San Angelo, Texas

“Hey, aren’t you the guy I saw on TV?” Surprisingly, that’s a question that Anthony Wilson—communications director for the City of San Angelo, Texas—gets asked a lot at supermarkets, restaurants, the gym, and other places around town.

While you might think he’s an on-air personality for the local TV station, he’s actually the “face” of San Angelo Television (SATV), the city government’s local access TV channel. Besides broadcasting on Suddenlink cable channel 17, SATV also distributes its videos via Facebook, YouTube, and the City’s website, cosatx.us. SATV’s mission is to keep San Angelo citizens informed about what their local government is doing for them.

While many government-run public affairs channels struggle to find viewers and stay relevant, Wilson and his colleague, City Videographer Brian Groves, are a two-man team that’s redefining what community media can be—a well-equipped, visually appealing, award-winning success story.

“We pride ourselves on producing the best video in this region,” said Groves. “Today’s video can’t just have substance, it also has to be a high-end product that really impresses viewers.” 

Despite the fact that their videos compete against those produced by regional ad agencies, production companies, and network TV affiliates, the SATV team has won 50 to 60 awards since 2013—the year Wilson joined the City’s Public Information Office, which produces SATV. Many of their awards have been for video production, including Groves’ Lone Star EMMY Award for the short film “Shattered Dreams” in 2017.

Video: The Go-To Medium

“The more people understand what our municipal government is doing, as well as how and why we’re doing the things we do, the more supportive they are. And, in this day in age, the best way for us to communicate with them is via video that’s accessible from multiple platforms,” Wilson said. 

On SATV’s many shows, Wilson conducts studio interviews with public officials and other special guests. The channel also features live city council meetings, community events, and talk shows focusing on public safety, property taxes, schools, and other city issues.

Behind the scenes, Groves serves as a one-man-band shooting, directing, and producing the shows largely because of the versatility of their new studio space, and the NewTek TriCaster TC1 live production switcher in the adjacent control room.

This efficient, ergonomic workflow was part of an end-to-end, turnkey package provided by Nelco Media that included the NewTek TriCaster TC1 4-HD/SDI input production switcher. Nelco also designed and built the set, lighting, and control room, as well as provided A/V systems integration.

“To ensure SATV’s success, the workflow had to be easy to learn, and easy for a one-man band to create a lot of content, including broadcast-quality live productions,” said Philip Nelson, CEO of Nelco Media. “SATV also needs to create a lot of content that responds quickly to hot topics involving the City.”

Quality Sells

While many U.S. PEG (public, education, and government) and public access stations struggle to make-do with SD cameras and sub-par production gear due to tight budgets, SATV acquired the HD video gear by using their “PEG dollars.” The local cable provider, Suddenlink, collects this fee that subscribers pay and gives it to the City of San Angelo to fund community media television.

“Since PEG dollars can only be used to cover A/V equipment, but not staff or freelance workers, that was another reason why the workflow had to be extremely efficient and ergonomic for a single employee to operate,” Nelson added. And to ensure that the PEG dollars would be spent wisely, Wilson embarked on an arduous, time-consuming Request for Proposal (RFP) process to solicit and evaluate prospective equipment vendors’ bids. The City Attorney’s office also helped him draft and review numerous contracts.

The final equipment package included: the TriCaster TC1, a LiveU 200, an Allen & Heath digital audio mixer, an assortment of studio and lavelier mics, six Canon C100 digital cameras, as well as a Kessler Crane camera jib and sliding crane motion control system that can be set-up and operated using an iPad.

According to Nelson, “The motion control slider enables Brian to have a dynamic shot where the camera slides back and forth across the studio without any need for a dedicated camera operator. And the jib lets him capture interesting angles of the studio, such as, downward views from the lighting grid.”

Finding their Mojo

Wilson and Groves are both extremely pleased with their new 30 by 20-foot studio space, which they renovated on the second floor of a city-owned building in an ideal location.

After covering one of their many city council meetings—which SATV simultaneously broadcasts and streams live—Wilson can invite one of the city officials back to their studio to recap the highlights of that meeting and more fully discuss the importance of key agenda items.

According to Groves, the studio lights and cameras are set up and the production is ready to roll with just a few button-clicks on the TriCaster’s control panel. While having a great studio and production switcher is not extraordinary for most broadcast stations, it’s a total gamechanger for this community media operation. To understand how their workflow has been revolutionized, let’s consider how life used to be before this upgrade.

“Every time we wanted to shoot an interview, we first had to find an available location, such as a conference room or the back of council chambers. We’d then have to lug two or three cameras, a lighting kit, backdrops, microphones and other stuff to that site, and spend three hours setting it all up and testing it,” Groves recalled. “To make matters worse, many segments we wanted to shoot only took about 10 minutes, and then we’d spend more time taking it all down, rolling up the cables, packing it away, and putting it back into storage.”

