Download Live Broadcasting on an Access Budget

PRODUCTION
Live Broadcasting on an
Access Budget
LEIGHTRONIX’s ‘PEG Casting’ does it over IP
Inside the
master
control at
TV-21
BY MICHAEL BUCCA, TECHNICIAN FOR TV-21
At TV-21, the educational access channel of the Toms
River (N.J.) Regional School District, we serve a community of about 100,000 people in four towns. Our district is
comprised of more than 20 buildings, including 18
schools.
This past school year, we purchased the LEIGHTRONIX
NEXUS video controller to automate our station’s master
control using server-based technology. The NEXUS has
created a new, tapeless workflow for our station.
More recently, we were tasked with finding a solution to broadcast our high school “Game of the Week”
live to TV-21. With facilities spread across 10 miles, we
had an uphill battle to accomplish any video linkage.
We wanted to find a cost-effective solution, yet we
knew any technology to provide live SD video linkage
would be expensive and out of the range of our budget. We investigated fiber-optic lines between multiple
schools, line-of-sight microwave transmission and even
cutting-edge cellular technology. The problem in every
case was cost. These solutions started anywhere from
$25,000 to $50,000.
Video-over-IP solutions were an option we had begun to
consider. Our school district’s network was very robust with
many locations available with connectivity. Our chief concern was maintaining broadcast-quality SD video. In early
governmentvideo.com
c
APRIL 2010
PRODUCTION
TV-21 in Toms
River, N.J.,
serves 18
schools.
MORE INFO
LEIGHTRONIX
www.leightronix.com
2009, we learned of the LEIGHTRONIX PEGvault-SD. This
device allows encoding of high-quality SD video from a
remote location into MPEG-2 and have it delivered via
TCP/IP to a NEXUS controller, ready for broadcast.
In 2009, LEIGHTRONIX began to advertise a process
called “PEG Casting.” In this process, the PEGvault-SD
begins to encode the MPEG-2 file and buffers it for a
minimum of two minutes. Then the NEXUS begins playing the file back as it continues to receive it. The end
result was a next-to-live, full-quality broadcast over our
cable station with a two-minute delay.
The workflow for setting up a live broadcast is
straightforward. The only equipment we have added to
our existing remote broadcast set-up was the PEGvaultSD, a small five-port router, and a laptop. Our composite
video source, analog audio source, and Ethernet connection are plugged directly into the PEGvault-SD. We use
the router to allow the laptop and the PEGvault-SD to
work over a single CAT5 drop.
The software for PEGvault-SD is mostly contained
within a Web browser environment. The NEXUS controller software, WinLGX, runs simultaneously. WinLGX
allows for complete control of our station from anywhere
within our TCP/IP network. The NEXUS’ Web interface
also allows for complete message board and graphic
overlay control for a total remote master control interface.
We schedule our game to air at a given time, and the
software allows us to operate the station to switch to our
live feed at the right point. We begin our game’s production at the moment we begin PEG Casting. Two minutes
later, when we get to the point when we are ready to hit
air, the NEXUS automatically reads the clip from
PEGvault-SD and begins broadcasting on our channel. On
TV-21, we look as if we hit air exactly at the right
moment, even though we are really two minutes into the
game. The on-air results are excellent.
There are bandwidth requirements to be able to use this
method. The network must support upload bandwidths of
at least 4-5 Mbps. Without that, the risk of losing connectivity is high because the buffering of the clip is insufficient.
Only at one location did we have to lower the quality of
the video to accommodate bandwidth. We tend to broadcast on our school’s network at night when there is lighter
traffic.
This methodology has opened us to a whole new
world of applications. Now, with a minimal setup, we are
able to broadcast from almost any location in our district
to our entire community. This set-up and transmission
method has offered consistency and quality. We did not
want to settle for a “streaming” quality broadcast signal,
and LEIGHTRONIX has delivered a methodology that
works so well with educational budgets and constraints.
It is something that can help dozens of school districts or
any type of access television. It sure helped us.
REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM
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APRIL 2010