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C MOUNT BROADCAST SOLUTIONS: THE EVOLUTION OF REMOTE LIVESTREAM GEAR

The Year of Broadcast Solutions

2020 has been quite the year of growth and pivoting for all of us. After rereading an article from ViacomCBS a few weeks back, we reminded ourselves of how far we have come. Since #Homefest with the Late Late Show, we have come up with multiple variations of our RXO Drop Kits which can be used in a variety of things from a broadcast TV show to a remote Livestream for a Twitch user.     iPhone Rig with Sony RXO and Table Top Stand

The Beginning: iPhones & RXO Remote Livestream Rigs

The Late Late Show was the first project that tasked us with finding a large scale broadcast solution. As the pandemic began to set in mid-March, producers decided to make #Homefest. A collection of artists such as John Legend and Billie Eilish streamed in for an “at-home concert.” The question at hand was: how do we create a broadcast solution that adds industry standards of high-quality image and sound, while still keeping it small and easy to operate? Thus, our iPhone rig was born.  Our rig was short and sweet:  Altogether, it was a quick option that could be easily set up by any talent. With this rig, the talent could use the phone to interface with James while having a pro-quality internal audio-video recording. Based on our vast rigging knowledge, we were able to provide an easy hardware solution where the phone sat just below the broadcast quality camera. This meant aesthetically, the talent could maintain a good eye line while they interact with James. However, we wanted to find the best broadcast solution so we could directly use the camera as the Facetime camera. Onwards…       Sony RXO Kit with GoPro, Loom Cube and Sennheiser

Workshopping our Remote Livestream Kits: The RX0, the Rig, and the Sennheiser 

Next up, Fox’s Masked Singer reached out for a broadcast solution and we were ready to improve. While our early-stage kits successfully supported #Homefest across a number of artists, we wanted to bring it to the next level. The next question became: how to implement remote viewing and use a high-quality camera to replace the webcam for apps like Zoom, which were only getting more popular through the year? We came up with a configuration for multiple camera angles that could be switched as the webcam input. Additionally, we added wireless video transmission using our Bolt3000 kits, as well as wireless audio with our Sennheiser and Rode Go Mics. Not only did the addition of the wireless transmission allow the talent to move around freely, but it also allowed the transmission to remain intact for greatly expanded off-site viewing via Zoom.  Our configuration included the following:    RXO Drop Kits

THE NOW: REMOTE LIVESTREAM WITH OUR RX0 DROP KITS 

Expanding upon our previous rigs, we wanted our next solution to be something we knew worked from our previous iterations. The next question became: how can we trigger recordings remotely and adjust settings on the fly so all talent has to do is plug and play?  While the workshop stage definitely improved many aspects of the kit, this broadcast solution was a little too bulky to provide the best customer experience. Therefore, we decided to simplify the RXO Kits that we have today.  With our current kits, we have compactly implemented a compact and high-quality remote broadcast solution with the following kit. The Sony Edge App allows us to remotely control lighting, camera movements, and camera settings so that the talent does not have to worry about the technicalities. Our current RX0 Drop Kit includes: We took care of all the wire management, so with just a few plugs, the talent can get their kit up and running.      Sony RXO Drop Kit

THE FUTURE OF BROADCAST SOLUTIONS

As all of us are adapting together, new technologies are always in the works and we always want to be innovating alongside it to bring better broadcast solutions. We believe that the remote live stream model is here to stay, and eventually, we will transform into a hybrid model of in-person and remote.  If you have any products you’ve been loving or any comments on our setups, we’d love to hear from you and how you have been making the most of production these days.