With the efficiency of this new studio and the TriCaster TC1, their productivity has increased dramatically, and as Groves puts it, “The TriCaster is a fantastic system that has made life easier. We just turn on a few switches, roll our program open, switch the cameras, roll the B-roll, roll titles, whatever we want our show to feature.” During production, the switcher takes care of outputting the live show for broadcast while simultaneously streaming it to a designated social media site.

With only a half-day’s training, Groves says the TC1 control panel was fairly easy to learn and intuitive enough for a single operator to manage every aspect of a live show with confidence.

Telling the Story from Every Angle

In the workflow designed the TriCaster is directly fed by four of the six HD/SDI Canon C100 studio cameras. The two additional C100s are connected to a “BirdDog” converter that converts the HD/SDI signal into the NDI^® IP-based network protocol for NDI^® input into the TriCaster.

Three of these cameras are on tripods, one is on the cine slider, one is on the jib, and the remaining camera is attached to a pole mounted near the ceiling for a wide shot. Prior to the show, Groves positions each of the cameras and then switches them using the TriCaster control panel while watching the studio through the control room window. 

Live graphics, including title graphics and lower third supers, are created in After Effects. Each graphical element is then imported into the TriCaster as a video clip along with its alpha channel. Brian can then roll them back from the TriCaster’s internal DDR as a downstream key overlay.  

Groves has tested TriCaster’s virtual set capabilities and has been impressed with the results, but they haven’t used that feature yet. Future plans include occasionally using a virtual set, likely based upon virtual set designs that come with the TC1.

The large, new studio space was designed to convey a unique sense of San Angelo, including paintings by local artists. The decor is continually reconfigured with different furniture, such as desks, couches, arm chairs, and coffee tables, to fit the mood of each show.

The overhead lighting grid supports a mix of conventional spotlights and accent lights, as well as Lightpanels Astra, Flolight Bladelights and other Mega Lite LED fixtures. The lighting design was not intended to be changed once the grid was set up. The lighting designer Lowry Perry conducted numerous lighting tests to ensure the right amount of illumination, given that the studio has many floor to ceiling windows. This natural light, which pours in and changes from day to night, needed to be filtered, while minimizing lighting reflections on the glass.

Lowry said, “We placed a special solar screen in front of the windows to cut down the light coming in. We chose a screen that did not have a pattern that could cause a moire effect when the cameras aimed at them. The screens roll down for production, and then roll back up when they want to have natural light coming in again.”

Shooting in the field is also much easier than before. Groves puts one of the C100s on a Movi Pro Stabilizer that allows him to move unobtrusively around the action while recording the video onto the camera’s media. This remote field capability gives them a greater, more visible presence in the community.

Never Lose Sight of the Mission

As a government entity, Wilson said that it was important for the City to tell its own story and to disseminate official information quickly via its own channels. The City’s Facebook page is also a valuable conduit that conveys comments and suggestions from over 29,000 unique followers. This feedback is used to raise the bar on future videos and shows and deliver programming that keeps viewers engaged.

In deciding which stories to cover on the channel, Wilson said, “We first ask ourselves, ‘Is it interesting? Is it of importance? and/or, Is it of impact’ to our citizens?”

If this three-pronged test isn’t met, we decline those opportunities in favor of stories that do support our objective—to enlighten our community about what our city government is doing, how we’re doing it, and why we’re doing it.”

EQUIPMENT LIST:

• NewTek TriCaster^® TC1 live video production switcher
• Six Canon C100 cameras; tripods
• Kessler cine slider motion control camera system
• Kessler Crane camera jib
• Allen & Heath digital audio mixer
• MoviPro Stabilizer
• BirdDog NDI^® signal converter
• Lighting grid with Astra LED lights, Mega Lite and Flolite Bladelights; solar screen
• Sennheiser Lavaliers and Heil Mics

Overview

Money Today Media Group is the fastest-growing media organization in South Korea, specializing in financial and economic news. The group comprises 20 subsidiaries and media channels—the prime among them being Money Today Networks (MTN). MTN broadcasts global and local financial market analyses and metrics through cable TV, IPTV, and the web. The network streams video around the clock to provide their viewers with the most up to date financial news—crucial for making informed decisions. Primarily targeted towards individual investors, MTN reaches 15 million households.

