Cutting-Edge Streaming Technology
With over 25 years collective experience in live events and streaming, Create Engage are a small team of event professionals specialising in providing online event and production solutions. They have successfully executed numerous online campaigns and events for their clients by increasing engagement, audience reach, revenue and awareness for their branded content through tailored technology solutions. Their mission is to enhance physical and online event engagement through digital and internet-based solutions.
Recently they had a requirement for some cutting-edge streaming technology and for that they turned to Digistor and Kiloview.
Kiloview - Send and Receive Video in Any Format
Create Engage director Luke Hammonds explained, "We're passionate about digital video technology and the impact that it has on business and brand communication. We had heard of Kiloview as a quality player in the market. They were offering these small devices that could send and receive video in pretty much every format we could ever need all over LAN and WAN. They were also rack mountable and hot-swappable, so we needed to try them out as the need for such solutions increased ten-fold due to COVID-19. At that point we contacted Digistor."
Digistor is Create Engage's primary technology, products and solutions provider.
"Digistor ... are a trusted reseller as I've used them a lot in the past whether it be for products for pure video production or live IP-based broadcasting."
Create Engage Director, Luke Hammonds
Hammonds continued, "Our starting point for gear like Kiloview is Digistor and of course they stocked it, so we just filled in the online cart and hit the buy button. Digistor have been in the game for as long as I care to remember so, to me, they are a trusted reseller as I've used them a lot in the past whether it be for products for pure video production or live IP-based broadcasting."
Digistor supplies Create Engage with Kiloview products for live streaming video production whether its onsite for hybrid events, studio-based events or in control hubs for fully virtual events and for linking remote presenters and remote live sites together using IP-based video codecs.
In recent months Create Engage has purchased Kiloview REN-1 Cards, RD-300 Cards, 1RU Cradles and 3RU Cradles.
"Kiloview fits our equipment build ethos perfectly ... is reliable and feels like it's designed for 24/7 operation."
Create Engage Director, Luke Hammonds
Hammonds explained, "Kiloview fits our equipment build ethos perfectly. We design our encoder racks to be mobile, modular, turn-key systems that can be tweaked to any spec, up or down, per event and only require onsite power to be fully operational. Kiloview rack-mountable cards and cradles are perfectly designed for this approach. We can slide in whatever size cradle and card combo is needed for the project into a rack system and get it onsite, all pre-configured and ready to go. Kiloview is reliable and feels like it's designed for 24/7 operation so we know we can rely on it."
As Kiloview products are rack mountable and the cards are hot swappable, Create Engage truly customise their streaming racks to custom-suit each individual project.
Streaming Configuration
Hammonds added, "A common set up is to use a REN-1 card to stream to a primary streaming player on our platform as well as outputting broadcast PGM over the LAN via NDI|HX for viewing in another part of the venue or in multi-view and using a second REN-1 card to stream to a backup streaming player. Quite often we will use the above-mentioned solution as well as adding an RD-300 card to a live feed from a remote site as well as another REN-1 card to send a feed back to that remote site via SRT. We access and control the Kiloview GUI mainly via Raspberry PIs which frees up our laptop stock for other duties."
As far as Hammonds is concerned the winning combination for Create Engage is the seamless integration they have with Kiloview products and Digistor's service and support.
Amazing Technical Support
He concluded, "Digistor stocks all the brands that we use in-house and they can provide amazing technical support for those items. They also have their finger on the pulse for all the new tech in the space so they can provide suggestions on new products that streamline projects we are working on or provide a solution to a technical roadblock we might be facing. I have been using Digistor for many years with good reason. When I started the Digital and Webcasting Department at Staging Connections (now Encore Technology) back in 2009, Digistor consulted on the original edit suite build and I have continued purchasing equipment from them ever since.
Digistor have a great curation of brands, the sales team have excellent technical knowledge of the products they sell and their service and support is second to none."