Blog2 min read
How to clip a live event for social media while it is still running
At a live event, the clip that matters is the one posted while the room is still full and the hashtag is still moving. By the time the recording is edited, the audience has gone home. Here is how a production team can put social clips out during the show, from people who run live shows.
The rule: never touch the programme
The programme output and the stream to the platform are sacred. Clipping must take its own copy, so nothing the clipping operator does can reach the show. With ClipLive, that copy is a separate RTMP output from your encoder: vMix, OBS or a hardware encoder all have one. Your programme feed and your stream to the platform are not changed.
Set up before doors
- In ClipLive, choose Key and copy the server and stream key.
- Add them as an extra RTMP output on the encoder, fed with the programme or a clean feed.
- Start the output and check the picture and the sound arrive in ClipLive.
- Agree with the client what gets clipped, who approves it and where it is posted, before the event, not during it.
During the show
- One operator watches the feed in ClipLive and marks moments with I and O on the waveform. Applause and laughter show up as peaks.
- For a moment that just happened, X takes the last 15, 30 or 60 seconds, accounting for how far behind live the operator was watching.
- Cut 16:9 for the event page and 9:16 for social from the same marks.
- Clips are grouped by session in the library, so the social team finds them without asking.
What to clip
- The line the keynote speaker will be quoted on.
- The reveal, the result, the encore.
- The audience reaction. A room on its feet sells next year’s tickets.
- Short beats long. A 20-second clip that lands beats a two minute segment nobody finishes.
More for production teams: live event clipping.