Hardware from previous setup is removed

The audit For close to eight years, MTN used a combination of hardware and software to live stream and record broadcasts for video on demand (VOD). This setup required the use of bulky computer equipment, which demanded a lot of time and resources to ensure they were operating correctly. Looking to minimize equipment and system maintenance, while improving video quality, MTN decided to upgrade their entire system setup. A sound investment TaenamDVI, an A/V integrator, worked closely with MTN to help improve their workflow, and recommended the Matrox® Monarch HDX dual-channel streaming and recording appliance. The encoder exceeded their expectations. Monarch HDX was easy to install, took up little real estate to store—reducing unnecessary clutter and wiring—and required less staff to manage than their previous setup. MTN tested other options at the same time, but none could match Monarch HDX in terms of performance, stability, usability, and scalability.

Optimizing assets MTN’s studio is equipped with six Monarch HDX H.264 encoder appliances—two for live streaming, three dedicated to VOD, and the sixth is used to stream and record simultaneously. Using a Sony® camera, 1080 video is transmitted to Monarch HDX, while sound is captured with a CRESTAUDIO audio mixer via Monarch HDX’s analog audio input. The two Monarch HDX appliances dedicated to live streaming each use both their encoding channels to transmit high-quality 1080p 30fps webcasts at 5 Mbps, and lower quality 480p 30fps webcasts at 1 Mbps. Streams are then sent to GABIA (a Korean CDN), YouTube, and Wowza Streaming Engine, as well as MTN’s own Flash Player to be viewed directly from their website. Simultaneously, each day’s broadcasts are set to record for VOD at a higher quality than the streams. For redundancy, three Monarch HDX devices record 1080p 30fps at 10 Mbps throughout the day. The Monarch appliances back up the recordings to the network attached storage (NAS) every 30 minutes to an hour using the Monarch HDX’s split file feature, but video can also be saved to an SD card or USB. This feature ensures that the majority of content will be preserved in the case of an unexpected event, such as a power failure.

New small footprint, easy-to-maintain Monarch HDX installation

MTN used the Monarch HDX API to develop a management application to monitor and control all Monarch appliances on the network

Entire programs are sometimes uploaded for VOD, but primarily viewers are only interested in a specific news segment or stock update. To shorten news items for VOD, a MTN editor copies the files stored on the NAS, and edits them into individual segments using Adobe Premiere®. MTN then uses their own content management system, which was developed using Monarch’s API found in Monarch HDX’s Dev Tools, to upload the videos to GABIA and YouTube. The MTN management application keeps operations on all the devices running smoothly. Through the application, administrators can take advantage of all the functionality built into the Monarch software such as view the status of all Monarch HDX devices, receive mobile notification status alerts, and schedule the devices to automatically reboot or start and stop recording at specified times.

Return on investment Since introducing Monarch HDX to MTN’s workflow, video quality has improved significantly resulting in positive feedback from the network’s viewership. Dual-channel streaming at different bitrates and to different destinations gives thousands of simultaneous viewers the ability to watch in the best quality possible based on their network bandwidth, viewing device, and chosen viewing platform. Due to Monarch HDX’s small footprint, IT administrators are able to manage and maintain the appliance with ease, especially when compared to their previous setup. Though the Monarch HDX appliances are in operation almost round the clock—about 23 hours and 30 minutes every day—their performance has been exceptionally stable and reliable throughout. In the future, MTN plans to begin using Monarch HD and Monarch HDX to webcast in high definition from outdoor venues, or while on the go. “Monarch HDX had it all: Highly-customizable streaming and recording options, simple-to-install and easy-to-maintain design, and a very attractive price point,” says Hyok Kim, head developer, Money Today Media Group. “Furthermore, space was saved and management tasks were reduced significantly. Needless to say, Monarch HDX made the upgrade project absolutely seamless, going above and beyond all our expectations.”

Management application MTN developed using the Monarch HDX API

About Monarch HDX

Matrox Monarch HDX is a versatile dual-channel encoder designed for today’s most demanding video delivery workflows. The Monarch HDX is ideal for use in broadcast or wherever a SDI or HDMI source needs to be sent to Facebook Live or YouTube Live, while simultaneously recording or streaming to a second location. Able to retrieve closed-captioning data from the SDI VANC, the Monarch HDX’s caption-enhanced H.264 media can be streamed to video hosting platforms, media servers, or a variety of content delivery networks (CDNs). MOV/MP4 files recorded with Monarch HDX preserve captions, which can be included in video on demand (VOD) or archiving workflows.

As the team grows, so does their data needs. See how the team was able to break through scaling barriers with the help of G-Technology solutions.

This case study is sponsored by G-Technology.

Q: How do I break into the adventure photography market?
A: Simple. Go on adventures and shoot great pictures!

