Broadcasting in a Virtual World

By Jesse Lerman, President and CEO, TelVue Corporation

Between advancements in technology and the pandemic, the progression to an increasingly virtual world is accelerating. Almost everything is veering virtual – work, school, meetings, events, conferences, major motion picture releases, doctor’s appointments, grocery shopping, you name it. While vaccines will hopefully reopen the world soon this year, there is little doubt that virtual is here to stay, including throughout the broadcast industry.
For community broadcasters, the virtual trend might have started with establishing remote access to existing, on-premise equipment, and a few live feeds migrating from dedicated meeting rooms to streaming video conferencing platforms like Zoom. Even this first step presented new challenges for broadcast engineers and operators–as you were used to having hands-on access to everything in your broadcast chain.

At this point it is clear that remote live production will quickly become the norm, and more of your equipment and applications will move to the cloud. IP video, cloud integrations, and mobile devices are becoming the glue for broadcasters in a virtual world, and will change the way we think about workflow, operations, redundancy, and high availability.

The same trends are driving changes in viewer habits. In a virtual world, viewers expect programming to be easy to find with instant access on a variety of devices, including mobile phones while on-the-go. From traditional broadcast to OTT, Social Media to phones and apps, your channels and content need to be everywhere.

TelVue has long embraced new industry trends to make the migration to modern broadcasting easy for community broadcasters.

● We partnered with you to move from tape swaps and DVD drop-offs to the JAG Media Exchange on TelVue Connect.

● The PEG.TV streaming platform developed into CloudCast, complete with mobile apps for iOS & Android, OTT apps for Roku, Apple TV, and Fire TV, and podcasting.

● The original Princeton Server Group channel-in-box evolved into the modern TelVue HyperCaster AIO, and virtual HyperCasters for 100% Cloud broadcasting.

It has been exciting to work with so many JAG stations through major industry transitions including analog to digital, SD to HD, baseband to IP video, and now to virtual and cloud.

Join TelVue virtually at the February 24th JAG meeting to discuss the evolution of community broadcasting in a virtual world. At the meeting we will demonstrate and review:

● the latest features in HyperCaster v7, “where automation rules”, specifically for streamlining remote operations, managing remote live meetings and events, and increasing automation to save you time scheduling, acquiring programming, enhancing the on-air look of your channels, and delivering your content to more viewing destinations.

● how you can automatically and affordably Live caption your programming with HyperCaster v7.3, no additional hardware required. Captioning is great for both accessibility and for making it possible for viewers to search meetings for topics of interest.

● The latest IP video protocols and provide tips on best uses and practices for live production, meetings, sports, sharing live programs, and social media.

● how easy it is to launch your own Apple & Android mobile phone apps with CloudCast, in addition to OTT apps on Roku, Apple, TV, and Amazon Fire TV.

We will also share our 2021 roadmap that includes even more automation, plus streaming & app “paywall” monetization for new sources of revenue. As always, we hope to get some great feedback from you to help us shape our products and services to be virtually future-proof. We are looking forward to seeing you virtually at the next JAG meeting!