BirdDog Studio Helps VideoPepper Broadcast & Monetize Tilburg Trappers Ice Hockey Team

BirdDog is quietly becoming one of the most sought after companies for NDI production workflows. Even if the NDI integration came from a different manufacturer, BirdDog Studios more and more are being brought in to send video and in some cases decode video streams. BirdDog continues to add more features into their products and with so much for them on the horizon who knows where their technology will go.

This case study from BirdDog highlights a production company in The Netherlands that broadcast and cover a local hocey team in the German league Oberliga. The Tilburg Trappers have the expertise of VideoPepper's owner Guido Hoogsteder to produce their live streams and bring in an audience who otherwise wouldn't be able to see them otherwise. Even professional teams are finding the benefit in finding a local answer to live streaming which can bring in an audience worldwide.

“We now exclusively make our content available to Sprade.tv and we love their platform. For the club it’s amazing because we simply stream our games live to the site and their whole business model is based around attracting viewers. We supply the content and they supply the audience. It’s a win for both of us,” explained Guido.

With the new revenue stream from the pay per view streaming platform, Guido instantly looked for ways to reduce complexity, reduce cost, and streamline the amount of time for set up. With a constant eye on new technologies Guido had been keeping a close watch on NDI and the BirdDog Studio NDI since it was first announced. As an early adopter VideoPepper proudly boast owning serial number 36 of BirdDog Studio NDI.

Since picking up one of the very first Studio NDI in the world, VideoPepper have added two more Studio NDI and a Mini. Tilburg Trappers are going live one or two times per week for 3 hours at a time. For every game they use up to four BirdDog NDI® enabled cameras which are all fed into a custom-built vMix live streaming computer.

“The only SDI at all in our workflow now is for return feed to the cameras so the operators know what is going out live. I understand BirdDog will be adding return feed in the future as a free update and once that is released we will retire our last SDI cables. We are very much looking forward to that day,” said Guido....[continue reading]