(Interview excerpt with Corey Rich, Adventure/action photographer/director and Co-Founder of Novus Select)

Corey Rich, co-founder of Novus Select, is a no-nonsense, hard-working, fun-loving, and immensely-creative action and adventure photographer and director. He caught the photography bug at the early age of 13 while hauling his camera with him on rock climbing excursions. Throughout college and later as a photojournalist, Corey’s talent and projects have grown, but his philosophy remains unchanged— go out on adventures and shoot great photos. Corey’s photography has graced the covers for some of the world’s largest magazine publications.

Corey eventually realized that creating great photography could only go so far as a one-man show. So, Corey and three others (photographer Lincoln Else, photographer Wynn Ruji, and operations director Andy Mead) founded a small photo/video production outfit called Novus Select in a Lake Tahoe garage.

Over the last six years, Novus Select has blossomed into a full-blown creative agency. The now 14-person company recently moved from their small Lake Tahoe cabin to a real corporate office. Novus Select continues to grow its portfolio (see the Novus Select 2016 highlight reel) ranging from car commercials to documentaries for large, multinational corporations. Novus Select plans to continuing building for years to come, but that comes with inevitable growing pains and obstacles, particularly with managing back-end production storage.

A SEA OF STORAGE

Like most photographers who started before the late ‘90s, the Novus Select team originally shot on film. With the move to digital came the challenge of backing up – at first to CDs, then DVDs, and eventually external hard drives. As the jobs piled up, so did the drives. It fell to Novus Select’s Andy Mead to maintain this ocean of offline gigabytes and wade through it when requests came in for historical files, like for an update to a previous client project or for an internal promotional asset.

“When we went to cut the company reel a few years ago, and I had to track down a hundred hard drives to do it,” recalls Andy. “It was so utterly painful and inefficient. […] I knew that if we could someday migrate to a centralized, networked, high-performance server, cutting that reel would take a day instead of three weeks.”

Aside from the problem of tracking which assets exist on which drives, back-ups became another huge issue for management. By mid-2017, Novus Select was warehousing over one thousand drives, with half of them being backups of the other half. Corey mentioned that the majority of these drives are G-Technology® models and he has been very pleased with their performance.

Hoping to tame some of its rampant drive sprawl with a reliable brand, the Novus Select crew upgraded to three 80TB G-SPEED Shuttle XL storage towers, each with eight drive bays and extensive RAID configuration options. One of these towers remains on-site, another one goes to a facility three miles from the main office, and the third one resides roughly 50 miles away. Novus Select rotates these towers and updates them with regularly, periodic incremental backups, so that if some natural disaster, such as a flood or tornado, damages two of the G-SPEED Shuttle XL towers, the remaining G-SPEED Shuttle XL units would still keep the back-up media safe.

Having a tower with 80TB of storage – equipped with dual Thunderbolt 2 ports and a 1350MB/s maximum throughput read speed – dramatically boosted Novus Select’s efficiency on current projects. However, even 80TB wouldn’t be sustainable for long. The company’s growing business meant that producers were pouring in roughly 8TB of still images and video each month. Moreover, it was difficult to have concurrent workflows with more than one editor working off the main storage since the G-SPEED Shuttle XL is direct-connected storage
tethered to a single workstation.

The only sensible path forward became clear: Novus Select needed to scale up to a network-attached storage (NAS) infrastructure to keep up with its growing storage needs.

G-Technology products. We need reliability and speed, and we need it to be robust in the field. With years of seeing these qualities across G-Technology’s storage portfolio, we had high confidence of getting more of the same with the G-RACK 12. It was affordable, and G-Technology’s customer service has been extraordinary over the years.”

As any small company knows, finding the time between client work to make necessary back-end updates can be hard. The team needs to balance keeping the customers happy while also taking the time to evolve its infrastructure and efficiency behind-the-scenes. A bigger company could implement a full team to do the work, but for a small company, pulling out even one person to perform this upgrade can be hugely disruptive. Fortunately, the G-RACK 12 migration created no setbacks to productivity for Novus Select.

“I was shocked at how easy the G-RACK 12 was to install,” notes Novus Select Producer Brett Wilhelm. “Unpacking, loading the drives, installing in the racks, booting it up, and going through the wizards was maybe two hours of time. I can’t imagine how the web-based GUI could have been easier to navigate and implement. Physically copying the data is a separate step, but in terms of business impact, we saw no slow-down to our operations because of this storage install.”

THE LAST HAUL: ARCHIVING

While finally meeting its active and near-term data needs, Novus Select had one last storage issue to remedy: archiving. Maintaining tens (and soon hundreds) of terabytes of cold storage can be done on disk, but it’s more expensive than sending the data to a well-managed Linear Tape Open (LTO) solution. Novus Select opted for mLogic’s LTO-8 to mount adjacently to the G-RACK 12 storage server.

