How We Run a Live Broadcast
We run live broadcasts the same way a television control room does. A technical director cuts the show live, every camera records its own isolated file at the same time, and the program feed goes out to whatever platform the audience is already on. The result is a finished broadcast when the room empties, not a pile of footage that needs a month of edit.
Enter the Control Room
Every camera lands on its own switcher input and the technical director cuts between them live. Every angle also records clean, so the edit team has real options afterward.
- Blackmagic production switcher, eight SDI inputs
- Blackmagic HyperDeck isolated recording on every angle
- Blackmagic Web Presenter for the encode and the push to the destination
- Audio off the house board over XLR, so the stream hears what the room hears
- Program master delivered as a 4K MP4 file
Staying Ahead of the Bandwidth
A smooth live stream is decided long before show day. Gear is rarely the question. The connection is, and we make sure it is answered before anyone plugs in.
We put the requirement in writing before the job is booked. A hard line ethernet connection with 300 Mbps down and 100 Mbps up as a floor, dedicated to the broadcast and not shared with a room full of guests on the guest wifi.
When a venue cannot produce that, we bring bonded internet so the show is never waiting on the house connection. Bonded cellular is rented against the specific job and billed through, which keeps a five figure encoder off our balance sheet and off your invoice.
The Process From Setup to Air
Nothing on show day is happening for the first time. Every broadcast gets the same run up, whether it is one event or a monthly program.
- Survey and setup day. We walk the room the day before, not the morning of. Camera positions, cable runs, power, house audio and a real test of the venue connection.
- Dry run. Speakers walk their content with the crew live on comms. Timing and microphone problems surface while there is still a day to solve them.
- Show day. The technical director cuts live, every camera records the whole time, and a monitor outside the building watches the public stream.
Broadcasts We Have Run
Town halls, a Super Bowl week, an awards night and a live art stream, all run the same way.
SiriusXM
A full week of Super Bowl LIV coverage streamed live, with graphics, tickers and overlays for every SiriusXM show broadcasting from the event.
Group Chat x Oscars
A live show with Liliana Vasquez on Oscars night, broadcast from our own stage after we turned the whole studio into a green screen set.
H&M
A four person executive town hall streamed live from Houston Street in New York, with a setup day ahead of it and live translation running alongside the broadcast.
PearPop
Creator Now and Next, twelve episodes from a Santa Monica studio we designed and built, with the stream monitored live from Los Angeles, Fort Lauderdale and New York.
Stantec
A workshop that connected offices in New York and London. Their feedback afterward was that colleagues on both sides felt like they were in the same room.
CO2ign Art
A live art stream with Pypah Santos that sent every sale toward verified carbon credits as it happened, with live motion graphics throughout the show.
Where the Stream Goes
YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, LinkedIn, a client website, or a private destination such as Zoom, Skype or GoTo Meeting.
Two extras are available when a show calls for them. Neither is part of the standard broadcast, and both are scoped separately.
Live translation for an audience that spans more than one language, which we ran for the retail town hall.
Live question and answer tooling, with a moderator on the comments so the chat has a person running it.
A Film Studio You Can Broadcast From
People search for a film studio for live streaming. Most production companies cannot answer that.
We own the room. Thirty thousand square feet in Los Angeles, with offices in New York and South Florida. A broadcast can originate here on a controlled stage with our own power, our own connection and our own lighting, instead of fighting a hotel ballroom and its guest wifi.
Broadcasts, films, campaigns and stills from the same team that will run your live stream.