Launched in 2019, UAL Creative Computing Institute (CCI) explores the intersection of art and technology, and Technical Manager Tom Lynch describes it as “a bit like a startup in higher education.”
Tasked with making education accessible to students who couldn’t attend class during the pandemic and beyond, Tom and his team required creative solutions and flexible technology. In a matter of weeks, they took CCI from using a set of TVs on a trolly to accessing a powerful video streaming and recording system that spans four buildings across London.
From the start, CCI faced a series of challenges unique to their learning environment:
Given the pressure of launching during a pandemic and the staff’s limited AV experience, Tom and his team needed to work with intuitive solutions they could master and scale efficiently.
Tom Lynch, Technical ManagerWe had to be nimble and fast, despite working in a regulatory framework. We launched during a pandemic with no full-time AV experts on staff, and we were already attempting something relatively ambitious. We looked for flexible technology we could implement quickly and scale, iterating and improving solutions over and over again.
The Creative Computing Institute technical team turned to Tateside, a UK-based Systems Integrator, to guide the implementation and implement NDI-enabled BirdDog 4k HDMI, P120, and P200 cameras.
Shortly following the launch, NDI released a virtual webcam update that supported four cameras simultaneously, and Tom and his team jumped on the improvement. Lieven van Velthoven, a member of the team, built an in-house software called Bentham using the NDI SDK to keep frame rates consistent, delivering powerful capabilities to instructors and students.
“One reason we use NDI is that they’ve invested hugely in creating free tools. These tools do everything you need them to do,” says Tom.
As an educational program that fuses art with computer technology, Tom describes the capture and streaming requirements as “computationally expensive.”
For example, the team needed to be able to switch quickly between using Panopto and streaming to YouTube. NDI makes this possible with no repatching of cables. Instead, they can just plug in a laptop running some vision mixing software to grab the feeds.
These solutions meant that instructors could simply walk into the room and start their lectures without worrying about technology. They plug the cable into their laptop, and what they see on the TV monitor is what’s being recorded in the stream.
When technical glitches occasionally arise, Tom or a member of his team can diagnose them by inspecting each part of the audio and video chain, and they can almost always repair the problem remotely.
We could have gone with a traditional HDMI or SDI cabling system, but we’re in four buildings across London, and we don’t have an AV specialist in each. If there’s a problem, we can diagnose and fix it remotely.
Tom Lynch, Technical Manager
By working with flexible technology, the Creative Computing Institute made streaming and recording the norm. Instructors can opt out of recording class sessions, but the vast majority have opted in. This greatly enhanced the educational experience during the pandemic and beyond.
Students and instructors provided positive feedback regarding the university’s remote learning capabilities, which included:
“Of course, the students aren’t aware that we’re using NDI, but they do experience that we have really good lecture capture and audio quality that works,” says Tom.
CCI’s cutting-edge approach to hybrid education enhanced the learning experience. In particular, English as a Second Language (ESL) students and students with disabilities benefited by being able to replay lectures for up to one year.
As an institution, UAL experienced the following benefits:
Taking a proactive, innovative approach to remote learning during the pandemic, UAL Creative Computing Institute established itself as a forward-thinking department, using cutting-edge technology to improve the lives of students, faculty, and staff.
NDI technology gives you real flexibility, and the underlying tech is basically invisible to the users. All they know is that it works, and as a technician it gives you a lot of flexibility.
Tom Lynch, Technical Manager
The athletics program at Harvard University relied upon a traditional baseband infrastructure for its video requirements for many years. But more recently, the Multimedia & Production department has been overseeing a gradual migration to IP via the use of NDI® video connectivity technology to benefit from greater flexibility and easier control at-distance.
With the largest athletics program in the US National Collegiate Athletic Association, Harvard University has a significant video requirement that includes the production and transmission of nearly all home games – amounting to about 300 broadcasts per year. Historically, the Multimedia & Production team depended upon baseband video along with fiber optic and copper cable between facilities for camera and audio feeds, but in recent years there has been a gradual shift towards the use of IP-based technologies.
