Hey everyone, this coming year will be a big year for us in terms of live streams. We plan on doing a lot more live streams more often and with that we'd like to create some standard times and dates. We have specific days already set, but we'd like to know what times would work best.
We know that we have members from all over the world, so having a time that would allow us to be live when most of our members would be able to attend would be ideal. Of course this also has to fall in line with our availability as well.
With that said I'd also like to take this opportunity to gauge interest in other things we could be doing during live streams that you all would like to see. These are the questions I'd like answered:
Good that this is being raised!
- Does a live stream time of 2CT (Central Time) work for you? If not, what is a better time during the week (Tue/Wed/Thur)?
- What would you like to see covered more often in Live streams? Any in particular that you really enjoyed?
- Classes are being introduced next month, would you like to see more classes for different subjects? If so which?
- How often are you available to watch live streams per week?
- Would you prefer live streams over recorded content?
- What would you add to improve the live stream experience? Before, during or after live streams as well.
Does a live stream time of 2CT work for you?
I have an 8am-5pm weekdays job. I go to lunch from 12m to 2 pm and live streams have been in that time frame which has been awesome for me.
What would you like to see covered?
Live Streams have been diverse, I've enjoyed the mixture of doing 3D live, Interviews, Ask Me Anything and so on. Other areas and advance topics of CGI would be great, texturing, rigging, modeling, lighting, compositing, VFX, motion graphics, etc.
Introduction to Classes and more subjects?
Sure! more subjects and topics. Also though, I guess we'll have to see how classes go.
Availability?
Weekdays at lunch breaks from work (12m-2pm), then after 6pm and then on weekends. I live in Santo Domingo Rep Dom, according to google Central Time for me is: 3am CTS is 5am Santo Domingo.
Would you prefer live streams over recorded content?
No. I think Live Streams are great, it has it's own set of benefits, but not as to entirely outweigh recorded content. It's like asking what would you prefer, your heart or your lungs... you can't have one or the other, they are part of a whole. Quick pros and cons...
- Live Streams pros: Sense of community with the chat, direct interaction with tutors, chance to ask questions in real time, direct feedback, live demos, classroom feeling, you can have guests on, community contributes knowledge and a good joke or two can put on some smiles :)
- Live Streams cons: Global audiences with different time zones, main stage pressure leads to rapidly brain overload, easily loose focus while chatting, personal life could get in the way during a life stream, no editing for mundane tasks or human error, technical failures have bigger impacts, requires on-camera personality and maybe your wardrobe feels under pressure.
- Recorded pros: Reverse livestream cons.
- Recorded cons: Reverse livestreams pros.
Improve Live Streams Experience?
More on the technical side... sometimes audio goes messy, without HD quality most of the time you can't see the UI of the softwares.
Thanks for the input! The technical issues we have with live streams are a nightmare on our end. Unfortunately our software often times has issues with audio, or just randomly disconnecting others connected through the stream. We are currently looking into more stable software or systems that will allow us to stream without the headaches and possibly also improve how we interact with our members.
Things like getting the option to upvote questions those in chat would like to see answered and/or a questions "queue" is something we're looking at implementing in the future.
Ideally for times we'd like to have something that would cover the vast majority of our members, but sometimes the huge time difference doesn't quite line up. 2CT for me is 12pm, same with Jonathan Lampel, but for Kent he's about 3 hours ahead of us putting the live streams he does at 3pm local time for him.
I like to think of classes as mini workshops, so we plan on making live streams more interactive by ensuring members are not just watching but actively involved. Live streams tend to involve more commitment, so we'd like to ensure that we're providing solid value with them. If you have any more input outside of the questions posted let us know, thanks!
Yes, the subjects mentioned in the last question.
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday are my best days
Either works for me personally. I wouldn't move away from recorded content, as I think a good balance of both is ideal.
In the livestreams I've managed to see, I've found them to be a bit choppy and laggy, with technical issues, and particularly Wayne's animation critique livestream recently was in 220p or something, due to technical issues and it was very hard to see what was going on and to follow along.
Ok here my input:
