Livestreaming in Broadcast Quality with Emmy Winner Howie Zales (Ep28)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
How do you get your content tobe broadcast quality? How do you get
your live streams, in your podcastsperhaps ready for TV or corporate video or
virtual events. How you make allthat shine. We've got an Emmy winner
we're going to talk to next onthe Stream Leader Report. Let's do a
show. It's time for the StreamLeader Report. Discover the hottest trends in

(00:28):
digital media. Here's your host,Ross Brand. You know, one of
the things we've been talking about.It's kind of a theme on this show
since the beginning. And that's how, in a lot of ways, the

(00:51):
distinction between TV and online video,particularly YouTube distinctions are blurret not necessarily because
of all, YouTube content has elevateditself to the quality of TV, but

(01:11):
because a lot of people when theywatch TV, they're sitting watching live stream
shows and video podcasts on their televisionthat are created for YouTube, as well
as distribution among podcasts, and soyou're seeing some of the most successful ones,

(01:33):
the ones where they have the budgetor they have the technical chops and
experience elevating their level to where they'rereally doing almost or at TV quality content
for their live stream or video podcastshow. And in some cases again One

(01:55):
of the examples we've cited over overthe episodes is YES Network, the Yankee
sports and entertainment network in New York, picking up on video podcasts to fill
time where they had been bringing inkind of can programming from outside the network,
they're now choosing instead to go withvideo podcasting related content. You know,

(02:23):
content from video podcasting. Easy forme to say that's related to the
content that they do, which iscovering the Yankees and other professional sports.
So they have different Yankee podcasts whichstarted out as YouTube shows, a lot
of similar stuff to what we do, taken to the next level, got

(02:46):
bigger audience, and that's an option. And I think, you know,
we've talked about how some other networksare doing it and how there's going to
be more opportunities to do it.So today we're going to talk to a
man who knows all about both sides, both the television side and the online
side. He's an Emmy winner sportscamera operator, worked in network television and

(03:10):
he's then become an entrepreneur. He'sable to hook up talent with big budget
productions and you know, network andlocal opportunities, and he also does live
streaming and virtual event production and teachesothers the skills they need as well to
get into the field. So Iwant to say a very warm welcome.

(03:36):
I'm thrilled to have with us HowieZales Emmy winner. Howizales dot com is
where you can find him online.How We welcome to the show. Thank
you, Ross, honor to behere. Thanks for having me. Well,
it's awesome to have you on.I have so much I want to
talk to you about because you're,like I said in the open, you're
like the perfect person to talk toabout all this. So let's start out

(03:58):
with your journey. You were anEmmy winning sports camera operator. How did
you get into that and how longdid you do that before you transition into
being an entrepreneur? Good question.In high school, I knew what I
wanted to do. I had oneclass, one elective to choose from,

(04:19):
and I saw this class. Itwas a TV production class. The description
was a trip to NBC studios anda tour of thirty Rock and to watch
a TV show being videotaped. I'mlike, well, how bad can that
be? Right? And so Itook that. I chose that class and

(04:39):
I fell in love with TV production. I loved sports. I wanted to
be a professional baseball player, soI knew I needed a backup and what
better way to combine my new passionof TV my love of sports, and
I knew exactly what I wanted todo, and I only targeted colleges that
had TV programs, And when Igraduated, it was just how do I

(05:02):
find a job in TV? Sports? Wow? And so when did you?
I guess, so you started outas a camera operator. You started
out doing like production and assistant kindof stuff. Yeah, A good question.
I started out as a production assistantat this edit facility on Long Island

(05:24):
in New York, and their editorleft and I told the owner of the
company, I can edit because Iuse that same equipment in my one year
internship in my last year of college. So I became the editor, but
I hated it. And then Itook a job shooting news with a reporter
in the field, So right awayI was a camera operator. I learned

(05:46):
a ton in about a year's time. I kept telling everyone who would listen,
I want to shoot sports. Iwant to be a sports TV camera
operator. Right one day and thisTV station was in upstate New or ESPN
called the newsroom because someone on thecrew got sick, a camera operator,
and they needed another camera person todo a University of Vermont men's basketball game,

(06:11):
and I told everyone that's what Iwant to do. They said,
yeah, we have someone that's availableand would love to do it. So
they sent me over and that wasmy first freelance job and I really never
looked back. Wow. And andso then you started recruiting other talent.
Essentially you had your own firm thatrecruited talent for these type of openings and