“We’ve really started relying more on IP technology, such as Dante for audio and NDI for video. Our goal is to rely on NDI more and more, and the best way to do that is just using cameras with built-in NDI.”
Imry Halevi, Assistant Athletic Director for Multimedia & Production
In the past, the department had its usual SDI cameras connected to NDI converters and run into the various control rooms. For 2023, the team opted to go one stage further and utilise cameras from BirdDog with built-in NDI capabilities.
For the latest stage of its IP journey, Harvard University athletics department has invested in several A200 and one P200 NDI PTZ cameras from BirdDog, supporting NDI High Bandwitdh.
“We’ve purchased a few of the [A200 Weatherproof NDI PTZ] cameras, which allow us to mount them permanently at our facilities and control them remotely”, said Halevi.
“We can sit at our control room and remotely control these cameras, get the feeds into our switcher and into our replay system while placing our commentators wherever they need to be on campus.”
Halevi is enthusiastic about the benefits of native NDI and the combination of the connectivity technology with BirdDog hardware. Further equipment purchases, which would have the effect of extending the use of NDI around the athletics facility, are under consideration: “We’ve just purchased our first P200 camera and we’re looking at the 4K line and definitely some of the Mini decoders to connect to more of our monitors around the facility.”
Located 80km north of London, Cranfield University is a leading post-graduate university specialising in science, engineering, design, technology and management. Like many other academic facilities, Cranfield’s use of online teaching has increased markedly in recent years, leading to the conclusion that the existing live video streaming environment was no longer fit for purpose.
After careful evaluation of the available solutions that could provide the necessary uplift in video streaming quality, the team decided to invest in NDI and NewTek’s TriCaster video production system to provide the core of the new infrastructure.
The solution now being used by Cranfield academics revolves around NDI as the single technology for the interconnected production environment, allowing anyone to share real-time, ultra-low latency video over the school’s exisiting IP video network and TriCaster managing and controlling the full array of production equipment.
“When scoping the studio-build, we ran with the vision to live-stream to the whole campus, and looked around for technology to enable this,” says Toby Thompson, Studio Director of Cranfield University Broadcast and Record. “NDI technology was the obvious contender due to its cost-effectiveness from multiple campus locations, as well as its ease of use.”
Initially, the Cranfield team used a TriCaster Mini with NewTek TalkShow VS 4000, which is a multi-channel video calling system designed to simultaneously connect up to four remote guests in real-time. But to increased demand and the highly enthusiastic reaction to the new production environment, the university team has now upgraded to NewTek’s premium TriCaster 2 Elite, which provides extra functionality and capabilities.
The completed installation has been positively received by students and staff, including Dr. Thompson. This increase in video quality and online learning experience is even opening up new opportunities for Cranfield to market their remote education courses.
“Just switching your camera ‘on’ is no longer sufficient: what’s shown must look professional if students are to take your online efforts seriously,” he says. “By embracing NDI we’ve delivered technical innovations in line with Cranfield University’s technology mission; we’ve launched a new professional standard for live-online video production; and we’ve built the foundation of a new revenue stream for live online education at Cranfield.”
Butler University in the US has put itself in the vanguard of the global esports revolution with the creation of a dedicated new Esports Park. To ensure plug & play connectivity and high-quality live production, the university has settled on a combination of NDI video connectivity technology and NewTek media production equipment.
Located in Indianapolis, Butler University today encompasses six distinct colleges: Arts, Business, Communication, Education, Liberal Arts & Sciences and Pharmacy & Health Services. In recent years, thanks in no small part to a student-led initiative, it has also become a leading player in the growing esports movement with its varsity esports teams participating in a number of prominent tournaments.
For the latest stage in this journey, Butler has developed a first-of-its-kind Esports Park featuring a 7,500 sq ft facility with 40 gaming PCs, gaming consoles, a virtual reality area, cafe and community office spaces. Tthe identification of suitable, high-quality broadcast production systems became a priority from day one.
