ClearCaster Customer Spotlight: Avid and Key Code Media
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 Video Production |
 Broadcast |
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| Use Case | ||
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#AskAvid event: A live, town hall-style discussion and Q&A |
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| Production Workflow | ||
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On Oct. 12, 2017, Key Code Media assembled an advanced production workflow for #AskAvid: a town hall-style discussion on challenges facing the post-production industry. In this first of its kind live-streamed event, executives and product managers from Avid—the leader in the post-production technology space—took questions from both a studio audience and online viewers.
Avid and Key Code Media chose to stream the event on Facebook Live, because this platform offered the best opportunity to engage with viewers in real time. But the discerning audience of media-production professionals demanded higher-quality video than the standard 720p Facebook delivers. The production team also needed to ensure maximum stream reliability and uptime.
Key Code Media, a leading media and entertainment technology integration company, chose the Wowza ClearCaster™ appliance to stream this important event, because it is the only encoding and delivery solution that can deliver 1080p30 resolution to Facebook Live. Purpose-built in collaboration with Facebook, ClearCaster offers the highest level of integration with the enhanced Facebook Live API of any device on the market today—giving users the most reliable, highest-quality streaming imaginable to the Facebook Live platform.
“Because of the traditional limits in terms of the resolution you can send them, we wanted to use technology that allowed for not only a rock-solid communication with Facebook, but also the best quality possible,” says James Page, director of business development at Key Code Media.
Setting up ClearCaster and pairing it with Avid’s Facebook account “couldn’t have been easier,” says Page; the menu structure was very straightforward, and the dedicated registration web page allowed them to get started quickly. There was no need to manually configure any settings; all they had to do was select ClearCaster from the drop-down menu on the device-pairing screen, and they were ready to start streaming.
Key Code Media wanted to use a separate hardware encoder and switcher to reduce all potential points of failure, Page adds, so “we weren’t having switchers pull double-duty switching and encoding. ClearCaster was really a benefit to that end, and the producer view enabled the team to track audience reactions in real time. Now we have something specifically for Facebook Live—it’s awesome.”
Key Code Media used a TriCaster TC1 to switch the #AskAvid event, toggling between different cameras and views to provide a professional multi-camera production. They integrated ClearCaster into the advanced production workflow by simply plugging one of the TriCaster’s program outputs into its source input. With this one connection, they were ready to stream to Avid’s online audiences.
#AskAvid saw astounding levels of engagement and participation: While typical industry streamed events only get a few hundred views in the first few hours, says Page, this event had over 3,500 views, 300 comments and 150 Live Reactions. By just plugging in ClearCaster, Avid amplified its reach and boosted its streaming success on Facebook Live.