BURLINGTON, MASS.—A number of NCAA Division I schools have recruited Avid’s FastServe generation video servers for help with live broadcasts. The FastServe platform, which is integrated into Avid’s MediaCentral, provides the schools the ability to create and manage content while also training students on a professional system.

FastServe is a family of video servers based off of Avid’s AirSpeed and PlayMaker servers. It features a unified modular architecture that supports UHD and IP I/O for ingest, turnaround and playout.

One of the schools is Middle Tennessee State University and its Department of Media Arts, a longtime Avid Learning partner. MTSU has deployed FastServe | Ingest for the production of live content in real time with its creative teams having access and the ability to edit incoming media as it is captured. The department’s production crew will use the equipment for football, basketball, volleyball and soccer matches, many of which will be featured on ESPN3.

The University of Hartford, University of Vermont, Binghamton University, Quinnipiac University and Rider University have also invested in a FastServe system.

WOODBURY, N.Y.—In order to stream 30 of its men’s and women’s NCAA Division I basketball games over ESPN3—the online streaming service of ESPN—the athletics department at New York’s Binghamton University deployed four Z-HD5000 cameras from Hitachi Kokusai Electric America Ltd.

Binghamton University Athletics Communications Assistant Sydney Harbaugh operates one of the university’s four Hitachi Z-HD5000 cameras.

With an agreement between the America East Conference and ESPN bringing live streams of all of the university’s basketball matches to the online service, the athletics department needed to upgrade its production capabilities to meet ESPN3’s guidelines.

Dave Van Gorder, video production and multimedia coordinator for Binghamton University Athletics said, “We needed to create broadcast-quality video, and our earlier cameras were not capable of that.”

Two of the Z-HD5000s are deployed on tripods in high-center positions at the Binghamton University Events Center. The other two cameras are used in shoulder-mount ENG configurations on the arena floor, most commonly with one below each basket.

The two fixed-position cameras are equipped with VF-701HD 7-inch color LCD studio viewfinders and mounted on Miller tripods, while the roving units are paired with VF-402 black-and-white ENG viewfinders. All four cameras are outfitted with Fujinon XA20sx8.5BERM lenses with 2x zoom extenders, and are linked to TU-HD1000 camera control units (CCUs) and RU-1000VR remote panels in the facility’s control room.

In addition to ESPN3, live streams of the games are also available on the America East Conference website (www.AmericaEast.tv) for international viewers—an important audience given that the university’s teams include players from all over the world. The live feed and replays are also displayed on the arena’s 14-foot-wide video board, enhancing the in-venue fan experience, while archived footage and highlights are distributed to coaches, the conference office and the school’s social media channels.

“The Hitachi cameras have enabled student operators to get great shots with just minimal instruction,” said Van Gorder. “We’ve had more than 20 students using them over the course of the season. While we try to provide training in advance, sometimes students have had less than an hour before game time to familiarize themselves with the cameras, yet we still got good results.”