Radio World Buyer’s Guide articles are intended to help readers understand why their colleagues chose particular products to solve various technical situations. This month’s articles focus on products that support remotes and sports broadcasting.
Tom White, a former high school video production instructor, is intimately familiar with the complexities of producing live video webcasts for sporting events.
He’s now with Amitrace, a systems integrator specializing in video production systems for education, government and corporate environments. White relies on Henry Engineering’s SportsCaster to solve the “audio headache.”
While video gear has become more accessible, he said audio remains a challenge for schools.
“Before we had the SportsCaster system, it would take me hours to install the audio gear,” White said. “I was using several mixers just to deal with the headphone feeds and intercom. It was a complicated mess and never worked very well.”
The SportsCaster is designed to provide “audio control in a box.” It integrates announcer mic mixing, specific headphone mixes for the crew, and duplex intercoms for off-air communication.
“The SportsCaster allows me to mix audio and communicate with all of the members of our production staff with ease,” White said.
For football games involving play-by-play talent, color analysts, field reporters and various producers, the unit replaces complex wiring schemes. White noted that the producer can give cues to on-air talent while simultaneously “calling the shots” to camera operators. The system isolates audio paths so team members hear only what is necessary, minimizing confusion for inexperienced student techs.
“Teaching students how to use [legacy setups] was nearly impossible,” White recalled. “Hank at Henry Engineering worked with us to design a system that would streamline the process. That’s where the SportsCaster came from.”
Today, White uses his years of webcasting experience to help others set up the system through Amitrace. He reports that the learning curve has dropped drastically.
“The struggle we had in the past was giving all of these people the ability to talk with each other,” White said. Now he can train a producer minutes before kickoff.