(06:34):
you know, big time sports openingjobs and on the crews and such.
Did you continue working as a cameraoperator while you were doing that or did
you go full time into that business? Yeah? That business. H Jazy
Production started pretty much right away inlike the early two thousands. A friend

(06:54):
of mine who I went to elementaryschool through college with, worked at MSNB
at the time, and they wouldproduce I'm Missus radio show I Miss in
the Morning, and once in awhile they would take im Miss's show on
the road. So we called andsaid, hey, Howie, would you
be a camera operator on our show? We're going to do I'm Missus show

(07:15):
remote And I said sure, andhe said do you have any friends.
I need a few more camera peoplefor you, audio people, this and
that. And then he said,can you make it easy for me?
Can you send me one invoice foreveryone and just pay every and you pay
everybody, And I said sure.And I said, there's got to be
a business behind this, because someone'scalling me to be the operator and they're

(07:35):
making money. And I figured itout and I started my I started my
company, and then the pandemic hit, right, And that's is that when
you started doing remote you know,live streams and virtual events, and you
started your next your next venture,so to speak. Yes, so slightly

(08:00):
before the pandemic, we were,you know, I'm always researching what can
I get into next, what canI learn? And I knew live streaming
from being in the business was onthe horizon. We were already streaming in
a different fashion. And then obviouslythe pandemic hit and I did a bunch
of more research after that, andI kind of turned to tea my network

(08:24):
of people, and one of mybest friends in the world is the rabbi
at the synagogue that we go to. So after doing all this research,
I called my friend the rabbi,and I said listen, this is the
equipment we need to buy, thisis what we need to do to live
stream the services. And I wasliterally in August of twenty twenty in the

(08:46):
temple setting up for the you know, big holidays coming up, that a
client called and said, we needto interview nine baseball Major League Baseball players
in nine separate weeks, but theinterviewer cannot leave our house. Can you
do that? I was like sure. Then I called my wife. I
said, Jenny, you have noidea what I agreed to because I have

(09:07):
no idea how we're going to doit. And I turned to my network
of people and we came up witha plan that was beginning. And so,
what type of what type of clientshave you worked with? Like,
what type of jobs do you have? What are people asking you for support
with where they're doing kind of productionswhere they'd bring in your expertise. Good

(09:31):
question. We started out doing obviouslyduring COVID, like all virtual productions,
we worked a lot with big nameathletes like Charles Barkley, Magic Johnson,
Tiger Woods, a lot of differentvarious Major League baseball players. Travis Kelcey
from the Kansas City Chiefs just toname a few, Mike Tarico, fro

(09:56):
and Doug Flutie from NBC Sports.We would do these virtual productions around big
sporting events. For let's say CapitalOne there invited guests, or for Tea
Mobile we did a home run derbycontest for Little League baseball and softball players,

(10:18):
fully virtual, and then we startedbeing broadcast on social media to a
wide audience. Or were these likelike in the case of Capital One,
or something like an in house forthe team and other invitees so to speak.
Yeah, the Capital One events weredone for special invited guests of Capital

(10:39):
One cardholders or certain level cardholder.They got to submit questions in the middle
of the show live and so theygot pretty good access. So we would
do these around the college football championshipgame, around the Final four game.
You know, we did a monthworth of live streams around the Final four.

(11:00):
So yeah, those were invited guests. The t Mobile we did these
productions were for their website or forsocial media. It varied depending on the
client. So it sounds like there'smore demand than ever, even in the
sports area, which is where mybackground is. I started doing radio doing

(11:24):
sports, That's how I got intothis whole world. And back back in
say the nineties or two thousands,before online broadcasting and live streaming and video
podcasts all became a major thing,there was the game coverage, which somebody
owned that entity usually did a preand postgame show. Perhaps other talk radio

(11:52):
stations or TV news stations did someof their own pregame type coverage, or
you know, live from the whatdo you call it the parking lot whatever
that I can't think of the name, but they do it in the Giant
Stadium, the old Giants Stadium whatthey call gating tailgame there you go live

(12:13):
from the tail. Like there werethose kind of shows, right, but
there wasn't a lot of sort ofget the big names on and and do
these sort of corporate type productions.And it seems like there's a whole world
of that now that exists, includingteams doing their own coverage in addition to

(12:35):
all their other coverage, Like likeI've seen what the Jets do with live
you and live streaming, and it'samazing. Is that is that something you're
seeing like across the industry. Yeah, it's it's exploding. I mean even
colleges have their own I consult forthe college that I went to. We

