Ustream Help Center

Only numbers and letters are allowed for your Ustream username. Your username and channel name cannot begin with a number nor contain any special characters, such as: -_!@#$%^&*().

Do you want to change your password? Or your email address? Watch our tutorial to find out how!

It is not possible to change the username associated with an account. If you decide you want to change your username, you must close your current account and register a new one with the desired username.1. Login to your Ustream.tv account and click on "Go To Dashboard" in the upper right hand corner.

2. Click on the "Account" tab

3. Change your email address and click SAVE

Helper's Website: http://www.ustream-helpers.com
Help Forum: http://www.ustream.tv/forum/index.php
Live Help Chat: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/help
Support Center: http://www.ustream.tv/support-center

To record your broadcast, open the broadcast console,



click ‘start broadcast’,



and then click ‘start record.’

Open your broadcast console and enter text in the field at the top that says ‘What are you broadcasting?’ Your status will show up on your channel page.

Ustream allows you to broadcast to as many viewers as you’d like. You can also have an unlimited number of recorded videos and a maximum record time of 3 hours. The retention time for videos is not limited.

PC: To properly stream a Skype conversation on Ustream using a PC, you will need two mics (built-in mic on a laptop, plus an external mic; or an external mic plus a USB mic; or built-in mic plus mic on a webcam), and you will need WebCamMax which you can purchase for $30 here - http://webcammax.com/ Setup: in Skype, you set your mic to the one closest to you. To do this, click Tools -> Options -> Audio Settings. Set your speakers to the speakers in your laptop or the loudest option you have.  On Ustream, set your Audio Source to your other mic, this should be between your speakers and you. This will allow Ustream to hear you and hear your caller. To set up the Skype window on Ustream, install WebCamMax, make sure the Ustream broadcast console is closed, open WebCamMax, click Sources, set your main source to Webcam and select your camera. Then in the bottom, left click PinP Source 1, select Screen, set the mode to Specific Area. A red box should show up on your screen indicating the area that WebCamMax is capturing. Place that red box around the Skype video window and resize as needed. In the preview window on WebCamMax, move the picture-in-picture where you'd like by clicking and dragging. Launch the Ustream broadcast console, set WebCamMax as your video source, and your other mic as your audio, and you're good to go! Mac: The following link provides easy, step-by-step instructions on how to use Skype with Ustream, with the addition of a free program called Soundflower: http://educationaltechnology.ca/couros/765

The Web Broadcaster and the free Producer software will each publish from a single camera source. To incorporate mutliple camera sources (on a single machine), we recommend the Producer Pro software (US$199) There are other solutions: incorporating an external video switcher in front of a software encoder, or a standalone hardware system such as NewTek's Tricaster.

You can improve the quality of your show by using either WebCamMax (PC) or CamTwist (Mac). With these applications, you can quickly and easily add scrolling text, logos, RSS feeds, special guest windows, picture-in-picture, pre-recorded video, and several other video effects. You can also cue up images and pre-recorded videos similar to professional broadcasts.

Click on the links below for more information on each:
CamTwist
WebCamMax

This message will sometimes pop-up if you closed out of your previous broadcast without clicking the ‘stop broadcast' button. You can either close out of your current browser, wait for awhile, and then start up your broadcast again; or you can open up a new browser and try it from there.

There are known issues between Adobe Flash and certain cameras (like some DV cameras). To get around this, we recommend you use either Camtwist or Webcammax as they are more stable with Adobe Flash. You would have one of these programs detect your camera, then from your broadcast panel go to advanced settings, then select Camtwist or Webcammax. This should eliminate the crashing problems.

High-end video capture cards such as those from Digital Rapids or Osprey often have more encoding options and also do more than just encode. For example, using these cards you may be able to do the following: pre-processing on the signal, de-interlacing, color correction, cropping, applying various filters, capturing and streaming multiple feeds at once, etc.

Because the cards typically have chips specifically designed for video pre-processing and encoding, it takes some of the workload off the CPU and moves it to dedicated, optimized processors. This provides better performance and better quality video, than encoding software running on a laptop that uses all CPU resources.

