Big Bear Sound and Digital Garage recently installed a full broadcast studio at Maximum Media’s offices in Dublin. The studio space called Maximum Studios was custom designed to accommodate the production of Maximum Media’s two new online TV shows which are broadcast on social networks Facebook and Periscope.
Maximum Studio’s Social TV shows are an extension of Maximum Media’s flagship websites JOE, SportsJOE, HER and HERFamily and allow the brand to engage with their audience on a more direct level using online video and social media to really harness the combination of which these two technologies can provide. The installation of the video studio came about after Big Bear Sound had built an audio only podcasting studio for the company. Fully soundproofed and acoustically treated, the podcasting studio is next door to the video studio and acts as a separate standalone audio/video recording facility complete with Go Pro action cameras that allow a more informal, off the cuff style online presentation format.
For the Social TV studio the company were assisted by Big Bear Sound and Digital Garage on the layout, design and equipment choice. The room had some existing features, such as stone walls and a glass partitioned room, that Maximum Media wanted to keep for the show aesthetics. At the same time a lot of lights, cameras, talkback, control room, etc had to be fitted into a tight space and with a tight timeline. The final equipment choice centred around a Broadcast Pix Flint Video Production system with Blackmagic Design Studio HD cameras, 3DStorm LiveCG, LEDGO lighting and Sennheiser wireless lapel microphones and in-ear monitoring.
The glass partitioned room became the studio gallery area and flexible cable looms with SDI video, camera control, talkback and power were discreetly run in at ground level allowing the room to be reoriented depending on whatever show is in production at the time. The studio gallery itself had some challenges to make all the video monitoring and audio control work within a tight space, as when the programmes are being broadcast live to the internet there are up to 4 people manning the controls. All the equipment fits into a custom built rack unit that allows easy access to all the crucial kit so that reconfiguring for different setups can be easily achieved.
Mick Brennan, Head of Production for Maximum Studios commented, “We have a great working relationship with Big Bear and Digital Garage and trust them to provide the right advice, the best kit and the most helpful support. They have been with us from the beginning at Maximum Media Networks as we have grown from audio podcasting to full on Social Media broadcasting and Big Bear really helped us to get the studio built when needed and on budget.”
Michael Browne, Managing Director of Big Bear Sound adds, “Maximum Media are spearheading social media broadcasting through their JOE.ie and sportsJOE.ie shows. To assist them with this we equipped the studio with a 3DStorm LiveCG social media broadcasting engine. This allows the thousands of internet viewers to actively communicate with the shows as they go out live and for the social media managers to instantly display Tweets and Facebook posts on-air. This increases the audience engagement with the shows and gives the shows a unique flavour and style corresponding to the Maximum Media brands.”
Maximum Media have proven that producing high quality TV for the Internet Generation need not cost the earth or require huge open spaces. The Maximum Studios are really taking social internet broadcasting to the Max!
Follow
