Over 100 campus events are live streamed to Oklahoma State University’s official video portal every year. The live-streamed events range from convocations, pageants, cultural nights, and sports, to a variety of speakers and seminars hosted on campus. While the official video portal serves its purpose as a centralized video resource, the university felt the need to share these moments with a broader online audience by leveraging popular social media platforms such as Facebook Live and YouTube. Their existing technology—a content management system (CMS) and turnkey video production units—did not allow them the flexibility to live stream to multiple platforms in parallel.
With limited staff and budget, the university needed something that was simple and easy to use, without adding several extra steps to their live-stream workflow. Knowing they wanted a dual-encoder appliance that was affordable and readily portable, the university researched options and selected the Matrox® Monarch HDX H.264 hardware-encoding appliance. With the Monarch HDX’s ease of set up and operations, and its ability to stream to Facebook Live and YouTube, the university was able to take the next step in providing multi-platform streaming.
Set up is now quicker than ever, requiring just half the man-hours required prior to using Monarch HDX. This allows OSU to not only quickly turnaround events, but also increase the number of events they can stream during the school year—thereby attracting new audiences. Live streams of events are sent to multiple-platforms—reaching current and future students, their parents, faculty and staff, donors, and alumni members, no matter where they are! Parents of international students for example, are able to watch their children participate in a variety of events—including Mr./Ms. International Pageant, Cultural Night, or varsity sports games—and that’s a highly satisfying experience.
“The Monarch HDX encoder appliance gives us several options when it comes to streaming,” says Andy Wallace, associate director of OStateTV. “It provides the flexibility to harness the power of social media and seamlessly webcast our unique content. For events where we just want to take a camera, laptop, and microphone, and do a simple stream—that process is now way easier.”
Owning several Sony® cameras and camcorders, and a variety of portable video production switchers, the university uses a mix of both HDMI and SDI inputs, with the selection dictated by the event. Depending on the event, the setup could be for a rudimentary one-camera stream of a speaker, or multi-camera live stream for bigger occasions such as pageants and convocations. The Monarch HDX encoders are also used in outside broadcast trucks for live streaming of college sports.
The stream settings are configured within the unit itself, making it much simpler to manage the encoding. Through the Monarch HDX’s graphical user interface, the encoding settings are easily modified when required, for example, inserting the Facebook Live stream key that is unique for every live stream.
Blake Schaich, video content producer for OStateTV says, “For a simple one- or two-camera set up, the Monarch HDX encoders exceed expectations. You click the button and it’s a guaranteed go. The units are so easy to use. They help us tremendously with our day-to-day workflow as setting up for live streams is much quicker than we ever imagined, resulting in effective use of the available crew.