1. Login to Ustream and click the "Broadcast Now" button.

2. When the broadcast console opens for the first time, it asks you if want to "Allow" or "Deny" Camera and Microphone access. Select "Allow". (If at any point you click "Deny" then the window will never show up again. When this occurs, you will have to reset it. To reset it: right-click on the video area, click "Settings", and select "Allow").

 

3. In the Ustream Broadcaster console, select your camera from the Video Sources drop down menu. If it is an embedded webcam then it will appear as "USB Video Class Video". If it is a plugged in DV Camera then it will appear as "DV Video".

 

 

4. Your video should appear in the Local Stream window. Make sure you have "Local Monitor" selected in the bottom left corner of the broadcast window.

5. Click "Start Broadcast" to start broadcasting and click "Start Record" to save a recording in your Ustream channel. 

Potential Causes:

1. Bandwidth: It is possible that the upload speed of your Internet connection is too slow. Check your internet connection at www.speedtest.net. We recommend an upload speed minimum of 1 to 1.5 Mbps to do a high quality broadcast.  Also, it is important that no one else is using the same internet connection for other purposes.  If you are using a shared wi-fi network, you may find you have insufficient bandwidth to broadcast. The best rule of thumb is that your broadcasting bitrate should be about 50% or less of your total available upload bandwidth.  The Ustream Web broadcaster uses less bandwidth than Ustream Producer, so if you find you are having chopiness or disconnects with Producer, you may want to try dropping it to the lowest quality setting or switching to the web broadcaster instead. 
2. CPU Usage: Your stream can become choppy if your CPU usage is so high that it causes your computer to slow down. This can affect both the broadcaster stream quality and viewer stream quality. Close all other programs that are running in the background to solve this problem. By closing other programs (like ITunes, Skype, and AIM) you will free up CPU space and help your computer run faster. 
3. Playing back large video files or encoding HD video:  If your source is a very high resolution, like an HD video clip, you may find that your computer struggles to encode this smoothly.  One trick here is to try to down-convert your clip or source video to a compressed, lower bit-rate format to see if this allows the computer to play it back and encode it more smoothly. 

If your stream keeps disconnecting, it is likely an internet issue. Achievable speeds with internet connections fluctuate. If you do a speed test and it says 900 kbps that doesn't mean that in five minutes it won't drop down to 600. So if you set your bitrate too high, say 650, and bandwidth dips below 650 then your stream will freeze or get disconnected. We recommend leaving a good amount of buffer zone to provide continuous streaming.

Customize your channel page by changing your background image and text color.
Please watch our short tutorial video or scroll down for written instructions with pictures.

Customize your channel page by changing your background image and text color.

Login to your account at Ustream.
Mouse over your username (top right) which and click on Go to Dashboard.

Click on Channel and click on Design.

Click I want to customize my theme on the lower portion of the page.

Click upload custom image and upload a JPEG or PNG file that will replace the background of your channel page.

Click tile to make your background image tiled style.

Click use no image to not use an image.

Click restore from theme to change your background image back to the original image of your selected channel theme.

Click the bar of color to change the background color, main text color, and link color.
Click Save down at the bottom when you are finished making customizations.

Options

For a full size background, a size of 1950x1200 is recommended.
For smaller images, check the box that says "tile" to have your image repeat across the background.
Alternately, you can choose "use no image" and then the background color will be effective.
*Images must be under 1Mb in size and in .jpg or .png format.

7. Once completed, click Save.

While you are not broadcasting live on Ustream you can have either a slideshow or recorded videos appear in your player. 

How to have my recorded video appear automatically in the player on my channel page?

- Login to your account at Ustream.tv
- Click on "Go to Dashboard"

- Click on "Channel" (the one you want to pick the off air settings for)

- Click on "Off Air"

- Click on "Play your videos"

- An option appears that says: Play your last recorded video or Play through selected videos. Choose the latter.

- If you pick "Play through selected videos", then click on "Edit selected videos"
- Double click on the videos that you want to select *Note* only videos that have been made public will appear to choose from here.