(12:56):
just set them up with a streamingpackage. And they're streaming everything under the
sun, from podcasts to sporting events. So it's blowing up everywhere. And
when you say podcasts, are mostpeople now doing video with these type of
podcasts. So it's yeah, it'sYouTube and then distributed through all the podcast

(13:18):
channels generally. Yeah. Yeah.And what we tell clients is, you
know, maybe do like a minuteor you know, a highlight thing on
YouTube and send them to your websiteand put the videocasts or podcasts on your
website, so you own the followers, you control the advertising things like that,
right, right, And so it'salmost like these colleges, I guess

(13:41):
they have their own they have theirsort of broadcast rights network right where they
have the Sun Devil Radio Network orthe you know what have you, and
they have you know, men's basketball, women's basketball, football, some baseball
games, maybe lacrosse final or whateverthey do, right, and you've got

(14:01):
the pre and posts that they dofor the network and the flagship station.
But now they've got their own podcastnetwork, right, and so they've got
just a ton of content. Isthat usually the team broadcasters are doing that
is that the people that work atthe local station branching out or is there

(14:22):
a whole nother group of talent comingin to you know, be the hosts
and the main producers on that typeof content. Yeah, I think it's
a whole other mix of people thatare and it's creating jobs on the talent
side end and the production side.It's just it's a win win all around.

(14:46):
And so in your we talked abouthjay Z Productions earlier. In your
role with that, are you fillingroles for virtual and livestream productions as well
as television ors You're focusing more onthe broadcast side with that company. Yeah,

(15:07):
for h j Z Productions, it'smore broadcast. For Veridity, it's
more of the live stream UH productions. And is there is there I guess
for like live stream. I'm thinkingabout a lot of my colleagues who do
live stream producing and so forth.Do you have a like, is there

(15:28):
like a request for a bunch ofpeople for that so to speak in terms
of what sorry, in terms oftalent for like, are they looking for
camera operators or UH wire cast Vmix stream producers or and that's what that's
what I do right. So whenwe get when we get a call for

(15:52):
a production, the first question is, you know how many cameras? Uh,
what are the audio needs? Willthere be replays or videotape or graphics?
And that's how we decide how manypeople we need on the broadcast,
and then it's my job to goout and find the right people. I

(16:15):
try to use the same group ofpeople for all of our especially for our
livestream productions because it's so specialized.I have the same Network IT guy that
I use on every show. Ifhe's not available, I have one more
backup if they're not available. Idon't take the show too much can go
wrong, especially in the IT networkingpart of things, that it can make

(16:40):
or break a business. So let'ssort of shift gears now and talk about
the solo creator a little bit,or the small creator who can't afford to
hire let's say, a team toproduce their show, but they want to
elevate from doing everyday level life stream. Say they're doing something like what we're

(17:02):
doing right here. They've got asingle camera, they've had a nice microphone,
and they're using you know, somesoftware to occasionally change shots or uh,
basically to multi stream to a fewdestinations, and they're thinking, how
do I get this to be TVquality, corporate video quality? How do

(17:23):
I get this to where I'm ableto have people watch it on a big
screen TV and not go ooh,you know, this just doesn't match up
to everything else we're usually watching onthis TV. So your question again,
I'm sorry, Okay, so myquestions My question is take take the average

(17:45):
solo live stream, right, we'reusing a single camera and a microphone,
and they're doing a show like we'redoing here. A guest comes on using
some some type of remote live streamingsoftware, and you're streaming at the social
media. What are the what arethe steps that somebody would need to take

(18:07):
to elevate their content? Oh okay, quality level production so that it would
stand out more as a TV qualityor broadcast quality show versus a YouTube show.
Let's say you're a you know,so if somebody's gonna watch this on
YouTube on a flat screen, youknow, thirty five inch or whatever,

(18:33):
how do we make this look likeeverything that they're watching else they're watching?
Right? Great question. The firstthing you need, and as a twenty
five year TV professional, is goodlighting. Right, you don't necessarily have
to have exactly the setup that Ihave. But I have three lights.

