Megaconference

[Ben Fineman <>]

We have a Tricaster 300 (used for the recent Megaconference v6) and mostly love it. The only thing we don't like is it is fragile and does not ship well (we've broken it in shipping more than once).

Depending on the video formats you're working with, the new solution from Blackmagic could be worth a look: http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/atemtelevisionstudio/ For $995 it's pretty feature rich, with six channels of HDMI or HD-SDI switching, keying, H.264 encoding, multiview monitoring, etc etc. I do not have personal experience with this, just saw it at Infocomm.

Best,

Ben

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On Jun 12, 2012, at 1:31 PM, John J. O'Brien wrote:

Hi Jefferson: Hope all is well!

Hi Mark: Montclair State University's School of Music is very happy with the NewTek Tricaster 850. And colleagues at another NJ College are very pleased with the NewTek Broadcast Unit and used it to stream their commencement at 500kbs and it was a very good stream and could be used for VC.

Best,

John O

On 6/12/12 1:21 PM, Jefferson Sampson wrote:

Hello Mark,

    If you are looking for a low cost video switcher, you should look at the following.

    http://www.roland.com/products/en/VR-5/
    I use the Roland VR-5 for both of my video conferencing and streaming needs.

   http://www.roland.com/products/en/VR-3/
    The Roland VR-3

        Jefferson

On 6/12/2012 11:59 AM, Leonard, Mark wrote:

Yes Hello--

I help run a videoconferencing facility here at UNH and I need to replace an aging Newtek VT-5 video switcher. The switcher has worked quite well over the years-- giving us a preview monitor, nice fades and cuts, titling, chroma keying…

I know that most VC classrooms video switching is done through the creston/extron interface (or even the VC codec itself) but I would rather not give up the 'studio production' quality that we have been able to do in the past. Newtek since has dropped the VT line and moved forward with the Tricaster series which would be perfect but is way outside by replacement budget.

Has anyone had experience using a box like this for videoconferencing? Or something similar?

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/atemtelevisionstudio/

Thanks for looking at this and for all the help I have received from this list over the years…

Cheers-

~Mark

Mark Leonard
DL Studios, UNH
P: 603-862-0192
E:

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Jefferson Sampson Ramapo College of NJ Manager: ITS Client Services 505 Ramapo Valley Rd. Mahwah, NJ 07430 Voice 201 684-7402

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John J. O'Brien
Assistant Director of Academic Technology
Division of Information Technology
Montclair State University
973.655.7435