Blogs

The 2018 "Producer of the Year" award went to Kelly Kingsbury, on behalf of Ludlow Baptist Church. Our station has had a long-lasting relationship with the church, dating back 13 years. Kelly's father, Fenwick Kingsbury, began recording Sunday services for the church, using our camera and sound equipment, in 2005. In the beginning, the "labor of love" was a multi-step process that involved Fenwick being a regular fixture in our former one-room facility in the Ludlow Elementary School Building. He would pick up the equipment each Friday, returning it on Monday mornings, when he would he would "capture" the videotape onto the editing system (in real time...things were a little different then). He would come back once or twice throughout the week to finish the edit, so we could have it ready to televise over the weekend.
(Photo on left: Kelly receives award on behalf of Ludlow Baptist Church, from Executive Director Patrick Cody).

Fenwick passed away in 2011, but his legacy and the tradition have carried on. For several years now, Fenwick's daughter, Kelly, has recorded the weekly services, and has shared in the editing duties with Roger Croswell, who delivers the finished product to us each week. All of this is handled electronically, off site.  While the church now owns its own equipment  and technology has helped, this process has continued, week in & week out over the years. Ludlow Baptist Church services have been a mainstay of our programming this whole time - we can set our clocks to it. We thank Kelly and Roger for keeping it going, and remember Fenwick for the foundation he built.

(Fenwick Kingsbury, editing in our old facility in the Elementary School, circa 2005).

Once again, Black River H.S. student Natasha Fortin is competing in the National History Day documentary competition. National History Day is taking place this week, just outside of Washington, D.C. at the University of Maryland. Pictured here is Natasha with DVD copies of her documentary, just before leaving for the 10-hour road trip. She gained this honor after finishing in first place at the Vermont History Day competition in April. This year, Natasha's project is a short documentary on Nichelle Nichols' ground-breaking role in Star Trek. The production, including the scripting, voice-over narration, and editing, was all done at Okemo Valley TV. Natasha (and formerly, her sister Aiyana, a 2017 Black River graduate), has been producing documentaries for History Day with us for many years. Black River High School has a long history of participation in and success with the VT and National History Day programs. And we have a special relationship with Black River & History Day. Here's a little of our own history for you: we were originally founded in 2001 after long-time B.R. history teacher, Sue Pollender, was looking for a venue in the local community equipped to help students with the video documentary portion of History Day. She learned that Ludlow could have its own community access TV station, and voila! Every year since, we have worked with Black River students on their History Day documentaries. But that's a story for another time...

For now, this about Natasha and Black River. We wish them well at this year's History Day. Congratulations is also in order to Black River history teacher Ms. Suzette Cyr for continuing on and developing such success among her students. You can read more about Black River students' History Day activities this year here. You can watch Natasha's 1st place “Frontier of Change: Nichelle Nichols’ Conflict and Compromise Regarding her Role in Star Trek" here.

10 years ago, our old friend Pat Valente, recorded this Memorial Day reflection in our old studio. Over the years, he recorded many such videos on his long-running series "Update from Pat Valente". I thought today would be a good time to bring this particular one back. Pat was a regular fixture in that old studio. I miss having him around.

- Patrick

 

The NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) holds the largest annual trade show and expo for the media & entertainment industries. It happens in Las Vegas every April. I attended this year, in part to connect with Ann Marie Cumming, who is the V.P. of Communications for NAB, and who happens to be from the area (she grew up in Bellows Falls- her mother, Jean Morrill, was on our Board of Directors for several years). I was also at the NAB Show to do some research on developing technologies and the latest equipment. There was A LOT to see and to digest. As part of my work on behalf of the Vermont Access Network, a collection of community TV stations throughout the State, I did some research on two really hot media technologies: OTT (over-the-top) and live streaming. 

Here's a video I made of my NAB Show experience:

Check out my blogs on each:

NAB Report: OTT (over-the-top) 

NAB Report: Live Streaming

Oh, and not only did I get to catch up with Ann Marie at the show, but I also connected with Phil Newman (in photo below), who was there working as a freelance cameraman for Adobe! Phil grew up in Ludlow, graduated from Black River, attended Okemo Mountain School, and did some work for us, too! He was one of our first and most active volunteers, and also sat on our Board of Directors. He is now a cinematographer and camera operator based in LA.  

