Berlin High School Livestreaming Solution

With COVID-19 pandemic we saw the emergence of live streaming and video conferencing from everything from classes, to work, to religious services. As a student in Berlin High School who was heavily involved with all aspects AV, I found this opportunity perfect to further my skills while providing a service to the community. With most sports matches for at least the next two seasons slated to have limited attendance, the importance of video recording and streaming these events so families and friends could still cheer on their favorite student athletes was bigger than ever before. Using existing knowledge and plenty of research I was able to design a state of the art system on a budget which I was able to deploy with the School district to live stream most high school sport events.

The Backstory

Prior to the pandemic I was heavily involved with the schools theatre department as part of their tech crew, primarily as a Sound Technician which opened up the opportunity to work for the district as an AV tech for recording & live streaming school meetings in a push to in-house this community service. I was left responsible to setup AV systems across the district for sound and live-streaming to youtube for audiences listening and watching online. With all of this I get fairly involved with the school districts AV Manager, who was in charge of in-house video production for social media and the schools Youtube page, informing parents of whats going on inside the school district. At this time me and another student with similar passions, where interested in creating a club to do video production in the school particularly live streaming of school sporting events, with live commentators, along side other projects and ideas. Even though the school had a TV studio, there really wasn’t an organized club at the time to produce any pieces. But with the pandemic this was halted.

System Design and Implementation

Upon arrival in a hybrid setting in the fall, I was informed that the school was interested in investing in equipment to make this idea of live streaming sporting events happen. Over the next few weeks working with school staff I designed and put together a purchase proposal for a 4 camera portable live streaming solution. Featuring an ATEM Mini for camera switching, a PC for and VFX & encoding, a 16 channel digital audio mixer, and a few extra cameras for the AV department to use alongside existing equipment. From there I built this system in a rolling rack case and tightly integrated all the components. The goal was to make it as simple to setup, which the press of an on switch & plugging in cameras/internet we would be up and going.

Organization and Deployment

As we waiting for the order to go through and get placed, and with the logistical chaos which COVID brought to supply chains, I started to organize and train students by live streaming sports matching with pieced together equipment from the board meeting streams and across the school in order to have a temporary solution for the time being, and to instill confidence that money spent purchasing this equipment wont go to waste. Through out the fall I’d created a club of about 20 students which would help with the setup & manning of camera & other equipment throughout the fall. In February we got in all the needed equipment to deploy the whole system pictured at the top of the page. To summarize its abilities, we where able to connect up to 4 cameras at a time, I had made motion graphics for various portions of each sporting event, we where able to have live commentators, commentating the games, and a score bug which was either automatically fed from the scoreboard using a Sportzcast device or manually by a student. I successfully operated and tweaked this system throughout the rest of my Senior year in high school, and was invited to apply for a position the following school year as a Family Communications Assistant, working in the AV department and continuing to manage the system until I left the following may.

Takeaways

This opportunity and experience really allowed me to shine by letting me focus on creating the highest quality and most seamless solution while being to interface with additional technology such as a DJI drone we where able to feed into the live stream or implementing cordless cameras with the use of Hollyland wireless video transmission systems. From learning while doing research designing the system to making tweaks while it was being tested and implemented. To educating students on how to utilize it to the best of their abilities and to be open with me to new ideas and how we could make everything better. This experience as a whole allowed to to grow in both my skills and knowledge, but also finding a passion working with others and teaching them to create a team, which could succeed in even the most stressful environments.