One of the decisions we made when creating the Gestalt IT Rundown was that a live broadcast was an essential part of the show. This allows our viewers to get the latest IT news without it getting stale as they wait to find it in an RSS feed or in a YouTube playlist. But live streaming comes with its
own set of challenges. One of them is considering what platform to use. Initially, the show used Google Hangouts, which was serviceable, but ultimately not well supported by Google and often unreliable.
When we had the switch to live streaming to the Gestalt IT Facebook Page, we went with a service called Be.Live, which is nowhere near as flexible as something like OBS, but it doesn’t need a lot of configuration to get started. It was convenient and had just enough features to suit our needs.
It does require quite a bit from a user’s CPU. A 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro is usually taken pretty close to 100% during a live stream, but usually, the system stays stable if a bit toasty. Sadly, when Max Mortillaro co-hosted the show a few weeks back, he discovered some thermal constraints. Part of this has to do with a curious decision with Apple’s use of the dedicated GPU. When plugged into an external monitor, it refuses to use the integrated Intel graphics, opting for the more power-hungry part. Given that most people would want the extra grunt to push multiple displays, it makes sense I suppose. But Max found out the hard way that it imposes real thermal limits, to the point that his system froze his video as it tried to deal with the heat. Luckily you can always subscribe to the podcast feed of the Gestalt IT Rundown, where the audio remains strong.
Read more at Max Mortillaro Is the 16-Inch MacBook Pro Crippled By Thermal Issues?