Going with LTO-8 tape drive offered several advantages. In place of consuming valuable network bandwidth for archiving, the LTO-8 connects to its host system via a Thunderbolt 2 port. In this case, the host computer runs the YoYotta LTFS backup, transcoding, and archival applications.
YoYotta efficiently pulls data from the G-RACK 12 storage server and pours it into the mLogic LTO-8 at up to 300 MB/s. Novus Select can also easily maintain archives in both work sites since the LTO-8 tape drive features two tape bays for making archives.

Novus Select now finds itself better organized and prepared with the G-RACK 12 storage server and mLogic LTO-8 tape drive side by side. With centralized network storage, it’s much easier for the Novus Select team to build portfolios and marketing assets letting them build their brand
better and faster. Having the G-RACK 12 allows the company to shift their focus from on asset management back to productive creativity. Most importantly, now the Novus Select team can find the time to do that one most elusive thing of all: enjoy life.

Pontus Eklof, COO of LiveAreno, was quick to realise the potential of the Internet as a means of distribution. He used this headstart to carve a unique niche in youth sportscasting across the Nordics

Around 15 years ago, a group of Swedish broadcast veterans got excited about the shift from analogue to digital TV that was taking place in countries around the world. The digital switchover (still in progress in some countries) promised an increased channel space, greater opportunity for niche channels, new types of interactivity and a host of other features. But the new technology didn’t quite meet their expectations, as Pontus Eklof, COO of Internet broadcast company, LiveArena remembers.

Eklof says,”Quite early on we realised this wasn’t going to be the big game changer. We saw that the significant change was actually going to be on the Internet, not in the switch from analogue to digital. So we started looking at what it was possible to do on the Internet We thought we’d get our usual production team together and we’d be ready to go.”

But Eklof and his colleagues discovered that delivering a production over the web was a different scenario from what they were used to doing in television. They needed bandwidth, storage, a whole lot of  things that hadn’t been issues until then, before they could fully utilise the Internet as a means of distribution.

In 2005, they launched their first Internet platform, based in Stockholm, called MPS Broadband. The company became LiveArena, a specialist in delivering live on-demand TV channels over the Internet to any device…..

….The service is also spreading to other countries. LiveArena has begun working with the National Sporting Federation of Norway, streaming additional sports, as well as other sporting federations in Sweden outside of ice hockey.

Norway took things a step further and wanted to have increasingly sophisticated productions for the more advanced players, including multi-camera shoots, scoreboards and graphics and commentary.

“We needed to figure out more advanced solutions. We developed a sturdy compute r that would work in cold ice hockey arenas and be rugged. We needed a good software solution and chose Telestream’s Wirecast‘….read more

Norway’s University of Agder is among the pioneers of higher education institutions that record and stream lectures for a major portion of their curriculum. They began ten years ago with traditional recording and post production for streaming and on-demand video. Today, their program is based in state-of-the-art IP workflow for live video production and streaming with two TriCaster® TC1 16-input UHD integrated live production systems and a suite of cameras and devices enabled with NewTek’s bi-directional IP technology NDI®.

Audio, video, metadata, control and communications for video production are all handled over the network rather than with baseband video, audio and control cables, saving huge costs in infrastructure. In addition, this powers incredible flexibility and portability for the 17 cameras available for coverage across the campuses of the university. Computer systems equipped with free NewTek NDI applications can make their full display or specific application windows available as video sources on the network as well. The result is that a small crew has been able to achieve 150 hours of live production and streaming per week, with improved production quality for many aspects, such as getting a live feed of the media used from the lecturer’s system or device, rather than having to aim a camera at a projection screen or video display in the classroom.

“When we at first started live streaming lectures, there was always a lot of configuration to go through – finding the right IP address, which port and which protocol to use. Now, with TriCaster and NDI, any box connected in any auditorium will automatically appear on the TriCaster – it is simply plug and play, and we save a lot of time,” says Rolf Sigurd Løvland….read more

“If a production system is too complicated, it doesn’t really matter if it has amazing quality or a large number of inputs. If students can’t figure out how to use it quickly, then it’s really not for us.”

That’s the viewpoint Imry Halevi takes as Director of Multimedia and Production at Harvard University Athletics.

And he has 275 reasons why.

Ivy League Math

Harvard has more Division I sports teams than any other school in the country.

For each of those teams—except the ten that are not suited to live streaming, because of logistical challenges or site issues—the department is responsible for producing and broadcasting all home games.

That means his department covers 32 teams throughout the academic year.

With an athletic season that begins in late August and ends in early May, this tallies up to an annual average of 275 games to produce. Often, several at the same time.

