Intro
Recently, we interviewed the owner of Big Beat Productions, Kevin Liddell and how he helps a local NGO live stream court events. Kevin told us, “In August 2021, I was contacted by a Johannesburg-based NGO (Non-Government Organization) called the “Foundation for Human Rights” (FHR), who were looking for a live stream service provider in Kwa-Zulu Natal, approximately 500km from Johannesburg.”
The event was to be held in the Pietermaritzburg High Court over a number of weeks and was a historic inquest into the death of a political prisoner who died while in police custody on 3 August 1977. This event included “Virtual” witnesses and experts who were brought in on Zoom but still broadcast live on YouTube.
What was your video production experience before YoloBox Pro?
Before having the YoloBox Pro, Kevin and his team used a Blackmagic Design Atem mini Pro ISO to live stream to YouTube via OBS and a Blackmagic Design Web Presenter to handle the Zoom meetings in 2021.
Why Choose YoloBox Pro?
The closing arguments were held in October 2022 over just two days, and the final arguments were heard by Judge Nkosi, who will be delivering his final verdict at some point in the future.
The reason why we choose YoloBox Pro was that the High Court in Pietermaritzburg has no WiFi/ Fiber available in the courtrooms. To this solve this issue, we made use of two LTE 4G routers (one as WiFi and another as Ethernet) and the built-in Sim of the YoloBox Pro. The YoloBox Pro also has Speedify installed which we rely heavily on upon.
The Setup
- Audio: 2x Condenser mics from Samson CO2 that ran into an EPM8 Soundcraft mixer; For the Judge who uses a Sennheiser ME36 on a base because there was no space for a mic stand. And a DJI mic as the wireless backup mic.
- Cameras: Canon XF100 which was focused on the public gallery in the courtroom; two PTZ Cameras with a controller. The cameras are Datavideo PTC 140’s coupled with the Datavideo RMC300A controller. The PTC cameras, being so small and innocuous, were placed in prime positions and drew no attention to themselves. We had one PTZ direct on the Judge (using the zoom feature), and the other one as close to the Judge as possible to “see” the faces of the Prosecution and Defence advocate.
- Lighting: The lighting in the venue is rather subdued, and the center of the room gets a fair amount of diffused natural light thanks to the windows above the false ceiling. The natural light changes during the course of the day depending on the prevailing weather conditions and the relative position of the sun.
Favorite Features on YoloBox Pro
Kevin acquired a YoloBox Pro about 6 months ago and have been favoring it as his go-to device for live streaming on the go. He chose to use it in his instance for the following reasons:
- Free Multi-Platform;
- Easy lower thirds;
- Easy Side by side / PIP;
- Overlays (Client logo, countdown timer);
- Built-in battery (we have power load shedding in this country);
- Speedify on board;
- Only 3 cameras were needed.
Conclusion
Overall, Kevin is very happy with the YoloBox Pro and the only area for improvement in his opinion would be an improved audio interface such as possible integration with an Elgato Stream Deck and introducing Speedify as a built-in app. We thank Kevin for sharing his user experience and workflow with us.
Karen, customer success manager at YoloLiv. She proactively looks out for customers’ needs and suggests ways to help customers succeed with our products. All the successful use cases/ stories are the proof.
