When Tupelo Raycom, a leading provider of live sports production for television and web, selected an engine to power its newest live sport production truck’s video production workflow, the industry leader went with the NewTek IP Series. The IP Series allows Tupelo Raycom to deliver the live stream from a sporting match across network environments with uncompromising quality while also offering the truck’s broadcast crew the continued flexibility, scalability and efficiency in workflow solutions that NewTek has introduced across its product line.

In 2015, Raycom Media acquired WebStream Sports, then merged it with Tupelo Honey to become Tupelo Raycom. They produce more than 1,000 live productions a year from remote locations. The company’s growth into producing national television programming across channels like ESPN requires them to be flexible and ready at a moment’s notice. The switching equipment has to scale too, a significant dilemma facing producers.  

“We began with their TriCaster video switcher line, and moved up the line as we needed more inputs. But we needed even more,” said John Servizzi, executive vice president of Tupelo Raycom. “And that’s when we were introduced to the NewTek IP Series Video Mix Engine.”

NewTek’s VMC1 Video Mix Engine is a modular live production system for switching frame accurate, hybrid SDI and IP video. VMC1 takes advantage of NewTek’s NDI technology to perform consistently over an IP network. The IP Series interface, and access to the dozens of built-in production components, are based on the same live production software used in NewTek’s TriCaster models. 

“This was critical as it meant a virtually non-existent learning curve for my crew,” Servizzi said.  “The other critical component was whether the IP signals would hold up during the live stream. It looked like it’s supposed to look. There was no compromise.”

And because the IP Series is modular, additional input modules can be added. “The answer to my question about inputs is that it’s essentially unlimited,” Servizzi said. “Our workflow hasn’t changed. What we got as a result of IP integration, in all honesty, is more inputs.”

Read the full story on Tupelo Raycom’s migration to IP integration here.  For more information on the NewTek IP Series, please visit http://www.newtek.com/ip-series.