THE WORLD’S FIRST REMOTE CONTROL TOURIST – Major live streaming project for Tourism Victoria

At the heart of the recent, much-heralded Remote Control Tourist campaign were two innovative pieces of equipment from live streaming specialists Teradek. The promotion, carried out on behalf of Tourism Victoria, presented a world first in terms of the amount of live streaming that was performed over a five day period. Central to the promotion and responsible for the live streaming aspect was Grant Harper and his company Livestream Australia.

Harper explained, “The campaign involved four Remote Control Tourists (RCTs) roving around Melbourne for eight hours a day over five consecutive days. The RCT were commanded by Twitter tweets and Facebook posts from all around the world and asked to explore every facet of Melburnian life. To accompany them they had an HD camera, two professional mics and a Teradek Bond cellular bonding solution which allowed the video they shot to be broadcast in HD over aggregated bandwidth from several networks.”

The point of view cameras and mics were mounted on the RCT’s helmets enabling them to interact fully with all the people they met and to become the eyes and ears of the people sending in requests via the web.

Harper continued, “Teradek supply high quality live streaming equipment and it was this equipment that was critical to the success of the RCT project. The RCT HD cameras were connected to the Teradek Bond alongside four Telstra 4G dongles and two Optus 4G dongles. As the footage was shot the Teradek Bond encoded and transmitted a 720p video signal at 2500kb/s via the two cellular mobile networks back to RCT HQ in South Melbourne in just two seconds. As soon as the content was received it was ingested using a Teradek Sputnik server which then in turn re-encoded it at multi-bitrates in HD and immediately streamed it onto the Internet using the New.Livestream platform. The entire process from acquisition to broadcast took just 17 seconds.”

Teradek is represented in Australia by distributor Blonde Robot with Livestream Australia acting as a reseller and consultant. The two companies also combined on the RCT project in order that Blonde Robot be able to provide comprehensive onsite support at RCT HQ. **BR is only distributor**

 

 

Harper added, “The entire RCT project was dependent on reliable live streaming which was made all the more challenging due to the roving locations. In truth the Teradek Bond and Teradek Sputnik server performed flawlessly without a single failure. For a project that ran relentlessly over five days this is an incredible achievement.”

Teradek is an innovator of wireless video devices and platforms that facilitate creative acquisition and live event broadcasting in full HD. Teradek’s H.264 encoders, bonding devices, and latency-free transmission systems are used throughout many industries for aerial video capture, live ENG backhaul, real-time monitoring, proxy recording and webcasting.

Grant Harper concluded, “Remote Control Tourist enjoyed and benefitted from a very efficient and highly automated workflow. As a result we were able to achieve this incredibly high level of reliable, faultless live streaming without issue. The fact that a Teradek Bond unit is the size of a pack of playing cards makes the technology all the more remarkable. As a combined system the Teradek Bond and Teradek Sputnik server are an ideal solution for any high volume, live streaming projects that require 100% reliability.”

Remote Control Tourist credits:
Agency: Clemenger BDDO Melbourne
Directors: Tool of North America
Producers: Exit Films
Client: Tourism Victoria
Live streaming: Livestream Australia

Picture credits:
A Teradek Bond unit
Grant Harper and a Teradek Sputnik server unit
A Remote Control Tourist

For more information on the Remote Control Tourist go to: http://remotecontroltourist.com
For more information on Teradek products go to: http://www.teradek.com
For more information on Livestream Australia go to: http://www.livestreamaustraliavideo.com.au

 

Press Release

Be first to comment