The demand for aerial videos:
Aerial
videos are in huge demand in almost every sector of life. People love
to see the aerial views of sports and events from some unusual angles.
Before consumer drones, it was extremely expensive to make such videos.
However, now it is dirt cheap to get some amazing aerial views. Also,
agricultural imaging and industrial inspection of large structures are
some other areas where aerial videos are being used.
The application for Live Streaming of aerial videos:
The
drone owners can use their FPV (first person view) and VR (Virtual
Reality) types of headsets to see some amazing outdoors when flying
their drones. Now imagine that with live streaming of those videos,
thousands of other people can experience the same effects from the
comfort of their home. It is the experience people want to have. You can
fly your drone and share the view with thousand others.
Another
wide scope application is the streaming of industrial inspection videos
to the control rooms and boardrooms of plants and companies. It is
usually carried out by small drone companies offering these services.
This area of video streaming has an enormous potential, and in future,
we can expect a tremendous growth in this sector.
Other
applications include political and religious event streaming to show the
aerial view of the gatherings. Also, news channels are using live
streamings for important events. Similarly, people want to stream the
videos of their weddings to someone not attending and so on.
Aerial Live Streaming setup
You
can use a helicopter for aerial photography, but we are talking about a
cheaper version, so here we only discuss drones. Live streaming from
drones is still a novel technology. Some of the considerations for
aerial live streaming are following:
1. Live streaming services:
The
first thing you want to decide is where you want to live-stream your
drone videos. Some of the live streaming services are YouTube Live,
ustream, LivestreamTwitter’s periscope and Facebook live streaming
service.
2. The drone camera: Some cameras output the videos in a
generic way, but you need a drone with a camera which gives a clean HDMI
output to be able to use live streaming services. If your camera does
not provide a clean HDMI output, you would have to find a suitable
adapter.
3. Then you need an encoder which takes HDMI and transmits it on the internet.
4.
There are two main protocols used by streaming services. RTMP
(Real-Time Messaging Protocol) and RTSP (Real-Time Streaming Protocol).
Have a look at the appropriate one for your service because your choice
of the encoder depends on it. There is also HTTP Live Streaming (HLS)
where you divide the video file into small segments and deliver it to a
player via HTTP protocol.
5. The broadcast standard (ATSC, NTSC,
PAL, or SECAM) is another consideration while streaming drone videos on
any of the services. You would need to stick with the specifications the
service demand. Just look at the technical specification section on
their website.
6. Another consideration is the ability to
transcode (in other broadcasting standards) and the latency of the
platform (the delay in transmission) you are using.
7. The internet speed should be reasonable to be able to live stream the video.
8.
Some companies are making standalone solutions for drones which could
be expensive, but if you are providing commercial services, then you
might consider these solutions. One of the companies is Amimon. The
company provides various products for enthusiasts and professional drone
users. Two of their popular products are Connex and Connex Mini.
However, their drone Flying Eye could be a quite expensive thing to buy!
Another company is Newtek, and ustream recommends some of their
devices.
9. Also, if you want to use high-end camera rigs or
high-quality professional VR cameras and streaming cloud, then you might
consider any products from companies like 360designs and wowza.
10.
Some live streaming service providers have their own video streaming
equipment which you can use if you plan to adhere to that particular
company for your drone videos. It might save you some money when
compared to products from Amimon. For example, livestream has Livestream
Broadcaster Pro which is a device while ustream recommends some
encoders as Ustream Certified Encoders and offers software called
Ustream Producer and Ustream Pro.
11. It is good to test your stream on multiple devices before you start streaming.
12.
You get a link for your live video broadcast from your service
provider. You can send this link to anyone to see the broadcast. You can
follow instructions from the platform of your choice.
How to make money from your videos (during live streaming and afterwards):
Making videos cost money and it would be a good idea to monetize your live streaming, and then the videos and get some cash.
Monetization during live video streaming:
First,
we talk about live streaming, and if you are using YouTube live, then
you can make some instant cash during your live stream! There is a
feature called super chat which is recently introduced by YouTube. You
can activate this feature, and your fans would be able to chat with you
during the streaming. Their chat would be highlighted during the video
stream. This way you would be able to see their chat and their chance of
getting a reply would likely to increase. However, to be able to send
this kind of chat message, they would have to pay. You then get your
share from YouTube. It is probably the easiest way to monetize your live
streaming. Super chat is, however, available to people having a certain
number of subscribers and in few countries only.
Monetization of Prime Video Contents:
Prime
video contents are not those which are of high quality but also if you
are presenting them to the right audience. If you have created such
high-quality videos, then you have many options to make money out of
them. There is a big market for videos on demand. Traditionally, it was a
challenge to distribute your film. You would have to go through the
distribution channels. Now some companies still follow the same
practice, but on some platforms, you can reach directly. There are three
types of market places where you can sell your videos. Firest type are
transactional platforms, where people pay a small money to see the
video, the second category is subscription platforms (iTunes) where they
pay a monthly or annual subscription to get access to videos and the
third are based on advertisement (You Tube, Hulu, DailyMotion) where you
get paid based on the ads played on your videos. A brief introduction
to these market places is below:
1. Netflix
If your video is
of very high quality and you have done a good amount of publicity and
have got thousands of social following, then you might be able to sell
that video to Netflix and get a good load of money. However, to get a
deal done, you need to find a distributor or go to film festivals and
grab some attention from Netflix.
2. Amazon Prime Video
Prime
video is another alternative for you to sell your prime contents. For
this, you do not require any distributor. You can directly upload your
videos using Amazon Video Direct.
3. iTunes
iTunes require
you to pass their quality control before the acceptance of your movie.
But even before reaching iTunes, you normally have to use an agregator
which will take a fee and put your video in the proper format for
iTunes. Then you must go to one of Apple approved encoding houses, who
will then encode your videos properly according to their requirement.
You can avoid agregator, but you can’t avoid encoding houses. So there
are a lot of steps involved, and finally, iTunes also check for quality.
4. Hulu
This
platform is based on the advertisement. You pay a fee to a distributor,
get your movie on the platform, get traffic to your movie, the ads will
run, and you will get a commission.
5. You Tube
As you
probably familiar with how You Tube works. It is very easy to sign up
for your You Tube channel and start uploading your films. Based on the
advertisement, you can make money from your videos.
6. POV(Point of view)
This
is a place where you can find some resources for non-fiction
filmmaking. On their website, you can also find organisations which
offer funding to individual artists and film makers companies. Every
year they ask for submissions, and if your film is approved, then it
will be broadcasted on PBS television.
7. Vimeo On Demand
Here you can start selling your videos after paying a monthly fee of AUD19.
8. DailyMotion
You
can use this platform in a similar way to You Tube. Also, if you have a
website, you can run Daily Motion videos on your site and get a
commission for advertisement on those videos. But this needs approval
from DailyMotion. If your site has some traffic, you will get this
authorization and start making revenue.