NewTek Integrates TriCaster and 3Play For YouTube Live Sports

 NewTek has completed work with YouTube to ensure the compatibility of TriCaster and 3Play as powerful and affordable tools for sports enterprises of any size to live stream a wide range of competitive events over YouTube’s live sports streaming service.

With more than a billion visitors every month, YouTube is playing a growing role as an online distributor of live sports coverage. TriCaster is the industry standard for high quality yet affordable HD multi-camera video production and live streaming. 3Play is a professional slow motion replay server, a must-have for sports broadcasting, available at a fraction of the cost of traditional replay systems. Together they level the playing field for sports producers on YouTube.

“Viewers today expect professionally produced sporting events. They will not watch sports programming that lacks essentials like instant replay and on-screen graphics. Professional looking broadcast studio sets are also vitally important, which can be achieved using TriCaster’s virtual sets,” said Andrew Cross, chief technology officer of NewTek. “TriCaster and 3Play let you look like you are on broadcast TV. The Internet has made it where you no longer need a huge antenna and an FCC license. Ensured compatibility with YouTube means teams of any size can reach fans in ways they could only dream of before.”

Traditionally, high quality live sports productions come with high price tags, requiring a multi-camera TV production truck costing tens of thousands of dollars to rent for a single game.TriCaster and 3Play allow sports entities to enhance the production quality of their shows, whether they are being live streamed or broadcast, without requiring the capital outlay needed to buy traditional video gear, or incurring the operating expense necessary to roll in a TV production truck.

“In the past, cost has been prohibitive,” said Perry Tobin, technology manager for YouTube Sports. “Fortunately, products like TriCaster and 3Play have lowered the barrier of entry into this space. Where you used to have to pull in a satellite truck, now all you need is an Internet connection, a TriCaster and 3Play, and you are good to go to have instant replays, huge virtual sets shot on a small green screen, and all of the things you’ve come to expect with cable TV-produced content.”

The availability of affordable production tools like TriCaster and 3Play could not have come at a better time for YouTube Sports. A convergence of technologies, economics, and easy-to-use production gear is making it possible for every sport imaginable from local bowling leagues to high school and collegiate athletics programs to major professional sports leagues and TV sports networks to reach audiences, extend their brands and generate revenue online. YouTube is at the forefront of driving the technologies required to live stream content to an array of devices from smart TV’s to smartphones.

“I think we have hit that interesting sweet spot in time where bandwidth is coming down in price and becoming more accessible, and the cost of doing a decent production and the skill level needed to do that is also coming down,” said Tobin. “I believe sports is the next big, untapped video frontier on the Internet. As we keep pushing down costs and increasing quality, I think we will see more, and more, interesting times.”

NewTek Gets International Java Jazz Festival Swinging Live in HD
Organizers of the 10th Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival are using six TriCaster multi-camera video production systems to live stream the three-day musical event in HD on three YouTube channels.

By using a trio of TriCaster 8000’s and three more TriCaster 460’s, online audiences will be able to watch whatever live performances they choose from four main stages at the Jakarta International Expo in Indonesia. For the first time they will also get to experience impromptu after-hours jam sessions live from the lounge at the nearby Hotel Borobudur. All cameras will record direct to the TriCasters for simple archival and video on demand purposes. Portions of the event will also be simulcast over three national Indonesian TV channels including FirstMedia HD, BigTV, and TelkomVision. The event runs Friday through Sunday, February 28 to March 2, 2014. More than 120,000 jazz aficionados are expected to attend plus an estimated 100,000 viewers per day over the Internet.

Last year, organizers could only stream one channel, were limited in the amount of content they could capture, and needed to manually copy content from a variety of devices to hard disks for archival purposes. Viewing audiences were limited to what organizers chose to air. Live streaming of some performances were forced to terminate early while others started late. Using multiple TriCasters at this year’s event removes those limitations, simplifies archiving, and provides audiences the option to enjoy any performance they choose in its entirety.

“We’re excited to be using the six TriCaster setup because it will help us reach our goal of 100,000 online viewers a day. It is by far our most ambitious live streaming event ever,” said Djundi Karjadi, technical director of Java Jazz Festival. “Covering twelve bands a day from four stages, streaming live and simulcasting on three Indonesia TV outlets is a real challenge from both production and cost perspectives. TriCaster gives us price/performance capabilities that not only makes the impossible possible, but keeps things easy to manage and provides our audiences with far more choice.”

Java Jazz Festival is one of the world’s largest jazz music festivals featuring more than 100 of the top touring jazz acts of today including Jamie Cullum, Natalie Cole, Dave Koz and the Summer Horns, Allen Stone, Snarky Puppy, Dirty Loops, and many others.

“To cover four stages from the main venue, we will use a TriCaster 8000 to alternate between stage D1 and D2 and another between stages A2 and A3. That way we can have two continuous channels with content streaming nonstop throughout the festival,” Karjadi continued. “Each stage will have six to seven cameras. We will record every camera feed plus each program output using the TriCaster 8000’s. One stage is located at some distance from the main control room and getting enough cable for every camera feed is problematic. So the third TriCaster 8000 will be at that stage to send the program output via one feed to the main control room. That’s where we will insert the event logos and lower third graphics for band and song titles, as well as live tweets using the TriCasters.”

The output of each stage will be fed to either of two TriCaster 460’s acting as a “master control” for each TV network receiving the live broadcast. This gives each network the freedom to choose which performances they want to air plus the capability to insert their own station ID, logo, and lower third graphics.

The third TriCaster 460 will be used at the Hotel Borobudur where jazz magic is known to happen. In the past, impromptu jamming between various artists who meet at the lounge for this purpose was limited to a very small audience lucky enough to be at the hotel at the right time. With a full production TriCaster 460, this content will be streamed. Jazz aficionados can tune in and subscribe to Java Jazz Festival live streams on YouTube. Performances from past Java Jazz Festivals are also archived there.