(18:56):
This light over here is cross lightingme to this side, this one cross
lighting me that side, and Ihave a light above me, a back
light it's called which separates me fromthe background. But as long as you're
lit on both sides evenly, notrelying on a window to provide you with
light and never knowing what the sunwill do, because sometimes the sun can

(19:17):
overpower you and you know, makeyou look too hot, you want to
stay away from windows. And thenthe other thing is you want to have
a good microphone. You want tosound good. You want to test your
audio like we did before we started, and you want to make adjustments to
make sure that you sound good,because if you don't sound good, no

(19:37):
one's going to understand what you're saying. And then you want a camera that
is either the auto focus is turnedoff, because one thing that constantly annoys
me when you're in meetings or inproductions, when the camera is constantly readjusting
the focus and it's going in andout and out because a person's moving in
and out. So you want fixeda camera that can have the autofocus turned

(20:03):
off, but you want the camerato be in focus because another thing that
will drive people crazy if is iftheir eyes are out of focus and the
thing behind, you know, thedecorations behind are in focus. Just to
give you an example. So youwant to look good with good lighting,
sound good with good a good microphone, and look good with a good camera

(20:27):
quality. Let's talk a little bitabout lighting, because I think that's a
week it's certainly probably one of myweaker areas coming from radio. Yeah,
I have two LED light panels.I know I need a back light.
What what would you say? Whatwould you recommend is maybe you know some

(20:51):
type of affordable lighting setup that somebodycould do that would probably up level what
they've got if if they're using justlike an expensive lighting or you know lighting.
There's a company called loom Cube thatmakes lights that are not bad loom

(21:11):
Cube. Yeah, loom Cube.And is there like is there specific kind
of like I have LED light youknow sort of these LED light panels,
Like what what do you what kindof lights do you want to have?
What are the ideal for your foryour setup? Yeah, you want to

(21:32):
have lights that maybe are dimmable soyou can change the intensity my lights are
dimmable and they change with color temperature. So if I'm inside, I put
it on the thirty two hundred degrees. If they're outside, I can make
them the same color as the sun. Right right. And so because you

(21:56):
work in an area that look thesame in terms of your light, whether
it's morning, noon, or midnight, you can keep it on thirty two
hundred all the time. Correct.I never I never change the color temperature
and I rarely change the intensity,right right. And then do you do

(22:18):
you use just a single camera ordo you do multi camera when you're doing
like talking head kind of stuff.It all depends on what the event is,
uh. For this type of thing, obviously it's just me straight to
the camera. But if it's abig type of events, then we use

(22:45):
multiple cameras, right right. Okay, Now, in terms of cameras,
can you talk about some of thecameras you'd recommend for people who are want
to upgrade their equipment? Sure,so, so you can use I happen
to have one here. It's athird party camera that sits on the top

(23:07):
of our laptop. It's called aKyo. It's made by Razor, their
company Razor. It's a Kyo Pro. They make two versions of it.
This happens to be the wide angleversion. They also make a more narrow
version lens. And the beauty ofthis camera is one it sits on top

(23:27):
of your laptop or desktop, soyou can make sure that it's eye level
with you. And it comes withsoftware where you can go in and adjust
the focus. You can adjust thecolor temperature, you can adjust the luminance,
the gain. Everything important about agood camera shot, it can all

(23:49):
be adjusted. And so those whatyou'd recommend for both your home studio or
for taking on the road with you. Yeah, because it's literally look how
small it is. It's packs youcan throw it in your briefcase. What
do you think again, we're talkingabout up leveling, you know, getting
closer to broadcast quality. What doyou think of mirrorless cameras or you know,

(24:15):
phone iPhone cameras or Android camera Like, what do you think about using
those in your shoot? Yeah?Mirrorless cameras are great. Uh uh,
they put out an awesome picture.We definitely use them. I know a
lot they're used, like in bigtime sporting events. I haven't really seen

(24:37):
it this year, but they wereused a lot last year, mainly on
the big nfl A level games.They were a shallow depth of field cameras.
It was basically the camera person insteadof cam quarders or professionals. Yeah
camera, yeah, And it wasbasically a camera camera person running around with
a gimbal. It was usually itwas a Sony A seven or something similar,

(25:02):
and it had a lend a goodlens on it, so it created
a very shallow depth of fields.So let's say they were following a relief
picture from the bullpen to the mound. They would be in focus, but
like the crowd and everything else wouldkind of be out of focus. Oh
very cool. Yeah cool. Anykind of webcams have an application or not

(25:26):
when you're getting to the to thebroadcast level. Yeah, this webcam does.
Yeah, oh that's a webcam.Yeah okay yeah. And then do
you recommend cam quarters at all ornot? No? Not really? Okay.
I mean I have a C fivehundred, which is not really a
cam quarder in the sense it's it'sa professional. It's a professional camera,