Click on Save once you have finished editing the off-air video playlist.

Click Save again in the main settings screen.

To Activate Slideshow

- Login to your account at Ustream.tv
- Click on "Go to Dashboard"



- Click on "Channel" (the one you want to pick the off air settings for)



- Click on "Off Air"



- Click on "Edit Slideshow" and a window pops up where you can upload a slide you want to play while off air.



Click on "+Add" , choose a file you want to upload and click on "Upload". Then click on "Add Image"



You should now see a thumbnail of the slide in the left hand part of the window. Repeat the last few steps to add more slides as desired.

Hit save when done adding slides to close that window.

After you login and click on your [username] (at the top right), click on “Manage Your Show” and pick a show channel (that you want to change chat option on) and click on “Settings.”

You will see a variety of settings to choose from. You can choose whether or not to display your chat or social stream; whether to use chat, social stream, or both; and if both, you can choose which one will be displayed first. You can also add chatroom Moderators.

Metrics are a way to see how many viewers you had during any given broadcast. To view your metrics, login and on the top right click your [username] and then click on “Metrics” (on the left side).

Do you want to learn where to look for metrics in your account? Watch this video or scroll down for written instructions!

Unique Viewers refers to the actual number of viewers you had from unique locations. Total Viewers refers to the total number of views your stream received. For example, if a viewer started watching your stream, left, and came back ten times it would count as one unique view but ten total views.

Note that the total metrics are logged at the beginning of your broadcast and are not broken down per-day. So if you have a Broadcast that spans several days, the total will appear on the first day.

People In Your Crowd
In this section of your dashboard, you can see who is in your crowd.

Login to your account at Ustream.
Click on your username (top right) and click on Go To Dashboard.

Click on Channel and select the right channel. If you only have one channel, skip this step.

Click on Your Crowd.

Watch our video tutorial that will give you a quick overview of how to create highlights or scroll down for written instructions.

After you log in, click on Go To Dashboard on the top right.

Under Channel and then click on Videos.

Then pick a recorded video and click on the arrow button located bellow the video.

Under your video, there will be a box where you can enter a title for your highlight. Use the slider bar to choose the start and end points of your highlight.

Use the arrows to the left and right of your start and end points if you’d like to fine tune it second by second. Press save and your highlight will be created! .

The Web Broadcast Console is the fastest and easiest way to broadcast on Ustream from a laptop or desktop computer.  Another option is Ustream Producer.   

To broadcast using the web console, first you'll need to create an account and then create a show under that account. 

Before you start your broadcast, connect your camera and any audio devices.  Click here for recommended cameras and equipment. 

Then:

1. Login in to your account at Ustream.tv

2. Click the "Go Live!" button in the top right of your screen. 

3. A pop up window will ask you which show you want to broadcast with and choose your show in the drop down menu, then hit Broadcast.

4. Your broadcast console window will now pop up. 

*You will need to allow pop-ups from Ustream.tv in order to access these functions*

5. As soon as you launch the broadcast console, there will be a small window overlay entitled Adobe Flash Player Settings with the following message:

Camera and Microphone Access

www.ustream.tv is requesting access to your camera and microphone.   

Click Allow. 

6. At this point, you should see the output from your webcam or other connected camera in the preview window on the left. 

7. Below the preview window, there are checkboxes for audio and video broadcast.  If you want to broadcast both audio and video (recommended) make sure both are checked. 

8. To start broadcasting, click "Start Broadcast."  To start recording, (recommended) click Start Record. 

Click here for a detailed explanation of all features of the broadcast console.

Click here for troubleshooting problems you experience with the broadcast console. 

To become the moderator of a show: 1. Log into your account 2. Go to “Manage Your Show” 3. pick a show channel (that you want to change Moderators settings) and Click “Settings” 4. Under “Chat Setting” type in username of person you would like as moderator and click on their name in drop down menu 5. Click save changes 6. Once the moderator has been added, go to the channel URL

If the stream you’re trying to watch asks for a password, it is because the broadcaster set their stream to be private.   Only the broadcaster will be able to give you access; Ustream cannot provide passwords to protected streams.