As a self-employed Lighting Cameraman since 1997 following 16 years with the BBC, I know how one must evolve with technology to be successful. With that in mind, I had to refocus my services last year to satisfy the changing needs of my clients, which resulted in the establishment of my own mobile broadcasting facility for the field.

With considerable live camera experience and a suitable knowledge of satellite communications, I purchased an H.264 encoder and an entry level Ka-band satellite uplink, constructed the antenna mounting hardware, arranged the power supply, and integrated the system. I also preserved the life of my Sony PMW-500 camera. That left me with one last challenge to tackle.

Selecting an IP-based transmission solution

In today’s environment, the wireless link between the camera and the satellite uplink vehicle is essential. Beyond effectiveness, there are health and safety concerns about laying cables across pathways and other egress areas. I looked into traditional COFDM (Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex) systems, but the units were prohibitively expensive for a single business owner like me.

I decided to test out an IP-based transmission system, which encodes your video to an H.264 IP stream before the data is transmitted via a Wi-Fi path to the receiver. Wi-Fi transmission is license exempt in the UK – a major advantage that is not available with current COFDM systems. 

After some research, the best option was the cost-effective Teradek Beam solution.

My first hurdle in putting together a robust live facility had to do with proxemics. In my day-to-day news operations, it’s more often about where you can park to have a clear line of site to the satellite, and where the camera needs to be to see the action. Distance is not such a problem. Joining the two parts with the Teradek Beam solved this for me. I was able to get very similar quality images compared to pictures out of the camera, beamed directly to the broadcaster. Although harsher compression on the link can affect picture quality, it’s selectable. I choose 12mb for all my operations.

My next challenge was latency. Obviously, low latency is quite important in a live broadcasting environment. You have to consider everything from the signal chain that might affect the delay, like when your presenter answers a question thrown from the studio. Teradek claimed the Beam had a latency of two frames, which is about 80 milliseconds. With the complex processing that occurs behind the scenes to get the picture across the link, this was quite an impressive claim. What I really wanted to do was measure it, so I recorded a link latency of 2.5 frames and the lip sync was perfect. There was barely any difference between the Beam and a cabled link.

Granted, an IP solution is not quite as robust as a COFDM system, but it’s much more affordable, uses less power, and weighs less on the camera since it’s a smaller unit. With the proven triumph of my initial product testing, I’ve since committed to the Teradek Beam system, and incorporated it into my workflow, using it to great success on several projects, including two for the BBC.

On the BBC’s flagship evening news program, we were called out to Harwich International Port because suspected illegal passengers had been discovered stowing away on a ship. The lead story of the day covered sixty-eight people who were apprehended trying to get into the UK from Holland. There was an area where we could park, but the best view of the ship was about 30 to 40 meters away and across a roadway. Cabling was impractical, so we established a wireless link between our vehicle and the best viewpoint for the camera and, with Beam, everything worked perfectly.

For Newsnight on BBC Two, we had a very different situation. During the build-up of the general election, the program profiled several different families on their views and the candidates they favored. Two nights before the election, we were dispatched to a family’s home in Swansea, Wales; I parked in their driveway and we shot inside. In this case, I could have cabled it quite easily, but it was much more convenient for me – and the householder – to avoid the wiring. It was one less thing for me to worry about in the end.

We utilized wireless IP-transmission in an entirely different way at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham. My client wanted live pictures transmitted to a big video wall in the enormous exhibition space. The receiver was mounted as high as possible on a lighting stand. My colleague was able to go around to all the stands – amongst all the people – and get the images back to the screen via a radio link. Beam provided faultless pictures throughout the day, mostly from about 60 meters away from the RX with heads and exhibitions obstructing the signal pathway.

Because they had been looking to hire a COFDM system separately for the event, the client was delighted. Their hire rate would have been around £600 to £700 (approximately $930 to $1090) for the day, and they would have also needed an engineer. With our system, it was completely unnecessary.

In short, finding a reliable short-to-medium range radio camera system has given me the flexibility and cost savings necessary to offer live broadcast services, in a landscape where clients are more and more in need of a variety of solutions. I’ve replaced the fiber between my camera and vehicle, overcome range and latency issues, and added another notch to my services portfolio.