GRASS VALLEY, Calif.—Live streaming has become an integral part of how the City of Santa Barbara has communicated with its residents, thanks in part to AJA technology that has been incorporated into the city’s live streaming infrastructure.

City TV Production streams and records all City of Santa Barbara council meetings and other programming to YouTube, which members of the community can watch either live or on-demand. Content is captured using 12 HD cameras across three meeting rooms that are connected to a master control room via fiber and Cat5e cabling. Audio and video feeds are sent out of each room through a production switcher to create the main feed, which is then sent through a router to one of three AJA HELO H.264 streaming devices.

AJA U-TAP SDIs are also used by City TV, connected via USB to local computers to ensure a clean signal for adding virtual participants via apps like GoTo Meeting or Zoom. The received video feed is then sent through an AJA HELO for live streaming to YouTube.  AJA Ki Pro Rack recorders are also in use to backup Apple ProRes codec on AJA KiStor drives.

Other AJA products used as part of the infrastructure include AJA Mini-Converters to support conversion between SDI and HDMI equipment, as well as AJA FS1 converters/frame synchronizers to facilitate conversion of analog component material to HD-SDI for import into the production system.

The AJA HELO also is part of City TV’s live streaming flypack, which includes three HD cameras, a switcher, a router and an AJA HELO in the event of off-site production.

The City TV infrastructure was built by Triton Technology Solutions.

GRASS VALLEY, Calif.—Earlier this summer, AJA joined PT SportSuite’s team to help bring the Three Team Cricket (3TC) Solidarity Cup to fans live from South Africa. It did so by utilizing the Helo H.264 streamer/recorder from AJA.

PT SportSuite had three Helo units on hand to deliver live feeds of matches to a microsite the PT SportSuite team developed for the event. Two Helo units were connected to an on-site OB truck via SDI, and streamed footage over IP to the Amazon Web Service cloud-based media processing and content distribution infrastructure. Because of the mobile production, PT SportSuite configured the Helos for redundant inputs, assigning each to a different cellular broadband provider. 

The third Helo was positioned at the PT SportSuite Cape Town office for automatic failover in case of an emergency, AJA said.

Because of the demand for sport, and the current inability to have fans present at events, PT SportSuite believes that similar setups for what it had at the 3TC championship will be necessary.

For more information, visit www.aja.com.  

PALISADES, N.Y.—The Video Call Center (VCC) is assisting content producers in meeting the challenge of integrating video shot with smartphones, tablets and laptop computers into broadcast-quality productions during the COVID-19 pandemic by combining tools like the AJA Video HELO H.264 streamer/recorder and ROI scan converter with its own video call production platform, VCC announced. 

“HELO is one of my favorite tools,” said Jackie Lennon, manager, Marketing & Administration, at the VCC. “It allows us to run our business the way we want, while also allowing our clients to reap the full benefits of our solutions.”

During live shows, the call center optimizes each remote based on the smart device in use, apps used to make calls and internet connections. It adjusts lights and camera angles to ensure clean video feeds—often making these adjustments in seconds, the VCC said.

“We can monitor, take care of quality and framing control from anywhere with an internet connection, without adding additional latency,” said Lennon, who added that the ability to record with HELO has been helpful.

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The AJA Video HELO plays a crucial role in monitoring the quality of all the video calls, the VCC said. Before HELO was introduced into the VCC setup, endpoints and call producers needed to be in the same location. HELO makes it possible to monitor real-time feeds remotely from anywhere.

The AJA Video ROI mini-converter has enabled required video outputs and supports a diverse range of audio formats that clients request, the VCC added.

More than 30 AJA Video HELO units are located at the facilities of VCC clients, and a few more are on-site at the company’s headquarters to enable its Host Automation Tool (HAT) workflow, the company said. 

More information is available on the AJA Video and VCC websites.

GRASS VALLEY, Calif.—To help manage its live streaming quality and workload, Cornell University Athletics has added AJA’s HELO H.264 streaming and recording devices as new members of the Big Red team.

With Cornell charged with streaming regular matches of 16 sports and ancillary content to multiple channels—including ESPN+, the international Ivy League Network on Stretch Internet and social media channels—HELO is used to support nearly every live sports production at the university.

