OT: How the heck do I .........

JasonMurray wrote on 10/14/2004, 2:31 AM

Hi guys,

This one's not Vegas-related, but I'm hoping to draw on your collective expertise :)

My employer wants to do a live, switched-camera feed from a surfing event in Fiji next year. I'm being given plenty of notice on this in order to make it work (yay) but I'm a little unsure as to what I should be looking at in order to actually do it.

Basically, I'll have access to the feeds from broadcast-quality cameras on a tower in the ocean. Whether I'll be on that tower or not, I'm not sure.

Assuming there's some kind of system I or someone else can use to switch between those feeds (suggestions anyone?), what software do I use to compress and broadcast the video stream to the server...?

I'm a bit of a newbie as far as streaming live feeds goes, too - what I do know is that within a month, our sites will be hosted with Telstra and we have a potential audience (based on the 'net audience from this year's event) of 1,000,000, so sponsorship from Telstra for the broadcast probably won't be a problem.

Anyone ... anyone? :)

Comments

farss wrote on 10/14/2004, 2:42 AM

Jason,
certainly not an expert on streaming but first thing you need is a vision switcher, Panny MX50 will handle 4 inputs and will also mix audio. Nothing flash and they're hardly the latest but they actually work better than a lot of the newer gear which has a lot of latency.
For streaming you could use Windows Media Encoder, need a zippy machine I expect, depending on resolution.
Alternatively there's a number of WM9 hardware encoders on the market which maybe more reliable. Seeing as how you're in Oz, check out videoguys.com.au, I remember them having such a card.

Bob.

JasonMurray wrote on 10/14/2004, 2:51 AM

Thanks for that!

I might give videoguys a buzz ... I bought my Vegas from 'em :)