LiveU Solo vs Teradek VidiU Pro (ep .301) Comparison, shoot-out, and live streaming

In this episode of 5 THINGS, Michael pits the LiveU Solo against the Teradek VidiU Pro.

If you need to stream via Wi-Fi, 3G/4G cellular, or a hard Ethernet line while you're on the go, what's the best portable unit? Which unit has more features? Which is most reliable when live streaming? In this episode, we test the LiveU Solo vs the Teradek VidiU Pro.

0:00 Introduction
1:43 What do they do?
3:08 Setup and Connectivity
6:16 Flexibility and Usability
8:35 Streaming Quality
11:53 Conclusions

Complete transcript and blog at http://5thingsseries.com/liveu-solo-v...

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1. What do they do?
Both units have a ton of similarities; so let’s get those out of the way first so we can focus on the ooey gooey differences.

At the core of both units is the ability to take an SD or HD video source, usually, HDMI, encode the signal, and stream it out to the web to sites like YouTube or Facebook.  This can be via a traditional Ethernet Internet connection, going mobile with Wi-Fi, or even streaming via a USB cellular 3G/4G connection.

Both The LiveU Solo and VidiU Pro have the ability to bond across a number of onboard connections, which gives you the ability to have an added level of not only redundancy but also throughput, to ensure your signal is getting out smoothly and at the highest bandwidth possible. Both units, however, charge extra for this feature, which I’ll get into later.

Both units can take AC power, run on an internal battery, are small in size, and both weigh under a pound (although the VidiU Pro is less than half of that) and they easily mount on your camera or attach to your Batman utility belt.

The units also have built-in batteries so you can stream for several hours before having to recharge.  Both models also have webpage backends to control the units…. to varying degrees.

The Solo and VidiU Pro both do their jobs very well.  But the devil is certainly in the details, and that’s what we’re going to tackle next.

2. Setup and Connectivity
The LiveU and Teradek units both allow setup via a web browser on your computer or mobile device.  LiveU, via the LiveU Portal, and Teradek via the web server on the unit.

LiveU is pretty straightforward. Create an account at https://solo.liveu.tv/, boot up your LiveU Solo unit (although this may take a while), and connect your Solo to the internet.  Then, enter in your Solo serial number into the portal, and you’re off and running.  You now can do your entire streaming configuration of the Solo signal on the webpage for your unit.  Now, this is a blessing and a curse…which I’ll get into a bit later on.

Teradek’s setup is very similar.  Boot up the unit, which doesn't take as long as LiveU,  get your unit on your local network – it doesn’t even have to access the internet at this point.  It just needs an IP address so your local computers or Wi-Fi-enabled cellular devices can see it. Unlike the Solo, the VidiU Pro has a web server built in, which makes configuration a bit easier.

Why is that Michael?

Having a local web server built in means I don’t need to have Internet connectivity on my laptop or workstation if I’m out in the field and want to configure the unit.  Yes, I know, you can use cellular devices like your phone to configure their unit, but if cellular service on location is lacking for your phone’s carrier, now what?  It’s a slight issue, but I think having a web server built into the unit as Teradek does makes for an easier way of local configuration.

Speaking of cellular connections, at this point, if you’re planning on going into the great wide open and streaming via 4G connections, make sure you’ve purchased your cellular modems and chosen the right data plan – one that won’t throttle your bandwidth or cut you off at the knees during an event.

Now it’s time for the speeds and feeds and goes in and goes out part of our review.

......and we're out of room here! Head over to http://5thingsseries.com/liveu-solo-v... for the rest of the transcript and blog!

My thanks to LiveU for their financial support and sponsorship of this episode.

Until the next episode: learn more, do more.

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