To do so, two units are located in a central control room on campus and a third is reserved for a flypack. Camera feeds at each venue are connected to a flypack that travels to every game and can receive up to eight feeds. Signals are transmitted via NDI across the network to the control room and are fed through a video production system or laptop running Wirecast (dependent on number of productions), then are switched and distributed to HELO for delivery to national (ESPN+) and international audiences (Stretch Internet).

When the production team is handling multiple streams, the HELOs are reserved for standalone RTMP streaming to ESPN+.

The Cornell production team is also able to use HELO to help with additional tasks, like providing a live feed of games to talent on site, or for providing recordings post-game to coaches for review.

For more information, visit www.aja.com.

Elite badminton players from around the world congregate each year to compete in the Malaysia Open, an important stop on the circuit of tournaments sanctioned by the Badminton World Federation (BWF). Fans unable to make it to Axiata Arena in Bukit Jalil this year were kept apprised of the latest updates via high-quality YouTube live streams produced by Macking Domain. Over the course of the six-day tournament, more than 12 hours of match footage across four courts were streamed to the Malaysia Open YouTube channel. Macking Domain relied on a host of technology to deliver the action, including four AJA HELO H.264 recording and streaming devices.

Given a straightforward set of video delivery requirements by its client, Macking Domain set out to establish a workflow built on AJA’s HELO. “We needed to deliver 1080/60p video with audio from each of the four courts and get live scoreboard content from each court integrated into the feed, which is why AJA’s HELO made so much sense,” shared Yoke Tee Tan, General Manager, Macking Domain. “It’s an affordable device that makes it incredibly easy to bring audiences a very high-quality viewing experience.”

Four Sony cameras, one on each court, were connected to a Newtek VMC1 digital media production system and captured live match footage. Courtside laptops housing scoreboard feeds were then encoded to NDI, and audio was embedded from each court using AJA Mini-Converters. Embedded audio signals came in as an NDI stereo channel via a network device interface converter and were split into two separate mono channels on a TriCaster video production system. The eight mono channels were routed to the corresponding scoreboard and linked with the associated court stream using 1 M/E; that signal was then routed to each SDI output on the VMC1. All four SDI outputs from the VMC1 were connected to four AJA HELO units for live streaming straight to YouTube; footage was simultaneously recorded to SD cards in HD using the HELOs.

“The results were impressive,” shared Tan. “All four HELO units streamed seamlessly with no delays or setbacks, and the UI presets made it easy to save and recall settings in a single click, which helped ensure a consistent look across streams.”

About HELO

AJA’s HELO allows users to simultaneously stream video signals to Web Content Delivery Networks while encoding and recording H.264 files to SD cards, USB storage or network-based storage with the push of a button. Supporting a range of professional workflows, the H.254 streaming, recording and encoding device includes 3G-SDI and HDMI inputs and outputs and the power to handle up to 1080p recording formats among other features. www.aja.com/products/helo

About AJA Video Systems, Inc.

Since 1993, AJA Video has been a leading manufacturer of video interface technologies, converters, digital video recording solutions and professional cameras, bringing high quality, cost effective products to the professional, broadcast and postproduction markets. AJA products are designed and manufactured at our facilities in Grass Valley, California, and sold through an extensive sales channel of resellers and systems integrators around the world. For further information, please see our website at www.aja.com.

With millions of daily visitors, YouTube has become an ideal platform for government agencies to keep the public apprised of breaking legislative developments. Content traditionally reserved for public TV or meeting rooms is now increasingly being live streamed, as the Minnesota House of Representatives is showing. House Public Information Services, a non-partisan office of the Minnesota House of Representatives, broadcasts select meetings live on PBS and cable when the House is in session, but also delivers a live stream of every meeting room to YouTube, relying on AJA’s HELO to stream meeting content to potential viewers 24/7.

Looking to enhance the accessibility and quality of each stream, House Public Information Services Engineering Director Michael Simonds recently modernized the agency’s workflow, bringing streaming in house and upgrading image quality from SD to HD. “HD is everywhere now, and before using HELO, our feeds were downconverted from 1080i and streamed in SD to our website using a third-party service. That level of quality just wasn’t cutting it anymore, especially for the cost, but fortunately technology like HELO has made it easy and affordable to stream HD content to better cater to audience viewing habits,” shared Simonds. “With HELO, we can live stream high quality content straight to YouTube, so anyone who is interested in meetings or debates on important issues can open up the YouTube app, find the stream they want to view and tune in directly from their computers, phones or other portable devices; it’s improved the viewer experience and saved us a ton on streaming costs.”

