Taffy

Hi all.

For those of you who haven’t read Stretch Internet’s previous blog, my name is Imry Halevi, and I am the associate director of video production at Northeastern University.

A few weeks ago, I contributed a post to this blog regarding the hockey and basketball broadcasts we produce at Northeastern, which we stream using our Stretch Internet Portal.

Some people who read the post commented that while they appreciate everything that we do to make our productions looks good, they could never afford all the equipment we use to pull together a multi-camera HD production. I completely understand that. Video productions can range anywhere from full-scale TV truck productions with equipment costs in the millions of dollars, to a camera and a laptop that cost no more than a couple of thousand dollars. Both are perfectly fine streaming options, and both can result in great productions.

Admittedly, our hockey and basketball streams fall a little closer to TV truck productions than most schools can afford. However, those are not the only games we produce. These days, we’re busy producing soccer, volleyball and field hockey games. For these non-arena productions, we’ve been using an old NewTek Tricaster Broadcast and some other supporting equipment to stream a fine SD broadcast.

However, we’ve always had an eye out for a way to upgrade these streams on a budget, as the difference in quality between our all-digital HD productions and all-analog SD production has been quite noticeable.

 

Therefore, we were very excited to see Newtek’s announcement a couple of weeks ago, launching a new switcher – the Tricaster 40. With a list price of $5,000, this is NewTek’s low-end switcher. It is capable of HD production and streaming, and provides a lot of options that have historically been found only in professional (read “expensive”) switchers. After reviewing the above side-by-side shot, our athletics administration gave us the go-ahead to purchase the new Tricaster.

Working around this new switcher, we’ve been able to put together multi-camera HD productions for all our sports with less than $10,000 (switcher included).

Obviously $5,000 (or $10,000) is not for everyone. However, for schools that have some kind of video production budget, it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

 

We’ve worked with this switcher for a couple of weeks now, and I can safely say that it has blown me away. It’s fast, easy to use and contains a tremendous amount of features.

I’ll spend the rest of this post briefly outlining how we spent the $10,000, and how we make our low-end productions look the best it possibly can.

Our production has 6 important parts:

1. Video Switcher (Tricaster 40) – $5,000
2. Three Cameras (We use Sony HDR-FX7)
3. A Macbook Pro with Telestream Wirecast
4. A PC laptop for creating our score bug
5. A Daktronics All-Sport CG for getting the score bug data – $1,300
6. Some cables, converters, adapters and distribution amplifiers

(7. For some of our productions we use a NewTek 3Play for instant replay. But that is not at all required)
(8. We also use Sennheiser announcer headsets and a Behringer mixer, but these are not required)

Below are the details of how we use each of the above pieces of equipment:

1. The new Tricaster 40 is at the center of our productions. We use it to switch cameras, play back pre-recorded videos and animations, display overlays and stream our production in HD (more on that later). Each camera is connected to the Tricaster using component cables. Component cables (which are red, green and blue) are analog (as opposed to the digital SDI), but allow high-quality HD video transmission.

Many professional video cameras use SDI connections to get a video signal to the switcher or other video display. While SDI is admittedly better quality than component, it is much more expensive, and less common in “prosumer” cameras. That is why NewTek opted for component connections with the Tricaster 40. The Tricaster allows you to mix-and-match different types of cameras with different types of resolutions and connections without the need for converters or adapters.

Like most switchers, the Tricaster works with several different layers of content. A background layer, which usually displays a videos source, and DSK layers (downstream keyer) which contain overlay graphics. The Tricaster 40 has two DSKs. We use one of these DSKs to overlay our automated score bug on top of our video streams and the other for other in-game graphics (such as lower thirds).

Most times, we use the Tricaster itself to generate all our non-score-bug graphics. We use NewTek’s LiveText software to create all the titles, and then upload them to the Tricaster for fast and easy update and live display. If your production staff is limited, the Tricaster 40 really does make it very easy for one person to both switch and update graphics on the go.

 

The Tricaster also features four “Virtual Input” channels, which allow you to create composite shots ahead of time and then display them on your screen. We’ve used these virtual inputs to display side-by-side shots of coaches, or picture-in-picture shots of two important things going on at the same time.

Finally, we use our Tricaster to stream our games in HD. Personally, I don’t like the Tricaster’s streaming function. It’s rather limited in its options, and provides no feedback or indication as to the quality of the stream (real time data rate, frames per second, etc.). I really like to use Wirecast for streaming, as it allows for customization of all streaming options and provides great live metrics.

Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. We stream our HD productions at a rate of 2Mbps. That’s great for many viewers, but not for those who have slower internet connections. Therefore, we’ve worked out a system with Ryan and his crew to stream each game twice, once in SD and once in HD, and list them twice on the portal (see screenshot above). Our viewers get to choose which stream they want to watch.

Unfortunately, our Macbook Pro with Wirecast cannot support streaming in both HD and SD. The CPU usage just goes through the roof. In addition, Tricaster, by design, can only support one stream at a time. Therefore, we are forced to use both Wirecast and Tricaster for streaming. We stream our HD feed from Tricaster and our SD feed from Wirecast. We also use Wirecast to record our production, as it offers many more recording options than the Tricaster.

Luckily, the Tricaster provides several video and audio output options that allow us to connect our feed to the Macbook Pro using a Canopus box or an Aja IO HD capture device.

Overall, it has worked out fine. The only difficultly with this setup is matching the audio levels between the two streams. I’ll let you know once I figure it out!

 

In addition to the live video sources, we also connect an audio output from our mixer into the Tricaster. We usually have five external audio sources for every production (PxP, Color, Sideline, FX, PA), so a mixer is necessary. However, if all you have for audio sources is an announcer microphone and an ambient mic, you can connect them directly into the Tricaster. No external mixer needed.

Finally, we use Tricaster’s network inputs to bring in the score bug (more on that later).

2. We use Sony HDR-FX7 cameras for our soccer, volleyball and field hockey broadcasts. They are not nearly as good as our JVC GY-HM700 cameras, which are used for hockey and basketball, but they are HD, easy to use, and cost a fraction of the price of the JVCs.

 

3. As I mentioned earlier, we use a Macbook Pro to stream our games in SD using Wirecast.

4. and 5. One of our goals for this year was to make sure that all our games had professional-looking score bugs. That meant that we were not going to use a small camera pointed at the score board to crop out the clock. While an easy method, a cropped camera doesn’t look great, and definitely doesn’t look very professional. To that end, we’ve invested in two different devices. The first is a PC laptop. Any PC laptop would do, as long as it has a USB port. We then installed NewTek’s LiveText software on that laptop (the software comes free with the Tricaster 40, if you buy the “educational” package).

 

The second device is a Daktronics All-Sport CG. This device wirelessly receives score and clock information from most Daktronics All-Sport score boxes, and can do two things with that information. It can provide a live data feed into the LiveText laptop, or it can be used to burn a generic score bug on your video automatically. This generic score bug is, well, generic, and therefore not really ideal (though very easy to use).

We connect the All-Sport CG to our PC laptop using a DB9-to-USB cable. With just a little bit of setup, the LiveText recognizes the data feed and automatically populates any score bug graphic you may have with clock and score information.

As long as the PC laptop and the Tricaster are both connected to the same network, they will recognize each other without any issues. We use Tricaster’s Network 1 input to get the score bug into the switcher.

 

That’s basically it. You can add as much equipment as you want to this setup. We often add a replay system, an audio mixer, announcer headsets and a DVD recorder. However, none of these is required.

So far, the Tricaster 40 has been incredible. It fit perfectly within our productions and allowed us to do HD on a budget, without getting new cameras or any new equipment at all. It does have its limitations, such as less-than-ideal streaming and recording options, few transitions, no digital inputs and no control surface (yet). However, these issues are easily outweighed by the relatively low price point. I think this could be a great option for any school or organization looking to upgrade their productions to HD, without breaking the bank.

As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions. I’m happy to tell you more about our productions or send you any videos, photos or examples of what we do.

Imry

i.halevi@neu.edu
617-373-4469

 

If you were the literal type, you could interpret the picture above to mean the customer comes last… of course that is the opposite of the truth here at Stretch where the customer always comes first!  Here is where we insert an emoticon to represent clean-cut, smiling, sparkly- tooth teen from the 60′s.  How about:

=)*

Not bad right?  Asterisks DO have a purpose besides reminding us of the steroids era.

