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SenzaCaster
What do you get what you cram a 25-foot satellite truck and a team of broadcasting engineers into a single, small yellow box? The answer is the crystal-clear transmission from the SenzaCaster, a radical new device that’s fascinated us with its possibilities.
Every single Wednesday, all of us here at Crews Control gather in our screening room, dim the lights, and gather our snacks as we watch a slate of reels looking for the next great Director of Photography for our clients. This past week, we were treated to something new – footage that came from the mind of SenzaCaster, born of the creative media veteran Scott Levine.
“It’s as simple as it could possibly be”, says Levine. “It’s absolutely plug and play. Before we even ship (the SenzaCaster) off to you know we know it’s going to work.”
Here’s how it works. Typically, for a live broadcast, you have to decide whether to sacrifice quality or cost. Before the Internet came around, broadcasting live footage meant involving a satellite truck and a local transmitting uplink fee, getting an engineer to set satellite start and end points, and having to pay per-minute for the satellite. On top of all that, you needed to figure out everything well in advance and manage a massive team on the day of shooting. These transmissions ended up costing thousands of dollars (or more!). Today, many companies choose to simply go with live streaming over a free service, but the quality and reliability often leave something to desire.
This is where the SenzaCaster comes in.
Let’s think about a typical scenario. You’ve scheduled a C-Suite Executive to broadcast a live Q&A with your offices in Tokyo. Or maybe you’re training surgeons and want them to be able to comment on a surgical video in real-time. How can you do it with the SenzaCaster? It’s as easy as this: click, snap, and “oooh”.
As a manager service, the broadcasting wizards at SenzaTech headquarters in Parsippany, NJ, test your Internet capabilities and any potential firewall problems with the downloadable Network Health app so once you click you know you’re ready. After that, a transmitter and receiver are shipping to your beginning and ending destinations and literally all you do is snap it open, plug it in, and say “oooh” once the video shows up on-screen. The provided microphone and IFB kit allow you to communicate with the other location and the rest is up to you! It’s so easy even a monkey (meaning this Crews Control Production Manager!) can set it up.
You’ll enjoy high-quality video in no time at all.
Further vetting this device is one of our highly qualified Directors of Photography, Frank Spinosa. “There’s a learning curve with (production) technology… and the SenzaCaster is cutting edge. The quality is perfect, with no delay!” Spinosa lauds the way it solves FTP problems, frees up budget by cutting the cost of satellite and broad uplinks, and is so “plug and play”. We tend to listen to Frank Spinosa when he tells us something since he’s been a part of the Crews Control family for twenty years.
How do you think you could use a live, latency-free magic yellow box to transmit your video? Do you have an overseas office that you shoot for regularly and would like to get the footage back fast? Simply click here to contact us here at Crews Control to learn more about what the SenzaCaster can do and give it a whirl on one of your shoots.
Representing the nerds here at Crews Control – Ashley Brook.
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