Media laden…
Hello everyone,
This is the recording of the Dutch national demonstration against discrimination and racism.
I really felt like such a boomer trying to livestream this event! The first 20 minutes went alright, I guess—though you’ll mostly see the sky because I wasn’t holding the camera properly at first. I arrived late and was rushing the setup, but I still managed to get the camera connected to the stream.
I started filming in 180 degrees since that’s easier to repost to multiple platforms later. But then things started to go wrong. I was using OneStream to broadcast to several destinations at once—Facebook, Twitch, Instagram, and YouTube.
For that setup, you need a stream link and a stream key, which you then combine in the text input field with a slash (/) in between. The format is basically link/key.
However, if you exit the app while streaming, the stream stops. I already knew that, but what I didn’t know is that once it stops, you can’t rejoin the same stream again—it just ends completely.
The real issue is that the Insta360 app is an accessibility nightmare: tons of unlabeled buttons, and VoiceOver keeps jumping around when trying to select filming modes. For example, you can choose between taking photos or videos in different styles, or going live—but when I try to select Live, it keeps jumping to something else.
I was with someone who also didn’t really know how it worked. So between the two of us, we basically had one competent person: one who knew what needed to be done but couldn’t actually operate the app because of poor accessibility, and one who could see what was happening but didn’t know what to do.
At some point, someone called me while the stream was running. As I tried to answer, the stream got canceled. This happened in the middle of the speeches. We kept trying to reconnect for about five to ten minutes before realizing the stream was just completely gone.
After that, I created a new YouTube stream instead and reconnected the camera there. I decided to try 360-degree mode, since YouTube supports that format anyway. This time, it finally worked! I got the camera running again just as the speeches finished and we started walking.
I tried to pay attention while fighting with the tech and offering support, but honestly, it was stressful. That’s why I said I felt like a boomer 😅. Thankfully, the new stream went smoothly, and I managed to film the rest. The second video ended up being about 82 minutes long.
When we reached Museumplein and the demonstration ended, I stopped the stream. My phone had 1% battery left and the camera 14%, so I just made it.
I’ll probably skip streaming in 360 next time. While it’s cool, it’s also inconvenient—you can’t easily download it from YouTube to re-upload elsewhere, and livestreaming drains my phone’s battery fast. Next time, I’ll just record with the camera and stream the regular 180-degree recording to multiple platforms later. Much less hassle!
It was a fun experiment, but I’m too much of a boomer to be fancy. Well, honestly, the real issue is that the Insta360 app is just too bad in terms of accessibility to make it work smoothly.
You can find the 360 video at the beginning of this post.
here!
I hope you enjoy!