(25:51):
which is why I didn't know whatit was. When you say your mind
was fed five hundred, that's awesome, But you'd say for the average person
who wants to upgrade to video qualityof a broadcast or television quality, start
out with a mirrorless camera or oneof the ones that you recommend, right,

(26:12):
Yeah, a mirrorless camera or arazor this this is full HD or
there's some you know, it dependshow much money you want to spend,
right, there's some. PTZ Opticshas like a six it's more of a

(26:33):
webcam, but it's more expensive thanthis, and it sits on top of
your laptop also, but it justyou know, has a better chips inside,
and it's just what are you lookingto do, and how much money
do you really want to spend?And that those camera the ptzs will follow
you, yeah, or they'll youcan program how they'll change, Okay,

(26:56):
both the newer PTZ a lot ofthem have an auto tracking feature built in.
As long as it's a native autotracking feature, it works extremely well.
They also have a controller where someonecan sit at a controller and operate
up to six PTZ cameras at onetime, and that's how we do a

(27:22):
lot of our events. We usuallyhave three to four PTZ cameras, one
person controlling three or four cameras.Simultaneously. And so even a person doing
a talking head video could use aPTZ camera, Like if let's say they
had a whiteboard behind then they're,like, you know, doing a tutorial

(27:44):
or something like that, they coulduse that to track them and we wouldn't
look choppy if they use some kindof camera, right exactly. Okay,
So any other anything else in thecamera area that you would say that you
would recommend or that somebody should needto know in order to do that at
a at a good quality level.No, I think that's that's pretty good.

(28:06):
Okay. So now streaming. Youmentioned we talked about it off the
air a little bit that you usev mix and v mix tell us about
why you like v mix and howyou use it. Yeah. V mix
is a broadcast quality live streaming softwareplatform, and the beauty about it is

(28:32):
you can have up to eight remoteguests at one time, and they all
call in through a u r Land they're given a u r L and
a password and that's how they callin. So no one can no one
unless they give that password to someoneelse, no one can bump them out
of your show. And then youcan have as many other camera inputs as

(28:56):
you want SDI d I inputs,which is why less basically wireless over the
Internet. As long as you're onthe same network, you can take in
SRT feeds. You can have asmany a video and audio inputs as you
like. It also has eight audiobuses, and what I mean by that

(29:18):
is you can have eight separate audiomixes going on simultaneously. You can have
an English feed, a Spanish feed, a French feed, so on and
so forth. You can have avirtual green room that before the show,
everyone who's involved in your production canbe talking to each other and seeing each
other, and with a press ofone button, now they're seeing what's going

(29:41):
out over the air and they're hearingprogram audio. It just gives you a
lot of control. And someone comingfrom the broadcast industry, it's like having
a TV truck in a box ina computer box. What made you choose
v mix over a wire cast obssome of the others ECAM that you know

(30:06):
that are out there. It justhas a lot more flexibility. The network
of people who I turned to whenI have questions had a lot more experience
with v mix and the use ofv mix in the cloud really helps.

(30:26):
And the scalability of it. Andwhat I mean by that is, if
you have v mix, you canhave five computers sitting next to each other,
each with their own v mix licenseon it, which means that's eight
remote guests per computer. And ifthey're all on the same same network,

(30:47):
which if they're sitting next to eachother, they are, each computer can
share each other's inputs. So youhave the up to forty basically up to
forty guests. And now with thenew v mix updates that's about to be
released, Zoom is integrated into vmix, so you can basically create a

(31:11):
Zoom call and have an unlimited numberof Zoom contributors in v mix, and
then you're still producing it with vmix. You bring you're still producing it
with X and v mix provides anative mixed minus return feed to the guests,

(31:32):
and you can control with the pushof a button what the guest sees.
Do you want them to see theprogram feed? Do you want do
you want them to see a certaininput of the show? Do you what
do you want them to hear?Should they hear the master? Do you
You can create an IFB for whenthe producer needs to talk to the host
with the push of a button.Now they're not hearing the master, they're

(31:55):
hearing the producer, and then whenthey release the butt, when the producer
releases the button, now they're backto hearing the master audio. So it
has a lot of flex How easyis it to use templates where you find
you're not having to recreate your graphicsor scrape the screen, Like when you
bring a guest on, does itjust kind of bring their feed right in

(32:15):
or do you have to crop itand do a lot of a lot of
work if you're bringing in, youknow, a single window kind of feed
from somebody, No, it comesin perfectly. If you're using an overlay
box. They have built in outof the box overlay boxes you can use,

(32:36):
or you can use pre built onesthat match your show with your color
scheme. And once you kind ofdesign the show once you probably don't have
to touch it unless you have tofine tune it if someone is sitting way
closer to their camera than most peopleor something's out of whack. But for

(32:58):
the most part, you really don'thave to tell you're changing the names on
the lower thirds. But basically theirvideo is coming in ready for your absolutely
and it does have the flexibility tomake chroma gain and luminance changes should there
be a need, do you usegreen screen much? Never? Never?