Case in point: a recent winter weekend with enough sports programming to rival the PyeongChang Olympic games.

“On Friday, we had men’s and women’s track and field, men’s swimming and diving, women’s basketball, and women’s hockey,” says Halevi. “And Saturday, we had women’s tennis, women’s squash, men’s squash, men’s tennis, men’s swimming and diving, women’s swimming and diving, wrestling, women’s hockey, and women’s basketball.”

And this is where the math breaks down. Because there’s only one full-time professional on staff to produce these games—Halevi himself.

Like many college sports video programs, he enlists a rotating crew of interns, recent graduates, and part-time student assistants. To ensure the highest-quality coverage, even with a lot of beginners and frequent turnover, Halevi has developed a two-pronged approach:

• First, production equipment that new crew members can quickly learn to operate.
• And second, workflows implemented so instinctively that neither beginners nor experts have to think about the technology behind them.

For both, he turned to NewTek….[continue reading]

In the past, the LAPD had no method of its own to disseminate video of press conferences or emergency related alerts, instead needing to rely on local media outlets to help spread the word. The arrival of Public Information Director Josh Rubenstein—who came to the department from one of LA’s media outlets—set the goal to change that through live streaming.

At first, Guzman and his unit of officers would use their city-issued smartphones to stream video to platforms like Facebook Live or Periscope. However, Guzman quickly realized that there were a lot of limitations that came with a cell phone being the primary tool for live streaming. …

“The officers that work in my unit—that’s myself and four officers—we’re not the most techie people in the world,” he said. “We’re not trained professional videographers, per se, we’re police officers. So we needed something that was simple to use. [The LiveU Solo was] something I was able to train officers in my unit literally like in five minutes how to use the equipment and they were up and running.”

….[continue reading]

The broadcast media program at Whitney High School, a public high school in Rocklin, CA, stands out as one of the most impressive and successful programs of its kind in the country. Using Telestream’s Wirecast live video streaming production software, the students produce a 15-minute daily newscast, that features news, sports and lifestyle segments. Called Unleashed, the award-winning program has now expanded into a full-fledged community television station, branded as WCTV19, which is watched on the school’s campus-wide TV channel, as well as on two local cable channels, and on the school’s social media outlets.

“I want our students to develop classroom-to-career skills, and to get a feel for every aspect of broadcast news production in a very professional atmosphere. This program is designed to teach them broadcast journalism skills, and then apply those skills to actually producing all of the features and content that we need to make Unleashed a professional looking newscast,” explains Ben Barnholdt, Teacher/Director of the Broadcast Media Program at Whitney High School.

As an all-in-one live production and streaming system, Wirecast is now central to the school’s broadcast studio and remote production workflow and distribution. By continually expanding and upgrading their facilities, WCTV19 now looks like a professional television station, complete with a studio with a news set, HDTV studio cameras, a teleprompter, microphones, and a bluescreen background. During the production, a student crew runs the cameras and teleprompters in the studio. In the control room, a separate student crew handles the technical execution of the show.

While Wirecast integrates the functionality of video production switcher, Barnholdt has one student switching the four camera feeds using a third-party production switcher. Then that switcher’s output flows in real-time into Wirecast where the show’s finishing touches are added.

“Wirecast is a very user-friendly program that our students pick-up quickly, including how to bring in media files, such as graphics and video clips, from hard drives. Because of its many pre-sets, our Wirecast workflow is fairly automated, and we can now have a show put together and ready to roll in just 40 minutes,” says Barnholdt…[continue reading]

Weighing only seven ounces, the NewTek Connect Spark is revolutionizing the video production workflow for the Louis Riel Arts & Technology Centre (ATC) Broadcast Media Program, one of the trade skills taught at this vocational high school in Winnipeg, Canada. In fact, Spark is the most revolutionary solution this budget-conscious school has come across since, well, NDI® itself.

It all started when Kenneth Plaetinck—Instructor for ATC’s Broadcast Media Program—wanted to be able to do live remote multi-camera video production at sporting events taking place at other high schools across the Louis Riel school division from a centralized control room. After all, when winter in Manitoba brings subfreezing temperatures, it’s not pleasant to have to pack-up road cases full of video gear onto a trailer to get them to remote production sites.

The first step to making this dream a reality was to implement NDI, NewTek’s IP video-driven networking technology. The second phase, now underway, involves deploying four small Connect Spark devices, which convert camera signals from HD-SDI or HDMI to NDI so they can be sent over the network.

The NDI/Connect Spark combo enables them to reduce their remote production kit from hundreds of items—packed in several road cases—down to just four cameras, tripods, and mics.

