Today we are excited to announce the public preview of live events within Microsoft Teams. A live event delivers one-to-many video and content streaming to a large online audience while providing centralized control of the shared attendee experience. Live events now empower every organizer,
from Microsoft Teams users all the way to webcasting professionals. Attendees can join the experience where they are: through Stream, in Yammer or in Teams.
In this preview, Teams will have the ability for organizers to create an event with the appropriate attendee permissions, designate fellow event team members and invite attendees.
Live event production: Organizers will ultimately have multiple choices in production methods:
- Quick start. The quick start setting enables users to produce their live events using the Teams client. This option is best to facilitate remote participants or if there is a need to use USB audio/video devices connected to a PC.
- External encoder (coming soon). External encoders can be used by producers to manage their live events with 3rd party hardware and software via Microsoft Stream. The service will support studio quality equipment (e.g. media mixers) that can stream to a Real-time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) This option is typically used in large scale events such as company all-hands – where a single stream from a media mixer is broadcasted from multiple in-room inputs. This live event method will be available over the next month.
Planning live events in Microsoft Teams. Live events in Teams empowers multiple roles to successfully broadcast and participate in an event, including the following: organizer, producer, presenter, and attendee.
Organizer. The organizer manages the live event end to end. This includes creating the event with appropriate attendee permissions, choosing the production method, inviting event team members and attendees and managing event reports. Event reports will include both recording and attendance reports. With real-time captions & translation (coming soon), the organizer can also specify whether live event attendees can view captions in the supported languages.
Producer. As a host of the meeting, producers ensure attendees have a great viewing experience by controlling the media sources that are sent to the event. Additional capabilities include:
- Start / Stop
- Share own video
- Share participant video
- Share active desktop/window
- Select layouts
- Chat with other event team members
- View live attendee count
- Moderate Q & A
- Toggle captions on/off for live event attendees (coming soon)
Presenter. Presenters send audio, video and/or screen sharing into the live event that uses quick start production method. A presenter can also moderate Q & A.
Attendee. Attendees can experience the event live, using DVR controls or on-demand. Attendees can also interact with the presenters using Teams Q & A or Yammer. Microsoft Teams users will be able to join the live event from the web, desktop and mobile clients.
Optimize Bandwidth for the Enterprise Network. Live events will support 3rd party eCDN providers including Hive, Kollective and Ramp (coming soon). These providers partner closely with Microsoft and ensure users have a high-quality experience over your network.
What’s next for Skype Meeting Broadcast. Live events with Microsoft 365 will replace the capabilities provided by Skype Meeting Broadcast. For the public preview release of live events, Microsoft will continue to support Skype Meeting Broadcast, with no disruption in service for new or future events. We encourage you to try out live event in Teams to leverage new features including desktop/window sharing and use of 3rd party software/hardware encoders.
Try out a live event today as part of your Teams meetings experience. Documentation on live events is available for IT Pros here.