Anyways, I would like to take a blog-post worth of your time to talk about one of the driving forces behind the Stretch Internet brand – customer service.  Please be forewarned there may be some horn tooting going on in this post, but we do want to express the importance we place on service, as well as hear from those of you who are clients and get your thoughts.  It has always been our goal to provide customer service that dazzles, or that knocks the proverbial sock off.  Having recently returned from the 2011 CoSIDA convention in Marco Island, FL, Ryan was pleased to hear the overwhelmingly positive response to our service.  Quite honestly, while not downplaying the genuine sense of pride we get from hearing this feedback, this is what we expect to hear – anything less would mean we simply aren’t doing our job properly.  That said, we were happy to see that our efforts are helping to make your streaming experience as painless as possible.

The backbone of Stretch has always been, and always will be our customer service.  It is something that we take a great deal of pride in, and something that we truly feel sets us apart from the field.  We have staff in place that is ready to assist you from start to finish with your broadcasting needs.  Another bonus of our platform is that we do just one thing – streaming – and we do it very well.  So anytime you call in to reach us you can rest assured that you will reach a tech who can help you resolve your issue. You won’t get anything like this:

Recently a client e-mailed us that there was some discussion about our product in a recent SID chat hosted by Union College SID Jay Stancil.  These are unsolicited client comments that we were not aware of until after the fact.  We were pleased to read people’s responses, and felt like they provided an unfiltered, honest review of our service.  Here are a few samples of what people had to say, you can find the full chat transcript here.

UWPlatt_SID:
Does anyone have any recommendations for webstreaming providers?
2:12

Ryan (Coe):
Stretch Internet
2:13

Jay (UC_SID):
We use Stretch and love it
2:13

Eric Scott (ericscott21):
As a viewer, Stretch has been the best…just never worked with it.
2:13

Aaron (PanthersSID):
Ryan and his staff at Stretch are second to none in customer service…anytime there is a problem…they are all over it…easy to work with!
2:14

Jay (UC_SID):
Stretch is great to work with. Highly recommend them
2:14

Comment From DrGeoff (Indy)
Stretch is great
2:16

Matt (Milligan):
We don’t use Stretch, but I love when we play at a school with Stretch. I really like the interface they have.
2:16

UWPlatt_SID:
I think Stretch seems to be the consensus.
2:14

First of all, a big thanks to those of you who are spreading the good word about our service.  We are grateful for the kind words and we find a lot of schools seek us out because of all you good people, so thanks again!

All that being said, we are still constantly seeking out new ideas and ways to improve our customer service.  Here are a few things that we are implementing this year to help continue improving our customer relations:

1.  First, we will be adding to the staff here at Stretch by hiring 1-2 Operations & Customer Care Specialists.  More clients lead to more streams lead to more customer support needs, therefore we are expanding the Stretch family.  Again, any time you call us with a question or anytime we call you, the tech on the phone will be more than capable of getting your stream up and running.

2.  For new clients, and existing clients who may be expanding their service, we will be setting you up with your own ‘Project Manager’.  One of our capable support techs will work with you one-on-one from the very beginning to help you clear up any questions and make sure that you’re ready to go when your first event rolls around.  We can walk you through any equipment needs, run a test feed from the broadcast location and help gauge your network connection to ensure that your stream will hold steady.  It is important to note here that once the initial setup is complete, you aren’t restricted to your project manager in terms of support needs.  In other words we will have one person who helps you through the initial phase, and from there any one of our techs can address future problems (which, if all goes well, will be few and far between).

3.  We are in the process of implementing a new system that will allow us to screen-share with our clients when they are on site for a broadcast.  If you have ever used Go to my PC or some similar software that should give you a rough idea of what we are talking about.  If you are having problems on site that we cannot address over the phone, our techs will actually be able to remotely access your machine, allowing us to get a better look at what might be causing the problem.  And lest any big brother-esque fears arise, the program will have to be activated on both ends to allow us access to your machine, so fear not.  Once activated, we can take a closer look at any software or system settings that might be causing an issue.  Our hope is that this will prevent most technical issues as we will be able to check and adjust the client’s local settings.

That gives you some insight into our philosophy on customer care. What are your thoughts?  What are some things that you look for to indicate good vs. bad customer service?  Examples?

One interesting sidebar is the use of social media in customer service.  There are many companies that have branched into social media, particularly twitter, as an outlet for customer service.  In fact a big reason we are expanding our social media presence is in an effort to further connect with our customers.  While we have debated using twitter for customer service, we haven’t come up with a useful/efficient method on incorporating this into the fold for the direct purpose of customer care.  Any thoughts on this?  Let us know and thanks for reading – until next time!