Ustream, based in San Francisco, is using Roland‘s VR-50HD all-in-one HD multi-format AV mixer to control internal streaming audio and video communications within its corporate environment.
The Roland VR-50HD, which integrates an audio mixer, video switcher, multi-viewer touch screen and USB video/audio streaming into a compact and portable stand-alone device, is being employed in combination with Ustream Align, Ustream Demand and Ustream Producer live video software solutions.
Ustream was founded by John Ham, Brad Hunstable and Gyula Feher in 2007, initially to connect remote military servicemen to significant personal and cultural events, and has since developed into the live business video platform of choice for a long list of clients including Cisco, Facebook, Intuit, Mazda, NASA, Samsung, Sony and others.
Headquartered in San Francisco, the company also maintains offices in Los Angeles and Budapest, Hungary, and regularly uses the Roland VR-50HD during local and global internal streaming events such as sales, customer service and town hall meetings.
According to Brad Hunstable, Ustream’s CEO and cco-founder, “One of the biggest benefits of the VR-50HD that I’m hearing from our production team is that you can have multiple inputs into the switcher. What makes that so powerful is that in a corporate environment, where you have lots of different types of input devices, you’re going to have one clean, beautiful, high-quality feed that’s going to look a lot like your home HD television experience — but now you have that in your corporation.”
The VR-50HD accommodates up to 12 HDMI, 3G/HD/SD-SDI/SDI, RGB/Component and composite inputs, enabling feeds from devices of differing formats and resolutions to be effortlessly combined into a single 1080p output.
Alden Fertig, senior director of product & customer success for Ustream, says, “The VR-50HD has been great for our in-house production team because it’s very easy to use. What we like about the VR-50HD is that is has the appropriate inputs and outputs to interface with our in-house AV systems, whether that’s the projection screen or the sound reinforcement system, and you can also send your program to a recorder or to our live streaming software. So the VR-50HD is the perfect complement in front of Ustream products, because it has a hardware interface to do audio mixing and low-latency video switching, and it has all the inputs and outputs and resolution matching that you need to be able to work nicely with a software-based encoder.”
Fertig adds, “The quality for both the video and audio in the VR-50HD has been excellent. One of the things that’s really nice is you can mix different input formats and get a full 1080 signal out of it. And the audio quality is exactly what you’d expect from a company with such a strong history in audio products. We even use the VR-50HD for a quick in-house audio solution, should we need one on the fly.”
Ustream offers many benefits for live communications as a service, Hunstable believes. “It helps you connect more closely with your customer and with your employees, and really feel like you’re there, and able to interact and communicate. It’s one of the most powerful mediums on the internet.”
The company has grown rapidly and now has offices globally, Hunstable continues. “As you might expect, when you have multiple offices it can be a challenge to have alignment around your vision and your goals. But through live video streaming you can get that alignment. You can get that connection between teams that are spread out around the world.”