When Japanese web and live video production company MONSTER DIVE began receiving more and more calls to use its live streaming studio, MONSTER STUDIO, it was clear its business was at an inflection point. With the growth came a need for additional production equipment — but not just any equipment.
MONSTER DIVE needed products that would fit its budget, produce quality live streams from limited space, and provide flexibility to the evolving production requirements of the clients it supports. MONSTER DIVE turned to NewTek, which met all the requirements to manage and control production.
Located in Tokyo, the 150 square meter MONSTER STUDIO may not seem particularly spacious, but it is designed to deliver high-quality live stream productions. The team managing the studio may transform the space for different clients on any given day, including live video game commentary, a venue for product announcements, interviews, or seminars.
The team had several requirements for the new equipment – primarily it needed to be flexible enough to adapt to a broad and fairly complex range of production setups, including the ability to integrate various video sources and capture equipment, to host webinars and business calls, to remain compatible with green screens, all while remaining within budget and delivering the quality of a large production from a small team.
Perfect Production Powerhouse: TriCaster® 2 Elite
MONSTER DIVE chose the NewTek TriCaster® 2 Elite video production system, to serve as the heart of its studio operations. The TriCaster 2 Elite is the industry’s most complete video processing system and adding it to the MONSTER STUDIO extends live production capabilities and it handles the increased number of endpoints with ease.
All NewTek TriCasters are IP-enabled with Network Device Interface (NDI®), a high performance standard that allows anyone to use real time, ultra-low latency video on existing IP video networks, which enables users to connect devices such as PTZ cameras, microphones, intercoms, and lighting through Ethernet cabling providing two-way communication.
A more complex production may include multiple camera angles, conference calling capabilities, microphones, teleprompters, or tally lights to tell speakers which camera is live. The TriCaster 2 Elite has 32 IP inputs via NDI, which means it can support up to 32 simultaneous devices. Using Ethernet cables simplifies integration, management and control of these devices in the studio to help reduce complexity.
Large scale production teams may have multiple producers, engineers, specialists and multiple directors working. Staff members on smaller production teams, like MONSTER DIVE, often must manage multiple tasks, and its production director enjoys the flexibility the TriCaster offers, to streamline the workflow.
“A single NewTek TriCaster can switch cameras, overlay text and run a video recorder, allowing the director to be the video engineer managing all creative programs by themselves, which is very appealing,” explains Representative Director, LIVE Production Division Manager, Masato Okajima. “It’s a big deal for me to be able to make real time adjustments, which also makes the show talent feel integral to the production.”
Large scale production teams may have multiple producers, engineers, specialists and multiple directors working. Staff members on smaller production teams, like MONSTER DIVE, often must manage multiple tasks, and its production director enjoys the flexibility the TriCaster offers, to streamline the workflow.
TriCaster: The ‘industry standard for web streaming
“In many cases, Japan’s live production businesses are run out of compact studios like ours. As the TriCaster continues to evolve and add feature improvements, it is becoming the industry standard for web streaming. We’ve had a lot of computer game promotions being produced in our studio and TriCaster has continued to stay the standard setup even as the number of operators has been increasing,” Okajima shares.
In addition, MONSTER DRIVE uses the more portable NewTek’s TriCaster 2 Mini Advanced, NC1 Studio I/O Module, a hybrid video system for adding production inputs or outputs, the 3Play 3P1 specifically designed for sports productions, and the NewTek NDI PTZ1 camera within the studio. Combined, this array of NewTek solutions make up the perfect production set up for any high-quality live production, despite limited space, and allows for flexibility to handle new production requirements as they arise.
“We continue to see a broad range of organizations including businesses, governments and events adopt live broadcast productions to communicate their messages to the world. The NewTek TriCaster line is a powerful production system ideal for production organizations like MONSTER DIVE, and we’re pleased to play a role in supporting its growth,” says Liam Hayter, Senior Product Manager at NewTek.
