Setting Up
This is the single most important part of running a gaming marathon successfully and following this
advice can make all the difference between a packed, jumpin' marathon and an empty, unnoticed
ghost town.
First you'll need a webcam, the higher quality the better. People don't want to watch a grainy,
blurry video for hours on end, so don't skimpon a good camera.
We suggest placing the webcam in a position where it can record the
largest amount of the room you're playing in while still being focused on the people playing. Try
some different angles and distances and see what looks best. Avoid angles that are just close-ups
of faces with no context or ones that are so far away, the average viewer can't even tell the genders
of the players. The games give your event a focus, but it's the people involved, their struggles,
their conquests that make the event special, and that's what should be shown most prominently and clearly.
Second, you'll need a way to capture your game video. The simplest, yet most unprofessional way to do this
is to point a second web cam at your television. This option is almost no longer acceptable to viewers
because it instantly puts your feed in a bad light because it is such bad quality. Even a top quality webcam
centered on an HDTV will broadcast a less than favorable image. If you want a better,
sharper, and more popular video, we suggest using a video capture device for your computer. For example,
a Haupauge PVR 250 capture card or any external USB device. Even a DVD recorder such as
Dazzle works great. The capture card or DVD recorder comes with an S-Video
or digial input, and with a universal game cable such as the Mad Catz Universal S-Video & Audio Cable which
provides both S-Video out and Composite video out for the game system, and employing a splitter, you will
be able to get both the sound and video into the TV and the computer, which can then be streamed.
Refer to this link to see and
search through a complete listing of capture devices to find exactly what will work for you and what falls
into your price range.
Unless you want to offer two feeds, something I strongly recommend against since it becomes awkward to
display both feeds plus the two different chats all at once, you'll want to merge the video from both
sources into one feed. Most marathoners use a program called WebCamMax which
allows you to do a Picture-In-Picture, all kinds of cool effects, and text overlay onto the main feed,
which is the ideal setup.
Webcammax can also be used to add a text overlay which can include your URL, e-mail address, the amount of
money raised, and the charity name. This is VERY important if your marathon gains widespread attention
or has a lot of viewers. The majority of views to a popular marathon that is well advertised originate
across blogs all over the internet who embed the video themselves and may not even link to your main site.
The text overlay immediately gives all users enough information to know that you're raising money for
charity and where they can go for more information without even seeing your main web page or Ustream page.
--Setting up your Audio--
Some webcams have microphones built into them, but even if yours does, it might be too far away from
the action to pick up any audible sound. So extra microphones spread around the room makes it much
easier for viewers to hear the action and interact with you. Voice interaction is far and away better than
just interacting in the text chat, so investing in a microphone or two is highly recommended and will pay
big dividends in the overall quality of your marathon. Depending on how you do it, you'll need
a mini-jack splitter to get more than one microphone into the computer and the built in Windows Audio
mixer can do some audio mixing.
Refer to the diagram below for an example of a good setup. Thanks to Bill Calabro for the image.
