Field Report: Effortless streaming with Matrox Monarch HD

The Broadcast bridge by Ned Soseman

The goal in world-class powerboat racing is to fly down an open water race course without leaving the surface, faster than anyone else. At this year?s Missouri?s Lake of the Ozarks race, the winner blasted through the finish-line at 244 MPH, setting a new event speed record.

At these high speeds, a 10,000 lb. race boat weighs only a few hundred pounds ? just enough to keep the props in the water. If only set-up for the live TV broadcast and streaming video on the Internet of the event were so fast.

KRMS radio in Osage Beach MO produces live, wall-to-wall radio and television coverage of powerboat racing on the Lake of the Ozarks, which all runs 8 hours each day over a weekend. Local FOX TV affiliates carry the live coverage for three hours each day. The entire 16-hour production and overnight replay is carried on local cable and streamed on the Internet via ustream.tv to more than 16,000 viewers.

Streaming set-up used to be something of a dirty job. We used a station laptop, loaded like many station laptops with much more software than we need. Because of this, streaming setup tended to be time-consuming and problematic, and the streaming laptop took valuable real estate space in our cramped temporary control room.

At the latest Shootout race this August, we retired the streaming laptop and used a new Matrox Monarch HD for streaming. We couldn?t have been more pleased. It required virtually no real estate, was simple, powerful and it worked precisely as advertised. It was unboxed and set up with a laptop in about 15 minutes, mostly confirming that the presets were actually preset. The laptop was disconnected and the unit went on to continuously stream live video and audio without a hiccup for 50 hours including overnight replays, with one minor exception that was fixed before the production began. read more...

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	Matrox Monarch HD Live Streaming Appliance $995.00			Matrox Monarch HD and MC-100 bundle for professional Streaming and Recording from SDI Cameras $1,295.00			NewTek Sports Solution Bundle with 3Play 425, TriCaster 410 and TriCaster 460 Control Surface $21,995.00