The Video Call Center Inks Two Year Extension With Discovery to Support Remote Productions

The Video Call Center (VCC) has received a two-year extension to a master agreement with Discovery, which relies on VCC’s Caller Cloud services and patented systems to support the worldwide production reach of shows such as 90 Day Fiancé’ Tell All and other programs. The extension is the third consecutive agreement between the companies, with VCC serving for a total of five years as one of Discovery’s global, remote video production partners.

Discovery first selected the VCC in 2017 to support the production of 90 Day Fiancé’ Tell All. Today, VCC supports a wide range of programs including 90 Day Fiance: The Other Way and Bares All, among others.

“Our partners at the VCC have been instrumental in helping us capture high-quality programming and make remote connections possible for our 90 Day Fiance Tell Alls and a number of other TLC projects,” says Alon Orstein, Senior Vice President of Production for TLC.

VCC provides Discovery, as well as its production teams at Sharp Entertainment, Eastern, Lando Entertainment, Big Fish Entertainment, Wilma TV/Discovery Studios, and many others with a suite of services and proprietary systems that make it possible to work with a global cast and to enable participation by audience members around the world. In addition to shows in the 90 Day Fiancé franchise, VCC supports shows produced for TLC, HGTV, Food Network, Discovery Channel, and the new discovery+ streaming service.

The foundation of the remote production workflow is VCC’s Caller Cloud, which enables long-duration, natural conversation between show hosts, cast members, and even audience members, resulting in some of the most compelling real-life dialogue on television. VCC’s patented technologies deliver hyper-low-latency video return and IFB mix-minus to enable effortless interaction among cast members who use only their mobile devices and standard video chat apps to participate in productions.

For some of the 90 Day Fiancé programs, VCC helps overcome the many challenges inherent in maintaining high quality feeds from isolated locations around the world. Remote connections with cast members are maintained and recorded for up to 14 hours at a time. VCC makes this easy for producers and for the show’s cast and guests, who have nothing to download and, simply click a link on a text message to join the production.

In addition to VCC Caller Cloud, Discovery, Inc. has leveraged several new services and technologies from the VCC, including VCC’s HAT®, a customizable, on-demand, automated Control Room service, and CC-SOLO, a powerful, on-demand hosted platform to establish and record IP video calls – both empowering remote production teams to collaborate on the many programs, without any physical control room at all.

“It is thrilling to have the opportunity to continue to work with Discovery, the 90 Day Fiancé’ teams, as well as the many other production units working on compelling shows across Discovery,” says Larry Thaler, CEO of the VCC. “Discovery has fully embraced the potential of VCC’s unique remote production capabilities, recognizing the value long before the pandemic expanded the need for remote production. Today they remain ahead of the times by continuously evolving every aspect of their production both in front of and behind the camera. We look forward to what’s next!”