Through ingenuity, Plaetinck and the school division’s IT team found a way to break through many layers of technical challenges to design an optimal networking solution that dramatically streamlines their remote production workflow…[continue reading]

Learn how Cleveland Middle School uses Wirecast to produce their daily news show
Cleveland Middle School needed a way to produce their daily news show and tried using various streaming solutions. They implemented Telestream Wirecast live streaming production software. In addition to providing excellent streaming stability, Wirecast allowed them to use complex graphics during the production of the show without expensive or complex graphics systems with alpha channels. And it was easy to use.

“We consistently produce high quality broadcasts with Wirecast and the best part is that it’s so easy to use that the students just click a button to start the stream.” – Cody Raper, Communications Instructor at Cleveland Middle School
– Read the case study

Customer Stories

Live News
France Télévisions uses Wirecast to stream live regional elections coverage
“Wirecast’s video production capabilities as well as its exceptional performance in demanding real-world conditions led us to choose it as our exclusive live streaming production platform.”
Read the case study

Live Events
Learn how Category 5 relies on Wirecast Pro for its live technology webcast
“Wirecast Pro has helped us create a polished, professional broadcast using affordable consumer hardware, which has attracted new viewers to our show.”
Read the case study

Education
Learn how Keck School of Medicine of USC uses Wirecast to produce VOD lectures
“Our goal is to produce videos of our college lectures that offer the same high-quality production standards that viewers have come to expect from a TV newscast.”
Read the case study

Sports
Harvard University uses Wirecast to live stream their sports
Wirecast gives Harvard University flexibility for a variety of live streaming productions – from a one camera stream on a boat, to a multi-camera ESPN3-level telecast.
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Sports
Munzing Media uses Wirecast to stream high school sports on Maine Today Media websites
“When viewers tell us our webcasts are on par with TV games they’ve seen, we’re very proud of that.”
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Church Services
Learn how Shiloh Ministries broadcasts the Word with Wirecast live streaming software
“While Wirecast Pro gives us a sophisticated, full-featured video production set-up, the workflow is still practical, affordable and easy to use.”
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Reviews

Telestream Wirecast 7 Review
Wirecast 7 is a software for LIVE video switching with the capability of live keying, titling and many other options. It’s easy to use and depending on what you use it for quite affordable. We would recommend it. – VideoMaker Magazine, October 2016
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Wirecast Cam App Guide: Live Streaming on iOS
Looking for a quick fire Wirecast Cam app guide? This walkthrough will take you through the various steps in order to begin live video streaming using the app. – DaCast
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Review: Telestream Wirecast 6
“Overall, for many producers, the playlist function alone should be sufficient to justify the upgrade price. Otherwise, the Wirecast 6 upgrade contains multiple new features that simplify operation, improve viewer engagement and add polish to the webcast.”
– Streaming Media Producer, April 2015
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Sean Green Show
Tom Prehn discusses the history of streaming and the benefits of Wirecast streaming software by Telestream . 3/17/15
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More Customer Stories

Sports
KABCOM captured and streamed the entire 2013 competitive fencing season leveraging the Matrox VS4 and Telestream Wirecast
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The Lacrosse Network: “Despite our tight budgets and lean staff, Wirecast enables us to meet our goal of aggregating and delivering top-notch lacrosse programming to our growing global audience.”
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Ellegy streams live web coverage of the International GT Open with Telestream and Matrox.
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Extreme Sailing Series: “We explored several other live streaming alternatives. However, we kept coming back to Wirecast, as it offered a very high production value at a competitive price.”
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Harvard University Athletics put together a high definition, three camera production system for $3,500 to stream productions for their 42 division 1 varsity teams.
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Mount Royal Curling Club leverages the Telestream Wirecast Pro and Matrox VS4 to deliver a live-switched feed of the 2013 Canadian Mixed Curling Championship.
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Live Events
Oregon Children’s Choral Festival: “Wirecast makes it easy for a single operator to run the whole show — including camera switching, audio and graphics – using off-the-shelf consumer hardware.”
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GoHarrison: “Wirecast took us from local to global. This little piece of software delivers absolutely everything in the most perfect way. I can’t wait to find out what the future is going to look like as they take this thing an unimaginable next step later.”
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ConferenceRecording.com: “Wirecast is a wonderful solution for any organization or entity that wants to share the experience and impact of their live event with a global audience.”
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321 Cadence: “We evaluated several products and selected Telestream Wirecast for its reliable, multi-format live streaming, ease of use, and excellent support. Upon installation, everything worked flawlessly. This is definitely the way to go for live webcasting.”
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Asset.tv expanded its business to include live webcasting services using Telestream Wirecast. “Wirecast makes it a snap to switch between multiple live cameras and other sources … offering production values comparable to television broadcast.”
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The B-Cast: “With Wirecast, I don’t need a TV tower or contract with a cable company. It allows me to easily be on-air with worldwide audiences.”
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The DV Show chooses Wirecast over other live streaming solutions. “We tried and tested every software product available to stream our video podcast live over the web and Wirecast is the clear winner. We can confidently bring broadcast quality content to our demanding audience of video professionals.”
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Harvey Mudd College used Wirecast 4.1 installed on a PC laptop to stream its 2011 commencement – for live and on-demand Web viewing by graduates’ families and friends.
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Mobeon used Wirecast Pro and Matrox VS4 to stream the 2012 World Latin Dance Cup Finals. “This price-point is a real game changer. It puts the ability to stream very high-quality, HD multicamera shows within reach of many who previously couldn’t afford to do it.” – Mark Alamares, CEO, Mobeon
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Purtle.com Brass Camp Streams Live with Wirecast. “Wirecast provided a professional-level broadcast at an affordable price.” – Jeff Purtle, Founder, PBC
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Gaming
Mediakinetic uses Wirecast to help Activision launch Call of Duty: Black Ops. “Reliability above all other aspects was the main reason we chose Wirecast to produce the live webcast.”
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Education
Amherst Middle School: “From the moment we demoed Wirecast, we were instantly impressed with its screen layout, features, workflow and capabilities. The set-up was so easy, it wasn’t long before we went live with Wirecast.”
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Polar Bears International: “Wirecast is a simple yet effective tool that allows us to mimic everything a large television studio would do, but from our remote location.”
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Heather Krieger, Heim Middle School: “…this program is awesome! I was rather intimidated at first, but it is very user-friendly and will serve as a perfect platform for our school video announcements! Thanks!”

