NEW INNOVATORS: Livelinx:REGULAR WATCHERS of TV news bulletins will be used to seeing expert contributors, such as market analysts, commenting against the backdrop of a busy trading floor.
But sending camera crews to film interviews or events is expensive because of labour costs and satellite uplink fees.
Livelinx is a new service from AirSpeed Telecom that allows organisations to deliver live expert commentaries, or events directly to the end user, but cuts out the need for crews and satellite time.
Instead the service is based around a high-capacity licensed wireless link using the IP protocol.
“Broadcast content has been carried on IP before, but it’s only now that all the tools, including less bandwidth-hungry encoding technologies, have allowed a system like Livelinx to be made available as an affordable service,” says Liam O’Kelly, managing director, AirSpeed Telecom.
“We are short-circuiting the traditional process, with travel and uplink costs, by putting a remote camera into business locations, fully automated with a pre-set shot and audio capability. The remote camera acts exactly as if it’s a studio camera and the interviewee just clips on the mic to begin the interview. The key benefit of this new development is increasing the spectrum of business, sporting, or political entities who can have the capability of regular broadcast exposure, in a cost-effective manner.”
AirSpeed Telecom has linked up with TV post-production company, Digital Space, to launch the new service which is currently being used by stockbroking firms, NCB, Davy and Merrion, to link them directly to the RTÉ newsroom.
The brokers pay an annual user fee. The service will also have potentially wide ranging applications in sport, which will be charged as a one-off fee. It can also be used for events such as AGMs and inter-company forums.
O’Kelly says UK broadcasters are also beginning to show an interest in the cost saving service.
Up to now Livelinx has been operated by AirSpeed Telecom, but O’Kelly says it is now reaching a point where it will begin to employ its own staff.
The service was funded from the joint resources of AirSpeed and Digital Space and cost in the region of €700,000 to develop.
