NewTek TriCaster and NDI Case Study: Guildhall School of Music and Drama

London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama recently upgraded it's video infrastructure with NewTek's TriCaster and NDI to allow collaborations to happen during COVID. The Guildhall School delivers world-class professional training in partnership with distinguished artists, companies and ensembles of musicians, actors, and production artist. Streaming Media Producer covers this Case Study and explains how Guildhall School of Music and Drama overcame the challenges they faced following COVID guidelines and how NewTek opened a world of possibilities for them.

When COVID struck and the mandate required at least three meters between musicians, Guildhall School of Music and Drama would only be able to fit 15 players in their small symphony orchestra. Julian Hepple, Guildhall Head of Recording & Audio Visual says they came to the realization they would have no way of providing a facility for large ensemble performance. 

"We needed a system that allowed performances to play simultaneously in multiple rooms, yet have performers feel as if they're playing together. We needed something flexible, to allow us to scale up and add rooms as and when we needed.”
Sam Ziajka, Guildhall Recording and AV Network and Systems Manager

That's when they realized NewTek was the clear answer. They invested in the NewTek TriCaster, BirdDog NDI PTZ Cameras and SDI-NDI Converters and they upgraded their Panasonic PTZ cameras with NDI. 

"We had to allow all our performers to play synchronously across the buildings. We found that NewTek could offer us a low latency system with sensible data rates, which was high quality and was easy to operate. With its (VMC/TriCaster) support for up to 40 NDI inputs and outputs, we could route a large number of cameras across the network to deliver the experiences we wanted.”
Sam Ziajka, Guildhall Recording and AV Network and Systems Manager

Guildhall School of Music and Drama was soon turned to an entirely new campus with NDI. They were able to log into any machine on their network and route the pictures and sounds to where they needed it. According to Streaming Media Producer, with this technology they have produced hundreds of public facing productions, two entire seasons of digital content with multi-camera, multi-room performances that are recorded or broadcast live.

 This is just the beginning for Guildhall School of Music and Drama. They are planning to take the next steps and link with partner organizations and satellite schools around the country to provide their teaching expertises and deliver high-quality performances. 

Check out the case study here!

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