Deep Earth Academy takes Wirecast to the bottom of the sea for Educational webcasts
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Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth University uses Wirecast to enhance the video recordings for weekly presentations. They like its ability to record multiple video inputs, synchronize slides, stream live video to the web and its ease of use.
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Church Services
Wayfarer’s Chapel: “The current system, with Wirecast at the heart, allows us to provide couples many options that include a quality finished product upon departure from the grounds.”
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Jason Lee of Northwoods Community Church talks about live streaming their outdoor baptisms to online attendees and how he has simplified the set up and equipment needed to move from the main service to the outdoor baptism portion.
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Don Doss, the Director of Music Ministries at Fredricksburg United Methodist Church in Texas, outlines how he outfitted his small church with equipment to produce high quality live streams and video on a budget.
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Journey Church takes message online with Telestream Wirecast: Church’s IT consultant finds system an easy way to produce professional production inexpensively
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Phillips Street Church of Christ: “We’ve discovered that operators only require one service, which lasts no more than a couple of hours, to become proficient. In fact, my 12-year-old son runs the equipment like a pro!.”
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Van Buren First Assembly of God uses Wirecast to stream services to web audiences, enabling cost-effective, outreach to members at remote sites for live and on-demand viewing.
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More Reviews

Telestream Debuts Wirecast 6.0, Offers Replays, Playlists, Tweets
The live streaming tool takes a big step forward with the ability to create instant replays, automate broadcasts with playlists, and much more. – Streaming Media, November 2014

Telestream’s Wirecast Pro Connects Centennial Gala
“We have found Telestream’s Wirecast Pro 5 unique in its ability to allow switching of live web stream sources, as well as converting live streams to ProRes format in real time. With its many built-in features, Wirecast Pro 5 has certainly proven to us to be the Swiss Army knife of live streaming production.” – Video Edge Magazine, 4/2014

Review: Producing Webcasts with Telestream Wirecast and Matrox VS4
“Running Telestream Wirecast with the Matrox VS4, a powerful, well-integrated capture card, handling most of the input/encoding/previewing load, yields impressive results that catapults Wirecast into the TriCaster/Livestream Studio class of product when it comes to responsiveness.”
– Jan Ozer, Streaming Media Producer, March 2013

Wirecast Review
Wirecast is an efficient tool designed to enable professional-looking live-streaming events Wirecast earns the 5 Star Editor’s Pick Award from Software Informer.

Why We Chose Wirecast
“We tried and tested every software product available to stream our video podcast live over the web and Wirecast is the clear winner.”
– Brian Alves, the DV Show

Wirecast: The Definitive Review
“With Wirecast, Telestream has significantly improved usability with a redesigned interface, beneficially expanded the product’s input capabilities, and upgraded the product’s plumbing with features like x.264 encoding and HD-SDI output via Blackmagic Design Intensity or DeckLink cards. All told, these improvements make the upgrade price a no-brainer decision.”
– Streaming Media Producer, January 2014