How to livestream your race in an affordable and reliable way(UPDATED)

I’ve been trying to livestream an entire race for years and think I have finally found an affordable, reliable and decent quality setup.

The Hardware:

I started out using an iPhone (with macro lens mounted for better peripheral) for a few years but got tired of its shortcomings. First, the streaming apps would often crash, bringing down the stream. Second, the phone was not very robust to vibration. The image would get this blurry water ripple effect and was generally not very good quality.



I recently discovered that the Chinese GoPro alternative cameras called “Yi” can stream directly off a hotspot. Luckily my roommate had one that I could borrow for the last 24hour race. Both their 4k and 4k+ models support live streaming.

$169 (https://www.amazon.com/YI-Action-Sports … B01FU9ZIMU)



To mount the camera I used a GoPro roll bar mount since I had that laying around already. Most of the accessories with GoPros are more or less compatible (minus the cases obviously).

$20 (https://www.amazon.com/GoPro-GRBM30-Rol … B001MS6OM2)

For my hotspot I had both a Verizon and AT&T version at my disposal. At Buttonwillow I found both to have similar coverage so I went with the AT&T one because it had more available data. The Hotspot is made by Netgear.
$100 (https://www.netgear.com/service-provide … /790S.aspx)

To boost the signal I used an external antenna with magnet mount that I stuck to the roof 

$35 (https://www.alternativewireless.com/att … V8QAvD_BwE).



I ziptied the hotspot inside the car and charged both the hotspot and the Yi camera with a dual 2A cigarette lighter USB adapter, which I plugged into the car. This provided enough power to keep both running indefinitely.

$8 (https://www.amazon.com/iXCC-Universal-C … B076CCWBQL)

The Media:

Before streaming you have to decide what media you want to stream to. The two popular options are now just Youtube and Facebook since Racecast.me is no more. I went with YouTube because Facebook limits streaming events to 4hours.



The Setup:

To get the Yi Camera to stream to the hotspot you need a smart phone (iPhone in my case) to create the link between the two. The app is called Yi Action.  I found this information on another tutorial (http://elproducente.com/how-to-live-str … -tutorial/):

To establish a live stream on YouTube you need a computer to see your custom URL.
Save it to your phone, so you can livestream without a computer afterwards!

• Go to your YouTube channel – creator studio – Live streaming – Stream now. There you will find “Encoder Setup” with a Server URL & Stream name/key.

• Copy the URL and include the key after a dash: e.g. rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2/•••••••• (as it is a unique key for each channel I can’t display my key here )

• Open YI Action App on your smartphone and click the “Plus” on the upper right corner and “Create Live”.

• Choose your Wi-Fi and enter your password. (In my case I selected my Hotspot and entered the password for it).

• Enter a title for your live-stream, choose a thumbnail by clicking on the picture and enter tags. These settings apply for the broadcast via YI App and will NOT be the title of your youtube video. To change the title and description of your eventual YouTube video you have to enter the title & description on YouTube in the Live Streaming setup page.

• Select a live streaming platform, and choose “custom” and enter the URL you created earlier:

• For the resolution I chose 720p because I was not sure if my hotspot could handle 1080p without interruptions. I set the bitrate to Auto.

• Select “Start Live” and a QR Code is generated and displayed on your phone.

• Choose the Live mode setting on your YI 4K Action Camera

• Scan the QR code on phone with your YI camera.

• Once connected to Wi-Fi and server successfully, the Live Stream will start.

The Results:
For roughly $300 (less if you get your hotspot hardware free from provider) I was able to stream nearly the entire 24hour race without any lag or quality loss. The stream went down after 9 hours because the Yi Camera froze up for unknown reason. While the car was in the pits I reset the camera by pulling the battery. I restarted the stream and it ran flawlessly for the next 12 hours. The delay was usually between 1 and 5 seconds. Data used for the race was around 10gb which averages out to roughly 1mbps bitrate. I left the EIS (electronic image stabilization) that the Yi camera can provide ON as I was unsure how stable my GoPro rollbar mount would be. The realistic quality was more or less 480p, plenty good to see what’s going on. Surprisingly the video was even watchable at night. Videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKkwWgjLuXg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zkMnvmA5_w

For the Future:

I want to improve audio quality since the wind noise was pretty bad without a case. Unfortunately an external mic and charging cable cannot be used at the same time so that’s not an option. I was not using any case on the camera so next time I will try one of the Yi sealed cases. 

I will also max out the quality to 1080p since the hotspot seemed to have no issue keeping the video up.

I also want to incorporate vehicle data acquisition into the stream so people in the pits can monitor vitals while driver focuses on... driving.