast video and multiple bit rates audio for video and audio respectively. Choose the 387 Kbps bit rate for optimum output size.
8. Decide whether you want your digital video file archived. Archiving the file means reduced video quality. Actually, the recording quality of your digital video capture is based on the encoding options you have previously selected. If you want to achieve a copy of the broadcast to file, just click the right button.
9. Decide if you want to include video files. If you want to include a welcome, intermissions, and goodbye video files to your digital video stream, just choose the necessary radio button. Or else, select no and proceed to the next step.
10. Add the necessary information required. The display information is going to be asked of you. The title of the stream, the author, copyright, rating and description should all be typed in. Once that's done, just click on next and proceed.
11. Review all information. The next window shows you all the settings you have chosen on the previous screens. Should there be any wrong information, click on back and revise them. Or else, click on finish and begin broadcasting.
12. Type the username and password to access the server. If the server you intend to host the digital video capture stream with is secured with a username and password, you have to supply them in order to proceed. You'll be able to start capturing and streaming right after.