A major focus of the 2018 NAB Show was on IP-based broadcasting, and, in particular, streaming video. A whole (huge) room was dedicated to IP video.  In the workshops, much attention was given to new and developing technolgies for IP solutions and streaming. There was even a day-long "Streaming Summit". SInce there were so many options, and there was so much to navigate (both in terms of stuff and real estate), I had to hyper-focus and pare my scope way down. And so, I chose to focus on products that might be attractive to those of us interested in streaming basic remote / on-location productions (as opposed to large multi-camera broadcast-level productions).  Below are some of the products that stood out in this area. Some of the products I checked out are using the older H.264 codec, some using the newer H.265 codec, and others are using IP codecs, such as, most notably, NDI.  While H.265, aka HEVC (High Efficiency Video Compression), is approx. 50% more efficient than H.264, NDI (Network Device Interface) is worth exploring. Developed by NewTek as an "ultra efficient" encoding protocal, it is available as a royalty-free platform for others to use and incorporate (for more on that, see Bird Dog below). Note that this list is just a very small tip of a very large iceberg, and is in no particular order.

Soliton 

- makes a line of portable encoders, using H.265  - The Zao can transmit via cellular (3G/4G), wi-fi, or ethernet
- Zao S (shows in photo) uses 3G/4G & attaches to camera
- Both models come w/ 1 ch. decoders (& option to add 4 ch. decoder)
- A web mgmt. tool is coming out soon
- Total cost of Zao S "kit" is approx. $8K; Zao kit = approx. $15K
- streams at 5-7 Mbps

 

LiveU

- LiveU Solo encoder- no decoder needed, "direct to cloud", max bit rate 7Mbps (approx. $1000). H.264
- LU200 encoder- use decoder or "direct to cloud" for approx. $6900 w/ decoder ($3500 without). H.264
- Decoders can be sold separately for LU200= $3500 - 6K
- Also need data plan (25GB / mo. for $250)
- There's also the LU600- H.265 (HEVC), capable of 1080/4K live streaming, 3G/4G capable. $$$
- Bulk discounts and rental / lease options
- Another option is "LU Smart", a free mobile app that enables HD live broadcast directly from cell phone to a server (data plan needed)

Vimeo / Livestream

- Mevo camera (launched on 2016), billed as a "live event camera" for streaming up to 1080 (4K sensor so it can record to 4K) w/ cropping so can be used as multi-cam option in lieu of switcher)
-  Mevo streams to  Vimeo, Livestream, Facebook, YouTube, Periscope & Twitter over wi-fi  or LTE.
- Newly launched Mevo Plus, which offers manual or auto cropping of 4K as an alternative to multi-cam switching
- Mevo = $300; Mevo Plus = $500
- Mevo Plus Pro Bundle = $800 (includes bag, stand, audio accessories, battery boost
- Livestream Studio - switcher series w/ graphics, encoding & streaming 
- Hardware: from the entry level (HD 31) to the robust (HD 51) to the portable (HD550)
- HD31 = approx. $3800; HD51 = $6600 (1080) - $8500 (for 4K); HD551 = $8K (1080) - $10K (for 4K)
- Taking pre-orders on the brand new "Studio One", high powered 4K encoder / switcher for $4500 - 4 inputs (HDMI or SDI)
- Software: Studio 5 now in beta, will come pre-installed on all Studio switchers & endcoders or can be downloaded separately

Mobile Viewpoint

- Agile Airlink - 2 SDI inputs, 2 ethernet outs, 40Mbps H.265 encoding. trasnmits via 3G/4G with 8 combined connections
- Can also add wi-fi & ethernet connections
- Small & portable, billed as "the thinnest encoder w/ 2 camera inputs & databonding". $$$

Bird Dog

- Uses NDI to offer encoding, tallies, & comms using a single ethernet cable- take a source and make it available anywhere on network for IP workflow
- They now have decoders built into the units, making them all 2-way devices.
- This is  good solution for working within a network but it's unclear how it might be used on a remote production for b'cast (i.e. encode-stream-decode-transmit)
- Studio (HDMI/SDI to NDI) and Mini (HDMI to NDI) encoders - both can be camera-mounted
- Mini was announced at NAB this year
- Studio = $895 ; Mini = $595; Comms  = $495 (there's an offer for free comms until 9/30/18)
- NDI = low-latency - more efficient (lower bit rates)
- Streaming Media magazine awarded Bird Dog a "Best of NAB" award for their innovative products

Resources

- Streaming Media magazine- free subscriptions are available: streamingmedia.com (print and online versions)
- If anyone has any technical-based topic  that you would like to have covered, contact Nadine Krefetz, author at Streaming Media