“Our facility required adaptable livestream technology which was easy to understand and use.This was especially important given our efforts to host various livestream competitions while also providing students with hands-on production experience and learning opportunities.”
John Lacheta, Manager of Facilities and Operations
Butler University decided to go for efficiency and flexibility and selected a solution based around NewTek media production equipment and NDI technology. Specifically, it is using the NewTek TriCaster TC1 video production platform and NewTek 3Play 3P1 sports video production solution, along with three NewTek NDI|HX PTZ cameras.
While the TriCasters make it possible to connect and switch between multiple cameras used to film esports competitions, NDI – which is supported by all NewTek products in the workflow– allows users to connect devices such as cameras, microphones, intercoms, and lighting through Ethernet cabling, as well as providing two-way communication, all without having to set up complicated custom networks
Initially, the Cranfield team used a TriCaster Mini with NewTek TalkShow VS 4000, an NDI-enabled multi-channel video calling system designed to simultaneously connect up to four remote guests in real-time. But to increased demand and the highly enthusiastic reaction to the new production environment, the university team has now upgraded to NewTek’s premium TriCaster 2 Elite, which supports the most updated versions of NDI and provides extra functionality and capabilities.
The new installation has fully satisfied the facility’s requirement for quality and flexibility, and equipped Butler University with the tools to host major esports events, like BIG EAST Esports championships, held in Butler’s esports park in March 2023. This event showcased the university’s new facility and the live production capabilities enabled by the combination of NDI technology and NewTek’s equipment.
“The flexibility of this system allows us to support a plethora of events of different shapes and sizes,” he says. “The agility of the NDI standard plays a massive role in how we can shift from classroom to open play and live event modes quickly and with intent. Given that we host so many high-profile esports events, it was necessary for us to have the technology that could easily ingest a magnitude of virtual signals and tie them all into a network quality product for our fans and players. TriCaster with NDI did just that – all while not requiring an intense production set-up.”
Nathan Duke, Manager of Esports Programs and Facility Operations
Prior to Covid 19, the AV team at the Guildhall School primarily relied upon an SDI-based system with cameras and a vision mixer to record and broadcast performances – sometimes as many as five full concerts per day. However, with an increasing desire to work more flexibly between the different spaces and add extra cameras, there was already an awareness that the existing infrastructure would have to be overhauled.
Then the pandemic struck, and social distancing meant that large ensemble performances in a single space were rendered impossible. At the same time, the final of the Gold Medal – the Guildhall School’s premier music – was cast into doubt for the first time in its long history. So, the AV team started investigating options for a new video solution based on IP connectivity.
We needed a system that allowed performers to play simultaneously in multiple rooms, yet have performers feel as if they’re playing together. It had to be flexible to allow us to scale up and add rooms as and when we needed.
Sam Ziajka, Recording and AV – Network and Systems Manager
Working with reseller and workflow design firm Altered Images, Guildhall’s team ultimately decided to invest in a solution that relies upon NDI video connectivity technology. As a result, the inventory now includes a NewTek TriCaster, BirdDog NDI PTZ cameras, and SDI-to-NDI converters. In addition, existing Panasonic PTZ cameras were also freshly upgraded with NDI support.
With the help of NewTek and Altered Images, Ziajka’s team devised a campus-wide NDI network encompassing four buildings. This installation also works seamlessly with an existing but newly expanded Dante Audinate audio-over-IP network.
After the pandemic period – in which large ensembles were accommodated by splitting them across three rooms, each equipped with PTZ cameras and screens on the NDI network – the new infrastructure has continued to deliver remarkable flexibility.
For example, we can now log into any machine on our network and route the picture and sound to where we need it. [Also] we have latency down to about two frames on the devices across the network.
Sam Ziajka, Recording and AV – Network and Systems Manager
Guildhall School has already produced hundreds of public-facing productions with its new IP set-up, resulting in two entire seasons of digital content featuring multi-camera, multi-room performances. In addition, the school is already developing plans to link with partner organizations and satellite schools nationwide for real-time teaching and performances.
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