NAB Perspectives: ViewCast’s Kopang Sees Trend toward Low-Cost Fly Packs

At ViewCast, the most relevant trend in the sports market surrounds multiplatform delivery, and the migration to low-cost, single-operator fly pack solutions that can handle not only multiple delivery outputs, but multiple production inputs, as well.

“We’ve had a few companies come through that do high school and college sports, and the trend I’m seeing is the need for fly pack solutions for sideline reporting,” explains Jeff Kopang, VP marketing for ViewCast. “They want to set up cameras on a very economical basis to be able to stream high school and some college sports with a low-cost, single-operator system. I think that high school market is really going to be exploding over the next couple of years.”

To help serve that market now, ViewCast is showcasing a bundled solution. The Niagara 4100 encoder is bundled with Sony’s BRS200 switcher to provide a low-cost solution that Kopang says is ideal for sports applications.

“Sony is also showing our Niagara 2100 H.264 box built into a fly pack with a higher end switcher, Artist recorder, and a streaming box,” Kopang says. “They selected us to bundle our products with their switcher.”

To further serve the low-cost market, ViewCast has extracted its VMp Live scheduling product from its VMp portal solution, so that customers can purchase just the scheduling product for $500. Based on an event or programming schedule, VMp allows users to manage and operate any number of encoders on the network, schedule and automate encoding start and stop times, assign encoding profiles, and record live feeds.

“We’re also offering it on a 1 RU rack-mount server,” Kopang says. “You can address up to 50 Niagara encoders on one unit for $2,500, so it’s a very economical scheduling solution.”

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