It’s certainly a unique time for those of us in the professional audiovisual industry. For designers, integrators, re-sellers and technology managers, the niche industry that usually consumes us with the deeply technical side of things has now shifted into mainstream conversations. 

Why? As most of us have noticed, the news media, local municipalities, counties, schools and businesses have been working feverishly to convey critical information to the public about the recent outbreak of COVID-19, known commonly as coronavirus. While many may disagree about the severity of the virus, two things are certain. The virus is spreading, and businesses are cancelling conferences, meetings and other events to prevent their employees' exposure. 

According to The Lancet, “the national security strategy for COVID-19 within China has shifted to so-called wartime control measures,” with cities on lock down.

At the International Society for Technology in Education conference in Philadelphia recently, we had the chance to speak with Paul Richards about the tools schools can use to add live streaming to their day. Richards is the author of the "Accelerated Broadcast Club Curriculum: Accelerated Student Learning in Broadcast & Live Streaming." 

Richards explained that today teachers at schools throughout the country are looking to create broadcast clubs and curriculum, where their students can learn how to live stream. Many students are interested in a future career in radio or television broadcasting, or even an up-and-coming field such as Esports. Every day school events, including morning announcements and sports, can be live streamed by students to Facebook or YouTube.  Students can get both on-camera and practical hands-on technology experience from these activities. Feel free to share this with a teacher you know who may want to download this book for their students.

Facebook Live and Youtube Live are both valuable tools to reach large audiences with your live stream. While we highly suggest streaming to both platforms simultaneously, we also wanted to take a look at the features of each in a side by side comparison. Our experience live streaming has been nothing but positive yet the platforms are quite different. In this visual blog, we will  share the key differences in each platform and encourage our audience to use both services effectively.

Hello AV & Broadcast Professionals!

Hello Everyone,

One of the best companies in the video conferencing and live streaming / broadcast business is Magewell. If you haven't heard of them, today at 2PM. PTZOptics is hosting a live interview on YouTube. Magewell has become the goto source for frame grabbers, capture cards and the ever popular HDMI to USB devices for DIY video projects. 

I recently go the oppurtunity to ask Kate Koch what the top 3 Magewell products are and hand down she said the HDMI to USB 3.0 frame grabbers are selling like crazy. Personally, I think it's because of the high demand from cloud based video conferencing providers such as GoToMeeting, WebEX and Zoom who need a way to bring HDMI sources into their software based / soft codec web conferencing systems. But Kate explained that there are many other reasons why this product is becoming an industry standard. Check out the video below.

Ever wonder how the major television networks such as QVC and HSN create their infomercials? They have taken the ability to sell over video and turned it into an art. Here at PTZOptics we decided to break down the magic and create a free download kit for our customers to learn exactly how they can use the formula with their own products and services.

YouTube continues to change the way the world is thinking about on-demand and live video content. Over 2 million people are subscribed to YouTube's "Live Channel" with over 200,000 plus new users subscribing every month! Not bad for a community providing free content! Plus the channel was only started in Jan 2015!

Hello AV & IT Professioansl!

Who is your Chief Streaming Officer?

Hello AV, Broadcast and IT Professionals! 

As the world of AV, Broadcast and IT continues to converge the need for a dedicated "live streaming" position has emerged! The Chief Streaming Officer (CSO) is a position increasing in demand as the value of live and on-demand video content grows. Organizations in almost every vertical have started to test the "live streaming" waters on free platforms such as YouTube Live and Facebook. The ability to reach large audiences with live streaming is starting to garner the interest of sales and marketing departments. Although traditional Sales & Marketing departments are becoming more involved they normally lack the specialization it takes to build and maintain the video assets required for producing a professional live stream. From the CEO down to the digital media department a real desire to produce professionally branded content has sparked the need to outsource or bring in house a video production professional.   After our last webinar series (Found Here) reviewing the skills it takes to professionally craft fully branded live and on-demand video content we realized that our customers were dedicating more and more time to learning how to use this technology. The Chief Streaming Officer position was coined by our customers to describe the roles and responsibilities for this professional job. The CSO is a digital video content creation and management position. This professional position involves collaboration with senior management, sales and marketing to craft a comprehensive video content creation campaign often including live streaming. Skills / Prerequisites:

• Understanding of Communications, Video Production and/or Graphic Design.
• Understanding of Video Production Tools such as (Adobe After Effects and/or After Effects)
• Plus to have Event Co-Ordination and/or Video Production experience

• Work with CEO to understand high level video content creation campaign
• Work with Sales Managers to understand the content their customers are most responsive to
• Work with Marketing Managers to understand, build and compile digital video assets
• Build and maintain live streaming video content creation studio.
• Build and maintain live streaming plan/budget to encompass: equipment, software, CDN (content delivery network ) and other necessary items.

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Hello Pro AV, IT and Technology Managers!