Telestream Wirecast Is MVP for Cornell Athletics
By Jim Bask
ITHACA, N.Y.—Cornell University is part of the Ivy League group of schools, famous not only for academic excellence, but sports rivalries as well. The school has 36 varsity intercollegiate teams, so there is no shortage of sports action to follow.
The Athletics Department is tasked with live streaming 16 NCAA Division I sports, which amounts to hundreds of games annually. Using Telestream Wirecast live streaming production software, the athletics department is able to meet the challenge, delivering HD-quality live streams of Big Red home games to the Ivy League Network, through the League-branded mobile app or through ESPN3, and Facebook Live.
MULTISPORT PRODUCTION
On busy game days, we often send multiple video crews across the campus to cover six or seven simultaneous events, including football, basketball, ice hockey, soccer, volleyball, wresting and field hockey. Our broadcast operation runs on a tight budget and relies largely on crews comprised of about 30 student volunteers. Despite these limitations, we’re able to use Wirecast to deliver 720/60p HD video, encoded using H.264 compression, with production standards that meet or exceed our fans’ expectations.
In addition to using Wirecast software on our laptops, we also use Wirecast Gear, a preconfigured, turnkey, self-contained device that includes what our crews need to set up and start streaming quickly. To move to the soccer, hockey and wrestling venues, Wirecast Gear is packed into its specially designed travel case, which has room to store a 19-inch monitor and two or three cameras…[continue reading]