HELO’s support for closed captioning was another key consideration in the workflow overhaul, as the office strives to be ADA compliant for the public. Latency also played a large factor in the decision. “HELO’s closed captioning support is huge and a major reason we decided to go with it,” noted Simonds. “The devices have also helped us reduce latency by nearly 90 percent– going from one minute to five seconds; that’s a noticeable improvement and perfect for the kind of talking heads content we’re covering.”

The Minnesota House of Representatives campus spans multiple committee rooms with production equipment spread throughout the House Chamber and surrounding buildings. The main production facility is based in the state office building across the street from the House Chamber and features two production control rooms. Since all meetings are considered public, 13 HELOs located in a media hub in the basement of the Minnesota State Capitol, where content is distributed, stream committee room footage 24/7 to allow access to meetings that may not get television coverage. All video typically runs through the media hub and is converted from SDI to fiber for long distance runs, and back to SDI in the main control room. There, it is run through a switcher and graphics system. Audio is distributed back at the House Chamber and submixed down to Simonds’ department. Graphics are then added into the feeds, which are converted back to fiber and transmitted across the street to the Capitol building and back into the media hub. The feeds are then sent across a VLAN to the House IT network, where its Internet connection is used to send the feeds to YouTube.

Simonds concluded, “The HELOs pack a lot of punch for such little devices. Lined up vertically in a rack, their power is impressive, especially given the massive workstations traditionally used to achieve the same end result. They’re also super easy to use; plug them in, turn them on and they do exactly what you want. They just keep working, even when running 24/7– true workhorses.”

In addition to using HELOs for live streaming to YouTube, Simonds’ team uses a host of other AJA gear for delivering content to broadcast to public TV stations; these solutions include FS2s for frame synchronization, and Hi5 Mini-Converters for converting SDI to HDMI for large HDMI monitor walls.

About HELO

AJA’s HELO allows users to simultaneously stream video signals to Web Content Delivery Networks while encoding and recording H.264 files to SD cards, USB storage or network-based storage with the push of a button. Supporting a range of professional workflows, the H.254 streaming, recording and encoding device includes 3G-SDI and HDMI inputs and outputs and the power to handle up to 1080p recording formats among other features.

About AJA Video Systems, Inc.

Since 1993, AJA Video has been a leading manufacturer of video interface technologies, converters, digital video recording solutions and professional cameras, bringing high quality, cost effective products to the professional, broadcast and postproduction markets. AJA products are designed and manufactured at our facilities in Grass Valley, California, and sold through an extensive sales channel of resellers and systems integrators around the world. 

GRASS VALLEY, Calif.—Harvard alumni who still want to cheer on their beloved Crimson teams can do so across the country through a number of different streaming services, including ESPN+, regional outfit NESN and the Ivy League’s international streaming platform. To handle these multiple avenues of streaming, Harvard’s Athletics Department’s multimedia and production teams utilizes AJA technology to produce and broadcast home games in H.264.

In an effort to boost its production capabilities, the Harvard production team added new cameras, graphics, audio equipment and other gear, including AJA’s HELO, U-TAP and Ki Pro Ultra systems.

One example of Harvard putting its AJA gear to use is for coverage of its tennis and squash teams. Six AJA HELO recording, streaming and encoding devices are included in a rack that receives audio and video signals. SDI outputs are fed to each of the six HELOs, one per court, and streaming to ESPN+ in H.264 via RTMP, as well as recorded for archiving.

Two HELO systems are also deployed in the control rooms for basketball and hockey/football for streaming needs outside traditional live production, including being connected to DirecTV receivers to capture H.264 footage from away games. In total, the production team says it has 14 HELO units for all of its productions.

AJA’s Ki Pro Ultra 4K/UHD/2K/HD recorder/player is another system put to use in the hockey control room to meet requests for uncompressed ProRes and/or DNx footage. In addition, the U-TAP SDI USB 3.0-powered SDI capture devices from AJA double the number of feeds that the Harvard production team can capture when live streaming with Wirecast on MacBook Pros.

Harvard uses this technology to help it produce 300 broadcast-quality streams a yer, per Imry Halevi, assistant director of athletics, multimedia and production for Harvard.