Veo Live Overlays to Social Platforms: Q&A with Anders Schäffner, Product Manager

Adding a scoreboard and timer to the stream gives viewers a more immersive live stream experience, and the potential for promotional overlays gives clubs a new way to offer exposure to their sponsors. It’s been possible in the Veo Live app for a while, and now you can add it to external streams, too.

Anders Schäffner, Product Manager at Veo, shares the thoughts behind developing streaming to external platforms and the importance of overlays.

Anders, how does the overlays enhance the broadcasting experience for viewers, and what inspired the development?

Obviously, keeping score and seeing the timer is vital. We know that sometimes a viewer might miss parts of a live game, and being able to just instantly see where we are in the game and the score makes it much more enjoyable to jump into a live game, even if you happened to have missed the early parts.

Another thing that we learned from interviews is the value of using the Veo footage to communicate to the local community. For some, that might be highlighting a local sponsor who helps fund the club. For others, it might be advertising upcoming events and activities. 

We introduced RTMP in Veo Live earlier this year, enabling live streaming to external platforms. What value does it give the Veo community that they can stream to social platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and many others?

Live streaming is all about finding the right audience for your games. And RTMP allows you to find that audience anywhere they might be. 

We have seen many examples of clubs, who are able to grow their fan base because RTMP allows them to distribute their footage to new audiences who otherwise wouldn’t have seen the matches. And some have even used RTMP to generate extra revenue by streaming to platforms where viewers have to pay to access the footage.

Close collaboration and feedback from the Veo community is a big part of Veo's development processes. Can you share some insights into how the Veo community welcomed RTMP?

Definitely. Ever since we launched the very first version of an AI-powered live streaming camera, we have heard requests from the community for the ability to stream to social channels. So we had a strong sense that it would be welcomed. But to be honest, we were taken a bit by surprise by exactly how well it was received!

That’s also why we almost instantly began channeling all the buzz and positive feedback from the community into new features to make the product even better. And that’s what eventually led to the overlays that we now released.

‍The Veo live experience is becoming more and more comprehensive. We introduced live-streaming with the Veo Cam 2 and introduced RTMP earlier this year. Now, it’s possible to add overlays to the external platform. Can you give us a hint of what’s next?

Absolutely. We know that once the live streaming is set up and the Overlays are working, the viewers absolutely love it. But we also know that connecting to social channels, setting up live streams, and validating that the internet connection is sufficiently good is time-consuming for the camera owner. So, for the foreseeable future, we will work on removing some of this friction. This means easier integrations to YouTube, Twitch, and other social channels, fewer clicks to start a live stream, and better guidance on internet connectivity.