(33:22):
Okay, it does have that.It does have the capability to do it.
I just haven't had the need forit for whatever reason. And when
you you mentioned like you can youcan stream in different languages and and and
so forth, does that require eithera superpower computer or extra extra server space

(33:42):
or what's involved in doing all thosedifferent types of things you mentioned with different
streams and feeds and all sorts ofstuff. Yeah, So without getting how
do I explain this about getting tootechnical? So you can stream and v
mix to three separate locations. Weusually stream to to a primary and a
backup should the primary stream go down. But if you want a separate language,

(34:07):
we would have another server taking onthe same network, taking the feed
through NDI and then having its ownstream in a separate language streaming to a
different location. Wow, so youuse NDI a lot then yeah. And

(34:28):
when you're using NDI, then everything'sgoing over Ethernet or just going okay,
so you're not one hundred wireless,you're going you're using Ethernet when you can
well plug your cameras in and stufflike that or so NDI is basically you
have to run ethernet to let's sayyou're gonna take the cameras in NDI to

(34:51):
v mix. The cameras have tobe connected via ethernet to the network.
Computer has to be conne to thesame network, and then it could be
taken in over NDI. Right,so you're connecting your cameras with the ethernet
instead of connecting them with DADMI orSDI or yeah, okay, so that

(35:15):
gives you a lot of flexibility then, right, and it also keeps your
setup probably a lot cleaner. Well, one thing we do, depending on
what the show is, we willalso run SDI cable, just depending on
the strength of the network because NDI, as you knows, eats up the

(35:37):
network, especially if you don't have, you know, a huge signal.
So if if it's not if wedon't have like a gig pipeline or whatever
or what we think we need,then we'll run SDI. We always have
SDI cable on hand to run fromthe camera to the to the server,
but we'll use NDI to the PTZcontrol roller so we can control the cameras

(36:01):
that way now, when you're bringingin guests, are you bringing you're bringing
in their audio with their video allone through nd I are you are you
bringing them in through? Are theycoming in through their camera or are they
coming in through a phone or acomputer. How are you ingesting their video?

(36:21):
So their video if there are aremote guests, they're not in the
location where we are. They comein through what's called a v mix call.
We give them. It's they goto v mix call dot Com.
Through that to that r L,they'll put in their name the password that
we create that's specific for their vmix call and as soon as they click

(36:44):
join, they have to assign theircamera and their audio headset to the u
r L and then they join thecall and then they come up in our
production and that's it. There there'sno latency, there's no uh. It's
amatic and automatic mix minus is sentto them in return audio wise, and

(37:07):
then the video return is what wedecide they see right, And they're doing
that all through their computer, theirphone, all through their computer. We
really don't like people to do iton their phone because of the aspect ratio.
A lot of times, Yeah,and then when you get all the
audio, whether it's local. Areyou doing any audio mixing in hardware or

(37:30):
is everything done in v mix,like all your audio production when you're doing
live, we'll net time. Wehave a remote audio person that dials into
our server through a program called centralControl and he hooks up his UH audio

(37:54):
console through central Control to control vmix. Okay, and I'm not no,
I know, guys, so Idon't know a hundred percent understand it.
And because we work virtual like likehe's virtual like one hundred percent of
the time. I've never actually seenhis setup to see how exactly it works.

