Creating a Virtual Newscast with South High School
While moving curriculum online addresses student learning outcomes, maintaining morale is just as important. Coming to school gives students a chance to be social, explore new ideas in conversation, and fosters a sense of community among peers. Now online, having only a screen to interact with all day threatens that community. South High School in Bakersfield, California didn’t want to take that chance.
Working from Home as a Student and Journalist
Who is running toward the fire and not away? I have asked myself that question a hundred times and I wanted, more than anything, to be included on that list. Which brings me to where we are now (roughly). On Tuesday, March 24, 2020, Cronkite News made history. After three days of trial and error with my friends and colleagues Tina Giuliano and Veronica Galvin, we released a completely virtual, at-home newscast with anchors, graphics, weather, commercials...the whole thing. I am still beaming just thinking about it.
Esports: The New Sports Trend in Education
I don’t make a lot of guarantees, but I can make one about esports. They aren’t going away. They aren’t going to fade. They are going to grow and now is the time to jump on board. If you are a video production instructor, this plays right into your wheelhouse. You most likely have computers in your control. You most likely have the best computers in the building. You have the ability to connect those computers to the internet and you have the kids who are already playing most of the games.
Making Your Locations Read: Set Design Tips
When shooting in a gym, try to have a section of bleachers or a backboard within your frame. Thinking about interviewing a teacher? Make sure there is a blackboard or some desks behind them. Choose your background wisely when you are interviewing someone in the field. It conveys information and authenticity, even if you have to add some touches to make reality look more real.
What Bitrate and Resolution are Best?
The higher the resolution and bitrate, the higher the video quality - right? Not exactly. What happens if you’re watching a video online and it starts buffering? You probably close the window. So there’s nothing stopping someone from doing the same thing to you if your video quality is poor.
Scott Pelley’s Lessons for Aspiring Journalists
I recently started the second semester of my junior year at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism in Phoenix, Arizona and much to my surprise, a well-known figure in journalism welcomed me into this jam-packed half of one of my most important years of college. Insert Scott Pelley, journalist and author who has been a correspondent and anchor for CBS News for more than three decades.
Esports in Education
New Esports in Education book shows how student broadcasters are finding careers in esports! Esports is an interesting new sport where students are competing at the high school and college levels nationally. At the high school level, esports players are not only competing to win tournaments but also to gain scholarships to prestigious universities.
#SpaghettiGate2019
SpaghettiGate2019 was on! We got a little bit of a pop of the first hit in the show, and when we returned after the Thanksgiving holiday, the full-court press was on! We did hits every day about SpaghettiGate2019, including one day where we did look lives from outside the office of every administrator in the building and a conference room where a "called meeting" was in session.
Right Where I Need to Be
Long-time, no talk. A lot has changed since my last School Video News blog post, which was a prompt and now, slightly cringy summary of my first semester of college at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism in Phoenix, Arizona. I am now a junior, nearly three full years in, and I feel I owe you a timeline to fill in the rather extensive gap.
Learn How Schools Can Stream Esports Tournaments
During the 2019 StreamGeeks Summit, a three-versus-three RocketLeague esports tournament took place. The event was live-streamed by a student-run team from New York City’s S.A.R High School and broadcast to Twitch. The student-run broadcast team used a Wirecast Gear video production system, which was connected to three PTZOptics cameras via SDI and seven gaming computers using NDI. The main PTZOptics camera was a 12X ZCam connected via SDI. This camera was used to capture the play-by-play announcer team from Hofstra University. Students from the S.A.R High School also had access to two PTZOptics 20X-SDI cameras they could remotely control using Wirecast and Xbox controllers to capture various views throughout the esports tournament.
Why Can’t I Live Stream to Facebook?
If you’ve tried to stream to Facebook recently and encountered an error on your encoder, you’re not alone! At the beginning of May, Facebook started rolling out a new streaming protocol called RTMPS. As of November, the new protocol took full effect. Previously, Facebook - like nearly every other CDN - used the RTMP protocol for live streaming. Consequently, up until Facebook announced its update, most live streaming encoders were only designed to support RTMP. So, if your encoder is suddenly unable to stream to Facebook, you likely have Facebook’s streaming protocol to blame.
How AI Will Revolutionize Youth Sports Broadcasting
The director of sales at Pixellot, Charles Prichard, is convinced that there is a tendency that AI will automatically increase production to make sure that youth sports is cost-effective.
Bring Your Hockey Livestreams Out of the Penalty Box with SuiteCG
SuiteCG's latest release includes official support for ice hockey. The user interface allows for tracking goals, with automated goal animations in the free, NDI-enabled graphics package, as well as Shots on Goal, Saves, and Faceoffs Won. Players on Ice, Powerplays, and Delayed Penalties are all controlled with a few easy-access buttons. There is even an indicator for Empty Net!
Best Sound for Live Production, Broadcasting Football
The parabolic microphones will capture the quarterback signals, player collisions, the football being kicked, etc. It is becoming quite common for a lineman to have a microphone imbedded in his pads to help capture the quarter back signals. You can often hear the microphone being turned off just after the ball is hiked.
We Revisit Hoover High School After 10 Years
The Video Productions program at Hoover High School in North Canton, Ohio, began in the fall of 1998 with the purchase of two digital broadcast video cameras and one Avid Express nonlinear editing system. Today, the program is two-fold, with three levels of a Career Tech based Video Production classes and a multi-year set of Broadcast Journalism courses. Both programs are multi-award winning and are rooted in exploring the fundamentals and advanced techniques of the television and film industries.
Sophomore Slump - It’s Happening
Reflecting on the last 6 weeks, I realized that I made a major mistake in how I was running my live productions this year. Last year was our first year and I knew we would be taking it kind of slow. But last year was great! We did a ton of shows… a ton of GREAT shows. Multiple cameras, great audio, the whole sha-bang. So this year, I came in with the same approach… BAD idea.
Sound for Live Production, Better On-Field Sound
There are three keys to capturing better on-field audio. Using more microphones. Locating microphones closer to the action. Using more directional microphones for better isolation. While these three keys may seem rather obvious the application may not be. Let’s begin by examining how the networks typically capture audio at a baseball park.
Tricks and Tips for Chroma-Key
Chroma-Key of course, works by substituting another texture, color, background in place of a very specific color. Principally we are talking about Chroma-Key, sometimes called Digital-green. It is a very bright, chartreuse green. Chroma-key is now relatively easy to accomplish, but here are a number of things that will help you to produce the best effect.
Georgia Tops Nation for Online Sports Streaming
In 2013, the National Federation of High Schools teamed with Atlanta-based PlayOn! Sports to form the NFHS Network, a subscription-based streaming service that broadcasts high school sports on the internet. Today, the network is turning a profit, and the state of Georgia is a big reason why. That’s because the Peach State is the network’s top revenue-generating state in the country.
Reeds Spring High School
Late in the Spring of 2015 I was asked to work on some video projects for our high school graduation ceremony. You know the ones, they are, “no big deal” until a parent or two feels their kid was overlooked or neglected. I always like a new challenge (if you do then video is a good place for you!) so I jumped in with both feet.