Check out Josh Castellano, Alexander Ballard, and Anthony McCoy from ATX Event Systems, and Joe Viartha and Ralph Muellen from WiFi Joe, as they discuss how they overcame huge logistic and technical challenges using BirdDog Cloud, Cam Control and NDI to stream from over 30 remote BirdDog P400 cameras.
Consensus is the largest cryptocurrency conference in the world and is a showcase and celebration of all things crypto, including blockchain, Web 3 and the metaverse. The June 2022 event used seven venues situated all over Austin, Texas and presented unique streaming challenges for the two companies.
Simple, Single Cable NDI Connection
While they were able to liaise with the city of Austin to use their underground fiber at some venues, many of the older buildings lacked effective IT infrastructure, leading to WiFi Joe’s decision to deliver internet to these venues via point to point microwave links. Complicating the task further, a load-in window of only 27 hours was available. Under these trying conditions, they found that the simplicity of single cable NDI connection for BirdDog cameras really helped in providing the fastest setup time.
“What was really helpful with the birdDog cameras was that all we had to do was run one cable; which does power, remote PTZ control, audio and video, which logistically, in terms of how many cables and boxes we had to move, was so advantageous”.
Cloud to the Rescue
BirdDog Cloud was used for central control of the distant sources, allowing the operators to be positioned at the most convenient location.
“We needed something that would enable us to be as flexible as possible – be everywhere and anywhere at any time so we figured BirdDog Cloud would be a perfect tool – we’re able to give our clients a zero latency feed very quickly – if they need to see the main stage at the Austin Convention Center or what’s happening at another venue, we can give them those feeds using the BirdDog technology extremely quickly.
There’s so many things to juggle at once when doing an event of this scale so to have the reliability of BirdDog Cloud was just one less thing to worry about.
Cam Control equals easy control
They also found that BirdDog Cam Control provided a simple and highly effective solution for managing the images of cameras that were so remotely located from the operators.
“To be able to easily, and natively – even without a controller – use a laptop to adjust things like camera iris and input gain within the GUI is super helpful. I could pull in a very clean and gorgeous feed from our BirdDog cameras from remote venues like Copper Tank a mile away.
“We’ve been using BirdDog quite a bit for the past two years and they’ve become an integral piece of most of our shows. They’re reliable and we’ve been putting them in some pretty rough areas and pushing them to the limits – outside here in Texas it’s about 105 degrees. After about a year getting hands-on experience with them – I’m definitely a fan”.
Equipment used at Consensus 2022:
To learn more about WiFi Joe please visit wifi-joe.com
To learn more about ATX Event Systems please visit atxes.com