(38:14):
But he's got some type of virtualmixing board that he puts in their
console and then that everything comes throughthat. And then yeah, and we
try to provide we are on site. We have a scarlet eighteen by twenty,
so we try to take individual weI think we could take up to
ten audio inputs. We try totake the individual inputs and send them down

(38:37):
the line to him so he cancontrol the inputs by himself instead of just
taking a left right program feed fromlet's say an audio mixer in there,
so he can get all the individualinputs out of the scarlet. It doesn't
have to go into v mix asone one audio feed that's mixed. That's

(38:57):
our goal to do it that wayphenomenal. So are the what do you
think the biggest challenges people face arewhen they're trying to elevate the level of
their production. There's a few thetechnology, knowing how the technology works,

(39:17):
the Internet, not having the correctInternet speed, because when you're doing something
like this, everyone you know,the cable companies, everyone are they're selling
the download speed, right, that'swhat you see, but you never see
the upload speed. And the uploadspeed is what you need when you're doing
when you're calling in or you're avirtual guest, right, If you have

(39:39):
a five upload speed, that doesnobody any good. So that's a big
challenge. And just understanding how thetechnology works and giving yourself enough time to
set up and test everything. Likewe had the plan that we were going
to meet at one fifty today.I was set up at one third to

(40:00):
make sure I knew everything was workingon my end, so by the time
we met it just had to besome fine tuning, right, right.
I want to mention your your coursereal quick. It's in the at the
sort of the top of the notesin YouTube and for people listening on the
podcast, it'll be at the topof the show notes. For people who

(40:21):
want to get started in sports broadcasting, this is the boot camp that gets
you going. Can you tell everybodya little bit about how how broadcast sports
course works? Yeah. I hada lot of mentors as I had my
journey throughout being a camera operator,so I wanted to kind of pay it
forward. I've mentored a lot ofpeople, and you know, I had

(40:44):
the idea of coming up with acourse. We wrote a book. I
had some help writing a book ora manual more or less, and it
basically tells people how to from thesecond they parked their car to the second
they get back in their car atnight, how they function on the job
site, what their responsibilities are inthe position that they're working in. How

(41:07):
to shoot baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, and boxing from every camera
position in a general sense, becausesometimes directors have his or her own way
of doing things. But more orless, sports TV is a formula and
how it's shot. We wanted togive people a chance to touch the equipment

(41:30):
that they'd be working with, sowe have we bring in all the equipment
that they would be using We teachthem how to build the cameras, how
to coil cable, how to speakto people on the job site, how
to speak to employers potential employers,what a good email looks like, how
to talk on the phone, thingslike that. And so when they're done

(41:52):
with the course, what's the nextstep for them in terms of like learn
the skill of actually shooting games ordo they come do they come with some
background in that, some some havehad none, some have had some.
The best part about taking a courseis that I'm one of the biggest employers

(42:16):
for sports TV crews in New YorkCity, So you know there's you're aware
of what they can do already.Yeah, done with the course, so
and I think they're training them tobe able to do a job that somebody
gives you. And the first timewe did the course, I think six

(42:37):
people took it and I've since hiredfive of the six people. Wow.
Wow, that's phenomenal. Yeah,I mentioned earlier and we talked slightly about
but I want to come back toit. Kind of opportunities, whether it's
in the TV side or it's inlive streaming and virtual events for people who

(42:57):
have some skills and have an interestin this. Where are you seeing the
opportunities right now on the production side, Well, in sports and entertainment broadcasting,
it's everywhere. It's only getting biggerwith the likes of Amazon, Apple
TV plus with MLS Major League Soccerand live streaming. Wise, it's only

(43:25):
helping because to live stream doesn't costas much as to put a sporting event
on network TV. So the lowerlevel sports like track and field or swimming
or rugby, which may not havethe money to or the wherewithal to get
on network TV, can be livestream somewhere right right. It's like it

(43:51):
used to be that those sports alot of times, well maybe not track
and field whatever, but some ofthe sports that couldn't be they couldn't afford
to have TV broadcasts or radio woulddo internet broadcasts back in the day.
Now, with all the advances intechnology and bandwidth and cameras and everything,

(44:12):
there's no reason that you can't bringvideo to those those kind of broadcasts.
Yeah, and we're we're we're biddingon like doing a bunch of track and
field events from a few different Caribbeanislands. They just don't have the money
to have it broadcast on TV.But to have it live streamed on a
website behind a paywall, would theywould make the money? Right? No?

