March Mania: Live Production Tips & Tricks For Basketball and Indoor Sports Production

On Today's Videoguys Live, Gary shares his tips and tricks when it comes to broadcasting indoor sports with a focus on basketball and hockey as well as ways to increase production value.

Watch the full video below:

Why Live Stream Sports Now?

• ​High School Winter sports playoffs ​
• ​College Sports Playoff Tournaments are beginning​
• ​NHL and NBA playoffs are coming soon​
• School sports are in session with Winter sports, and Spring sports are just around the corner

What Do You Need for Your Sports Production?

• What you need for your Live Sports Production?​
• The most basic need is to stream and record games​
• Capture more action with multiple camera angles​
• Add branding and graphics​
• Add scoreboard​
• Add instant replay​

Stream and Record Games
Let's talk about the infrastructure available at the school and the production system required.​ All systems will require a camera(s), switcher, and an encoder​.

For a One-Person Show: Possible Solutions
Multiple Cameras to YoloLiv YoloBox Pro

• Bring in cameras such as BirdDog PTZ Cameras, Panasonic Camcorders, PTZOptics PTZ Cameras, and more into the YoloBox Pro
• YoloBox Pro offers great features such as custom overlays, scoreboard and countdown overlays, record for video production, and live stream simultaneously

PTZ Cameras
PTZ Cameras are a great way to capture the action with multiple cameras located around the court with the ability to follow the action​.

• Always setup your cameras from the same side of the court, ice or field​
• Imagine a fan in the bleachers who can walk up and down the sideline to follow the play​
• They do not change perspective from one side of the field of play to the other​

NDI Technology
NDI is a great way to get your cameras back to the studio

• More and more schools and athletic centers are being wired with robust networks​
• A single Cat6 cable can provide, power, control and AV back to your production room with NDI​
• NDI requires specialized Networking for optimal results​

Inside Court Full Production

Hockey Rink Full Production

PTZ Controllers

• Already have a PTZ camera? Add a controller for easy and precise control of your cameras​
• Use one camera to set up multiple angles​
• Set presets for common movements

Student Created Content

• Camera Operator​
• PTZ Controller Operator​
• Switchboard Operator​
• Technical Director​
• Announcer​
• Replay Operator​
• Audio Mixer​
• Graphics Operator

Turnkey Production Systems

• Full featured production systems have the hardware and software you need for the complete production​
• 1 centralized unit allows you to follow the action by easily switching cameras, serve your graphics, integrate your scoreboard and more​

Tech Tip: Scoreboard Hack

• Lots of scoreboards have an output that you can feed into your production system to overlay the real-time score and time clock​
• If you don't have that capability mount a camera toward the scoreboard and bring in that feed on your video as a PIP​

Add Instant Replay

Videoguys Tech Tips!

• For slow motion you need to capture the video at 60fps or more. 30 fps will not look as smooth or clear. Which is why we recommend shooting sports in 4Kp60, even if you are streaming in HD​
• ​Adding sports graphics incorporating team logo & colors make your broadcast look more professional​
• ​You can use a simple webcam and headset microphone to bring in your announcer straight into your production​
• Offloading Encoding can take stress off your mixer​