NewTek integrating TriCaster, 3Play for YouTube Live

NewTek has completed work with YouTube to ensure the compatibility of TriCaster and 3Play as powerful and affordable tools for sports enterprises of any size to live stream a wide range of competitive events over YouTube’s live sports streaming service.

“Viewers today expect professionally produced sporting events. They will not watch sports programming that lacks essentials like instant replay and on-screen graphics. Professional looking broadcast studio sets are also vitally important, which can be achieved using TriCaster’s virtual sets,” said Andrew Cross, chief technology officer of NewTek. “TriCaster and 3Play let you look like you are on broadcast TV. The Internet has made it where you no longer need a huge antenna and an FCC license. Ensured compatibility with YouTube means teams of any size can reach fans in ways they could only dream of before.”

Traditionally, high quality live sports productions come with high price tags, requiring a multi-camera TV production truck costing five figure sums to rent for a single game. TriCaster and 3Play allow sports entities to enhance the production quality of their shows, whether they are being live streamed or broadcast, without requiring the capital outlay needed to buy traditional video gear, or incurring the operating expense necessary to roll in a TV production truck.

“In the past, cost has been prohibitive,” said Perry Tobin, technology manager for YouTube Sports. “Fortunately, products like TriCaster and 3Play have lowered the barrier of entry into this space. Where you used to have to pull in a satellite truck, now all you need is an Internet connection, a TriCaster and 3Play, and you are good to go to have instant replays, huge virtual sets shot on a small green screen, and all of the things you’ve come to expect with cable TV-produced content.

“I think we have hit that interesting sweet spot in time where bandwidth is coming down in price and becoming more accessible, and the cost of doing a decent production and the skill level needed to do that is also coming down,” said Tobin. “I believe sports is the next big, untapped video frontier on the Internet. As we keep pushing down costs and increasing quality, I think we will see more, and more, interesting times.”