The Streaming Chronicles - Chapter 3
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The Streaming Chronicles - Chapter 3

I have a plan for our live streams next year down to the sport, staffing needs, and budgeted down to the amount of money needed for supplies. We are going to produce at least 125 live events next year and I will pay students in the range of about $8,000 to help produce those games.

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Using Social Media to Increase Video Engagement
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Using Social Media to Increase Video Engagement

At the heart of any effective social-media strategy is compelling content that’s timely and pertinent to your core message. There are many ways of creating that content. You could hire a team of people, plug them into your core content creative process, and then have them create relevant social-media content in real time. Or, you could install an integrated platform that enables the people creating your core content to quickly and easily craft social messaging in parallel.

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A Graphics Solution You Have to See to Believe
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A Graphics Solution You Have to See to Believe

I recently got my hands on NewBlueFx’s Titler Live 4 and that was the answer. I used Titler Live at my previous school for our sports shows but I never used it for news. One of the things I remembered about Titler Live is how easy it was to build graphics. One of the things I was most excited about with Titler Live 4 was the integration of spreadsheets into the serving of graphics info.

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5 Tips to Improve Your Sports Announcing
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5 Tips to Improve Your Sports Announcing

Not everyone can be the next Dick Vitale, John Madden, or Vin Scully. However, please listen to their style and creativity. Student broadcasters are in a unique situation, being able to practice their announcing skills in a relatively low pressure, low stress environment. Here are five tips to help student announcers hone their craft.

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Seriously, You Can Stream From Anywhere
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Seriously, You Can Stream From Anywhere

After using the VidiU Go for three or so months now, I have to say that I am beyond impressed with how well it works and how dependable it has been for me. I typically stream to youtube and the NFHS Network and have had no issue with either. I definitely suggest you give it a shot - especially if you are a school that has to travel a great distance in order to play other teams or are in an area where internet connectivity is rare if at all.

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Moving to PTZ
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Moving to PTZ

How did PTZ Optics cameras make my life easy? Well… If you have read my stuff for a while you know that I hate graduation. Graduation and cats may be on the same level when it comes to how much I hate them. Graduation always brings something to the table that makes me want to scream and throw things. This year was no different.

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Beyond Skills: What a News Director Wants from Job Applicants
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Beyond Skills: What a News Director Wants from Job Applicants

Callie Starnes is a relatively new news director, but she’s been in the WRCB newsroom in Chattanooga for about 10 years. Now that she’s doing the hiring for her station, she’s had to quickly learn what kind of employee is going to succeed. Beyond the skills that every journalist needs, Starnes says there are some key attributes job applicants can bring to the table.

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Sound Shark Attacks In-Game Audio
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Sound Shark Attacks In-Game Audio

The Sound Shark is the smallest parabolic microphone I have ever seen. It will actually work with the shoe mount on the camera and not blow out the balance on a tripod. Most people are aware of parabolic mics as the ones “that those guys use on the sidelines at football games.” This is the portable, easy to use version of the same technology. Parabolic mics “aim” soundwaves toward a small microphone built into the device.

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Live Stream From Anywhere
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Live Stream From Anywhere

The Teradek VidiU Go is a bonded cellular device that allows you to pull in multiple “connections” in order to get the best streaming signal possible. That’s what bonded cellular is - a way to “pile” a bunch of internet connections together so you get the best connection possible. As I dug deeper I knew I had to get my hands on one.

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Cellular Bonding and College Sports
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Cellular Bonding and College Sports

LiveU invented and patented bonded cellular video transmission in 2008. At that time, LiveU changed the workflow of news acquisition, replacing expensive microwave trucks at a local station level with wearable backpack encoders. News stations could cover breaking news and weather events from virtually anywhere. Today we are disrupting how live sports is covered, replacing costly Fiber and Satellite truck solutions with portable IP encoders.

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Why Athletics Departments are Live Streaming High School Sports
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Why Athletics Departments are Live Streaming High School Sports

The S.A.R. High School Broadcasting Club in Bronx, New York was started in 2015 and is now one of the most popular clubs at the school. The club leverages the schools access to Google Apps for Education to provide students with online tools that extend the clubs online collaboration capabilities. Every student at the S.A.R. School has an iPad and a school-issued Google email address.

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Henry Engineering Sportscaster Review
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Henry Engineering Sportscaster Review

The SportsCaster is a specialized mixer and audio controller. It mixes the mics (and other sources), but it also creates the different headphone mixes I need for the broadcast team. And it gives me a “three-button Intercom” so I can selectively communicate with the announcers, the field reporter, and the camera ops.

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Why is News Important?
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Why is News Important?

News is more than just facts and information; it is information that affects us. News affects how we live our lives, how we perform our jobs, how we function as students, and how we make decisions. We decide whether or not to carry an umbrella or cancel a picnic based on weather reports. We look to the media for sports scores, stock market reports and details about entertainment events.

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Interview Styles
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Interview Styles

Interviews on TV are quite common, and not just during the news. Interviews are so popular, entire shows are built around the idea of one person asking another questions. There are different types of interviews and different ways of setting them up. The Oprah Winfrey show is different than 60 Minutes which is different than the Nightly News. We're going to look at several different interview styles, what they work best for, and how to prepare for and use them in your own work.

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A Beginner’s Guide to ScreenFlow
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A Beginner’s Guide to ScreenFlow

Some of the more high-end, professional grade editing suites can do all this and more, but unless you’re a dedicated film school and you’ve got around $1000 to blow on a software license, chances are you’re looking for something which gets the job done well without maxing out your school’s budget. ScreenFlow 4 is, hands down, one of the most intuitive yet advanced video capture and production tools you can buy for under $100.

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The Package: Creating the Perfect Newscast
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The Package: Creating the Perfect Newscast

The foundation of any TV newscast is its packages. That's because, if they are done well, packages have all the elements that bring a story alive: good pic­tures, interesting sound bytes, and a well-written script. If any of these ele­ments is weak, the story may be downgraded (to a VOSOT or even a VO) or kept short. In other words, the quality of the video and the sound bytes often determines the length of a package.

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Selecting Boompoles and Shotgun Mics
Production, Streaming Kreativ Alchemy Production, Streaming Kreativ Alchemy

Selecting Boompoles and Shotgun Mics

Many articles have been written about the value of a boompole and good shotgun mic when it comes to achieving quality Production Sound. (Well, folks, here’s one more!) Why use a boom? Because of all of the techniques available to us, the simple boompole with shotgun mic allows us to get the most professional audio with the least amount of fuss.

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Multi-Cam Sports Production
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Multi-Cam Sports Production

Multi-cam broadcasting starts with two cameras and goes up from there.  If the weather is bad, or you don’t have a full crew, you can produce a great broadcast with only two cameras.  Our standard setup is three cameras, using a Tricaster Pro.  This setup requires a crew of eight students: a director, audio person, three camera operators, two announcers and a grip/cable-puller for the field camera.

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