Regular users are LIMITED TO 30 MINUTES per live video stream.
When doing a Facebook Live stream this morning, I suddenly found I started getting warning messages at the 25-minute mark. I captured a few of them:
Naturally I had to let it run down to be out of time... at which point my iPad screen got all blurry:
and stayed that way for a minute or so when it seems the app or Facebook Live service must have been post-processing the video, because the next thing I saw was a screen telling me that my video was posted to my timeline:
And that was that.
Now... in Facebook's Best Practices for Facebook Live, they say (my emphasis added):
7. Broadcast for longer periods of time to reach more fans The longer you broadcast, the more likely fans are to discover and share your video with their friends on Facebook. We recommend that you go live for at least 5 minutes and we've seen some public figures broadcast for over an hour.
Presumably this longer time is for "verified" accounts and Pages.
Searching in Facebook Help, I found this page where down under "How do I share a live video to my Timeline on Facebook?" has this (my emphasis added):
During your broadcast, you'll see the number of live viewers, the names of friends who are watching and a real-time stream of comments. Your broadcast can be no longer than 30 minutes. When you end your broadcast, it'll be saved on your Timeline like any other video.
Now, in all honesty, I don't know that the type of videos I could see personally streaming live with Facebook Live would be longer than 30 minutes. In our days of "snackable video", i.e. it's kind of like a quick snack of food, you're generally looking for really short videos of a couple of minutes.
I could see this for quick "person-on-the-street" interviews... quick updates during events, etc. For all of that, the 30-minute limit is fine.
BUT...
... for companies or organizations (or public figures) who might want to live stream a presentation, workshop, talk, etc.... those events might go much longer.
I would assume the path to longer video would be to get your page or account "verified" (and I may have to try this now :-) ).
