Sometimes the best solution is a custom one. After operating our custom broadcast solution for the past two years and receiving many questions, I figured it’s a good time to explain exactly what it is and why we developed it. A one-size-fits-all approach often falls short in the technical world, but here’s how our custom solution had a positive impact on our operations.
Why?
Thanks to a new era ushered in by COVID-19, the need and drive for everything to be online exploded in the Education and Technical Production spaces. For Varsity College, we needed a way to connect with our community, continuing to celebrate our students and their achievements with the same level of quality they had come to expect – now just online.
As everyone did, we adapted and pivoted our standard practices to better reflect the new way of delivering events, using the gear, skills, and knowledge we already had in the live event environment. Catering to delivering productions both in person and online obviously came with its challenges, namely the extra man-hours and resources required to serve two separate audiences and their needs. As the restrictions around the global pandemic eased, the expectations for hybrid events did not; this is where our custom solution came into play.
Step one was to identify the main pain points and inefficiencies in our current operating model. How could we save time, money and resources whilst delivering superior product?
Ultimately, we settled on building our own all-in-one, custom broadcast unit that could tick all the boxes above; creating a systemised unit that could be rolled out to any event, big or small, and provide our team with the perfect ‘mission control’.
For smaller events, every technical element can be run through the one rack; video, lighting, and of course audio could all be managed for both the physical space, as well as our online broadcast.
For the larger-scale productions, our unit becomes an all-in-one broadcast centre, providing the stream with its own dedicated audio console; ingesting mixed streams via the primary production console, whilst still handling both in-venue and online vision mixes (at times, two completely separate mixes) and content playback.
The Gear
Our Broadcast Unit is housed within a custom-made case designed to easily roll through a single door in any of our venues, whilst still housing everything we need to run our events. Working with the team at Armour Cases, we developed a case that was perfectly suited to all our needs.
To further enhance the unit’s simplicity and configurability, we created custom I/O panelling across the entire back of the unit. The aim was to ensure that our technicians were never directly connecting to the hardware; we did this to avoid damage due to repetition, as well as ease of use – the ATEM’s onboard I/O isn’t the most user-friendly after all. With this addition, we also created panels to support SDI to HDMI and HDMI to SDI conversions, providing more patching options directly at the unit itself.
For example, if we need to get a staff member’s laptop into the ATEM quickly, we can perform all required conversions on board, patching directly from HDMI to SDI into the ATEM’s input patch; there is no need for an external converter somewhere in the middle.
There is full connectivity across our entire rack and its counterpart systems thanks to two separate networks: one for DANTE and one for control & configuration. The latter is perfectly integrated with BitFocus Companion, allowing for even more flexibility and control across the system and broader gig. Again, these networks have plenty of patch points on the front and back of our unit, and have been routed to all of the necessary gear.
For those curious about a full technical breakdown of gear, here you go:
- 2x M2 Apple Mac Minis
- Blackmagic Design ATEM 2ME Constellation
- Blackmagic Design Web Presenter HD
- Blackmagic Hyperdeck Studio HD Plus
- 2x Blackmagic Studio Duos
- Yamaha DM3
- 2x Sennheiser EW-DX 2D RX (4 channels of wireless)
- Apple TV
- 15x Decimator MDLXs
- Enttech USB to DMX interface
- Event Lighting DMX Splitter
This project was also one of the first we used H2R Gear, an online planning tool that allowed us to map out our signal flow and subsequent runs collaboratively online. I highly recommend checking this one out! It’s fantastic.