(44:37):
Yeah, so you're talking about aniche audience, but a niche audience
that wants that content badly enough topay for it. And then on the
talent, the on air talent sideof it, what types of programs besides
live sports broadcasts are you seeing oryou getting involved with or find talent for

(45:00):
where you say, gee, thereseem to be a lot of these popping
up. If somebody's good at oostingthat, but you should get they should
get there themselves in the game forthat. Yeah. We do a lot
of corporate events, a lot ofspeaking events, a lot of podcasts,
all different types of events, concerts, things like that. Yeah, and

(45:23):
so for anybody who wants to workwith you, it's howizales dot com is
the best place to start. Yeah, and you've got a full range of
services. You're an Emmy Award winner. Howimn. It's been wonderful talking to
you. I can't believe the thehours almost almost up. Tell people what

(45:44):
you're up to next, or youknow, if there's anything you've got that
you want to promote, shout itout. Yeah. No, we're just
looking to work with clients that needhelp with any sort of productions where there's
corporate meetings, sporting events, thingslike that. We do a lot of
live stream hybrid events. You canreach me at Howard Zales on LinkedIn or

(46:07):
my website howisales dot com. Youmentioned hybrid events, so before we wrap
up, I got to hit onthat. Are you when you do hybrid
events? Are you talking about anevent that is in person but you are
live streaming the event to a virtualaudience so that they're watching what's on stage.

(46:30):
Or are you talking more about likeevent coverage, like you're in the
hall and you're interviewing the speakers andthe participants and the vendors and stuff like
that. What kind of like hybridproductions do you do? So we will
provide the hybrid events that we do. Will provide the in person experience by

(46:52):
providing cameras in the room where themeeting is taking place, will have power
points. A lot of times thecompanies provide us with power points. We'll
give them a Q button and they'llqus when to change the PowerPoint slide for
the screens in person in a virtualspace, we'll create a full on production

(47:16):
where we're ch cutting cameras, we'reputting up the slide. We'll put up
a two box. If two peopleare talking, we'll put up a small
box of the person talking in abig box of the slide. Then we'll
cut to a shot of just aslide if whatever makes sense to keep the
virtual audience engaged in the production.So we're doing two simultaneous two shows simultaneously.

(47:40):
Wow, that's a lot of work. And what size team do you
need to do that type of production? So usually it's if we're doing it
with PTZ cameras, PTZ camera operator, myself as a technical director, a
secondary technical director to run the secondV mix machine, uh, an IT

(48:05):
engineer, an on site audio person, a remote audio person, and a
remote director. And I assume you'renot streaming with Hotel WiFi higher conference room?
Why we never? We never usedWi Fi? Yeah, yeah,
So what are you What are youusing to make sure that you have a

(48:25):
strong enough connection. We'll rent thewe'll rent the internet. We try to
get at least a gig Internet fromthe venue where we're at, and we'll
also bring we have a bonded cellularbackup router. So the the Internet Ethernet
cable gets plugged into the bonded cellularrouter. The router feeds our servers and

(48:51):
should their Internet go down, youwill not see a lapse because our bonded
cellular router just picks up. Wow, that's phenomenal. Yeah, theoretically,
right, theoretically, because that's thethat's the biggest challenge is in in conference
rooms and stuff house. Is thehotels internet good enough? Do you have
to well on the next level?And then do you have backup? And

(49:15):
obviously and one thing you're doing ityou're coming. You're coming super prepared.
We never rely on just showing up. Whenever we get h you know,
a firm booking on a job,I'll always go do what we call a
site survey, and the first thingI'll do is which Internet port are we
plugging into? And let me checkthe speed? And then we we send

(49:37):
the I T department at that venuea protocol list of what we need for
our events. We don't want anyfirewalls we because we have our own built
in. We want our remote peopleuh to be able to access our servers
on site, so we can't haveany firewalls. And we want to make

(50:00):
sure we have the correct speed man. It's great talking to you again,
Howie Zales. Check him out Howizalesdot com. Check out his course as
well. If you're interested in gettinginto broadcast sports production, it's the Broadcast
Sportsco Course dot Com and a wholelot more. Howie, thanks again for
joining us on the stream Leader Report. Thank you, Thank you. Ross.

(50:23):
All right, it is great talkingto Howie Zales and that wraps up
Episode twenty eight of The Stream LeaderReport. Don't forget to join us tomorrow
one thirty pm Eastern four our weeklylive panel Hall of Fame podcaster Rob Greenley,
Uh, the great Claudia Santiago entertainer, singer and live streamer, and

(50:47):
of course the great marketing copywriter andhost the Business in the Raw, Rebecca
Gunter. We'll be talking about thelatest in tech and news and digital media.
Join us tomorrow one thirty pm Easternon YouTube. Take care everybody,
and wishing you a great rest ofthe day. As I say that slowly

(51:10):
so that I can find the outro. Take care, everybody,

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Livestreaming in Broadcast Quality with Emmy Winner Howie Zales (Ep28)

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

All Episodes

Livestreaming in Broadcast Quality with Emmy Winner Howie Zales (Ep28)

Stuff You Should Know