Technical Tuesday | Live Stream Your Wedding to Pakistan, India, or Anywhere in the World!

This past weekend was another crazy three days full of fun, food, and friends! Betty and I wrapped up Shamz and Sana’s wedding at 3:00 AM on Saturday night (Sunday morning) at Zyka in Decatur after a full two days prior to that with a mehndi/henna party on Thursday and a pithi and temple ceremony on Friday before! One of the really cool “challenges” to this wedding was a request from the groom, Sam, to figure out a way to stream the wedding to Sana’s family. Sana is from Pakistan and her entire family still lives overseas and of course they REALLY wanted to see their daughter get married!

During the planning phase for their Southeast Asian wedding they brought up this challenge and I confidently told them, I’m 99% sure I can make that work before your wedding in August! After a bit of research and trial-and-error, I eventually came to a solution. Since Betty and I would be their videographers as well as photographers for this Indian wedding, we would already have plenty of camera equipment up and running throughout the days. And with baby Miles, we have done live broadcasting of him just being a cute baby via Ustream and Skype to the grandparents so that they could see Miles live on video.

I would be using the Canon XF100 HD Professional Camcorder as my “steady” shot throughout the events, getting a fairly wide angle view while I danced around using a pair of Canon EOS 5D Mark II’s or Canon EOS 7D’s to get other angles of the ceremonies. Using an interface device, some extra long audio/video extension cables, and the camcorder’s output video signal I was able to hook into the video feed from the XF100 and have a laptop think that was another webcam to be used by Ustream or Skype.

We fired up the laptop and the entire Frankenstein video rig, had Sam login to his Skype account, and we were on our way to broadcasting their wedding to the other side of the world! After some testing before the wedding we found that Pakistan received better signal through Skype’s interface than Ustream, with the trade-off being that only one person would be able to be “called” at once whereas Ustream we could basically create a TV station that hundreds or thousands or people could log in to view.

The end result was that this was a HUGE success for Sam, Sana, and their family! Sana’s family in Pakistan was able to feel like they were almost there in the same room with us, viewing a live video feed of the day’s events. Even if your family just happens to be in another state consider this option to create a custom-branded Ustream channel where dozens of family members could log in to their computer from anywhere in the world to view your wedding day live! Inquire with us on any wedding package where we are the videographers about this great option for both Indian/Southeast Asian weddings and traditional Western weddings!

NOTE:
If you are just DYING to read another dorky technical blog post, I wrote a quick one about equipment for a time lapse or fine art project for my upcoming trip this weekend to Big Sur in California. Head on over to the ZacharyLong.com blog by clicking this link: ZAC X BIG SUR PART 2 – EQUIPMENT PACK LIST

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Zachary Long is a wedding photographer and videographer based in Atlanta, Georgia. Together with his wife Betty they form the Super Star team of FengLong Photography and are ready to capture your wedding from beginning to end. View our wedding portfolio at http://www.FengLongPhoto.com/ and use the Contact page to inquire about wedding photography or wedding videography availability.