Terra Media HD: Working Together for Massive Faith-Based Audience Growth
Learn how Terra Media HD and Wowza helped grow the Festival of Faiths live event audience by 10,000%.
Terra Media HD specializes in live event production and video streaming backed by Wowza streaming technology. In 2014 and 2015, Terra helped a dedicated nonprofit organization, the Center for Interfaith Relations, exponentially increase the reach of its annual weeklong Festival of Faiths conference and gather a national and international following.
| Industry | Use Case | Products/Services |
|---|---|---|
| Religious Organizations Streaming Service Provider Live Events | Multi-day live event religious festival | Wowza Streaming Engine Wowza Streaming Cloud (now Wowza Video) Wowza Transcoder |
Challenge: Needing to Dynamically Scale Without Losing Quality
In 2013, Terra encountered unresolvable video and audio quality problems when streaming the Festival of Faiths and other events. They began searching for a new solution that would address these and other challenges:
- Need to scale seamlessly for viewership spikes
- Ability to embed the live streams on the festival’s website and Facebook page
- Simple output of live-streamed content to the festival’s YouTube channel
- Ability to conserve bandwidth in remote or rural locales
Solution: Finding Wowza
In 2014, Terra discovered Wowza technology in their search for the right solution, resulting in a seamless streaming experience for that year’s Festival of Faiths. In 2015, Terra began using
the newly available Wowza Streaming Cloud (now Wowza Video) online service. With Wowza technology powering their streaming delivery, Terra has been able to provide the Center for Interfaith Relations:
- Automatic scaling without interruptions
- Simple setup and configuration with multiple stream targets
- Adaptive bitrate streaming for optimal playback
Benefits and Results
Successful streaming of the 2014 Festival of Faiths enabled the festival to pack its 600-seat theater in 2015, as well as engage a global audience with live and on-demand video. Here’s how Wowza’s technology specifically benefitted them.
Transcoding and Adaptive Bitrate Delivery
For the 2015 Festival of Faiths, Wowza Streaming Cloud (Wowza Video) intelligently transcoded the high- definition source stream into six different bitrates to allow users of all bandwidth qualities to enjoy the live programming.
Built-In Redundancy
“The option to stream from primary and backup encoders allows us to relax and trust that even in the case of an encoder failure, the stream would continue to publish without interruption. This is a level of failsafe insurance that our clients understand too,” says Doug Beechwood, Terra’s Production Specialist. “In the live event industry, redundancy means reliability.”
Automatic Scaling
“Wowza served as a flawless deployment system for our content throughout the week. Streaming to thousands of concurrent viewers was no challenge for the Wowza Streaming Cloud CDN. Our Wowza network distributed traffic effortlessly to all viewers, on iPads, smartphones, and computers,” says Beechwood.
Future-Proof Streaming Technology
Streaming via Wowza Streaming Cloud (Wowza Video) simplifies Terra Media HD’s streaming infrastructure while eliminating worry about adapting to new codecs and hardware advances. Wowza keeps everything current, ensuring that viewers on any device anywhere can watch.
Rapid Audience Expansion
The Terra and Wowza streaming solution enabled a 10,000 percent increase in traffic to the Festival of Faiths website and YouTube channel, and those numbers are still increasing by the month.
Simple Setup and Configuration
The Wowza Streaming Cloud (Wowza Video) service makes it easy for Terra to manage many different test and active streams simultaneously and to set up edge servers close to the venue to keep latency low. Additionally, Beechwood says, “The Wowza Streaming Cloud interface allows us to easily configure data rates, set stream targets, open or close the stream gateway, change poster frames, and a lot more.”
Easy Remote Administration
“Having all of the controls for adjusting the distribution parameters in Wowza’s cloud service allows us to administer streams onsite, in transit, or from our office,” Beechwood explains.
Improved Efficiency
Previously, Terra manually created various bitrate renditions with Flash Media Server, but uploading each rendition to the streaming server created a bandwidth bottleneck. Transcoding directly in Wowza Streaming Engine or Wowza
The Wowza Advantage
Wowza’s flexible deployment options, seamless scalability, and innovative spirit make it a streaming partner that’s easy to start with and easy to scale with. Terra Media HD experienced firsthand how this customer-centric approach sets the foundation for a long-lasting partnership. “Wowza is a great solution for streaming,” Terra Media HD said of Wowza’s notable adaptability. “It starts out simple, yet it can be deeply customized to meet the needs of the most demanding technical users.”