EMFBC

WTF?

The aim of the game is to broadcast everything, and be awesome at it. We can expect to broadcast 2 stages live in HD, with graphics. And record clean versions for editing down to stick online later (but not 2 years later!) - like a few hours after the talk has ended. We also expect to be able to do act as an overflow facility - if one stage is full, we can send the video to another stage's A/V system. And for legal reasons, we'll also be able to not broadcast some talks, but instead broadcast a holding slide / other pre-recorded content. Overnight, we'll show a mix of recorded content, EMF on time delay, and possibly have guests in for chats. Essentially, we're aiming for the full works.

System overview

• We run it all video control/mixing from one location, possibly a caravan, possibly a tent. In there, we house the transmission control, edit PC's, record/playout servers, and push content from here too. It'll be full of screens & generate plenty of warmth!

• We put a 'stagebox' in each track tent, and run fibre/coax (distance dependant) to & from it to the master control room for video & audio. Each stage box will have a small hdmi router, a vision mixer, and some video convertors to take whatever people throw at it - SDI/VGA/DVI/composite from speakers laptops. Each box also outputs to the stage's projector, independently of mixing the broadcast feed. Audio is also taken into the stagebox from the track tent's sound desk. The stagebox will have connections for cameras as well (obviously!) The box will output the clean feed back to master control for broadcast(or not broadcast)/moderation/editing/overflow... Stageboxes will also act as an endpoint for comms, and be controlled remotely.

• If people want to provide pre-built content, we'll take it. Anything we can legally broadcast, with science.

• If people want to provide other live content, even mini-OB's over skype or other transport stream from inside the camp or another camp/conference, as long as there's an out-of-band comms channel.

• If people want to take content live, awesome. We'll give HD/SD-SDI or HDMI. Taking the transport streams may be possible too.

• If people want files out of us, we'll probably end up providing h.264 & PCM at 48k in an mpeg type container - as that'll likely be the way we send content to video hosting sites. If people want something else, then they can transcode it - we're looking at 20-50Mbps, so the result will still be decent after a heavy transcode.

Acquire these things!

Compute resources:

• Switch. Managed, Gigabit. Or just multiple dumb Gigabit boxes.
• Control PC
  • Reads the schedule, controls the videoservers, possibly controls the remote mixers.
• Edit PC
  • Reasonable fast machine to run a video editing program on.
  • We'll cut down the chaff from the goings on in the stages, add Titles, Credits & end boards on this.
  • We'll upload our content from here too (in the background whilst we edit).
• Storage / record machine
  • 2TB that can do 200Mb/s. No other purpose.
  • Must be something like R10,R51,R60. Basically, quick, reliable.
  • Everything apart from the edit scratch disks will be here, so it needs to be nippy!
  • posibbly dual NIC (decide later).
  • Record the incoming feeds, and clip them at the start (set the clip name) & end(finish file).

• Videoserver(s)
  • Runs Graphics (fill & key) during the day.
  • Runs videos in the overnight continuity service. Can internally key the graphics for overnight.
  • This can be one machine per stage/stream, or combined.

• Streamer1
  • Streams the 1st Stream
• Streamer2
  • Streams the 2nd Stream

On the hardware side:

• Screens (all HDMI 16:9 unless otherwise stated)
  • VideoServer Output 1
  • VideoServer Output 2
  • Multiview A
  • Multiview B
  • Program A
  • Program B
  • Edit Left
  • Edit Right
  • PC1 (optional, any)
  • PC2 (optional, any)

• HDSDI-HDMI convertors (LKV-368 are £30 on amazon/ebay)
  • 6 minimum.
  • for each stream: playout, multiviewer, program.

• Clocks (optional)
  • Leitch 1 (big hands clock)
  • LED1 (caravan left/front)
  • LED2 (caravan right/back)

General items

• Rack1
• Rack2
• MDU's
• USB Keyboards
• USB Mice
• Phone charger :P
• Network cables
• 2 Floodlights

Outstation items (for each outstation)

• Mini rack/flightcase
• HDMI to HD-SDI convertor
• VGA to HDMI
• HDMI matrix
• Power strip
• 4 20M XLR cables
• video mixer
• ADC (audio)
• Fibre TX/RX set