TVU Networks Teams Up With Denver 8 TV to Live Stream Concert Series

Denver 8 TV, the municipal access television station for the City and County of Denver, Colorado government, will resume broadcasting and live streaming its concert series, Live@Levitt on June 1, using TVU Networks’ TVU One mobile IP transmitter to send live feeds from the Levitt Pavilion Denver to master control in Denver’s City Hall, which distributes the signals for live streaming and broadcast. A remote production control room at the back of the amphitheater switches the program, which is then fed into the TVU One and sent to TVU video receivers at City Hall for live broadcast on the Denver TV 8 Comcast channel and streamed to the website Denver8.tv.

TVU One mobile IP transmitter

The Pavilion lies within a natural bowl in the middle of Ruby Hill Park, which also has one of the highest elevation points in Denver. While the park offers 360-degree views of the mile-high city, it completely lacks Internet connectivity. Even the City and County of Denver’s own network that connects other outlying facilities doesn’t run close enough to provide a short extension to the venue.

In addition to the park’s lack of connectivity, part of it lies in a river valley. City Hall, the site of Denver 8 TV’s master control operation, is in the middle of the city, surrounded by tall buildings. Without line of sight, renting a microwave hop to broadcast these concerts is not possible. And renting a satellite uplink is cost prohibitive for this public organization. The installation and monthly contract charges forecast by a local high-speed Internet provider attempting to connect the production to a network for a wired feed also proves far too costly for Denver TV 8.

The TVU One IP-based, portable transmitter was selected as a one-step solution for the city’s remote transmission needs. The TVU One is available with HEVC video compression and TVU’s patented Inverse Statmux Plus (IS+) transmission algorithm to transmit full HD quality video with half-second latency at 3Mbps. It’s available with embedded modems and can transmit simultaneously over multiple connections, including cellular, microwave, satellite, BGAN, Wi-Fi, and Ethernet.

Despite the park’s less-than-optimal transmission location and the stormy Denver summer evenings, there’s never been any service interruption with TVU One’s transmission. “We had a lot of rain storms last summer and never experienced one interruption in our transmission,” says Alan DeLollis, TV Communications & Video Operations Mgr., Marketing and Media Services, City & County of Denver. “Weather destroyed two audio boards and front-of-house tents were torn down by the wind and rain, but the TVU unit kept on working.”

DeLollis believes the unit brings more potential for collaboration between city agencies and as a pool feed shared to commercial networks and social media. “We see our TVU One unit offering us the option to change the dynamic of how we deliver our production services to other city agencies and create a platform where community engagement in public outreach is much more possible,” says DeLollis. “The next step is using TVU One as an engagement and a sharing tool.”

The organization is discussing increasing coverage of live city events that can now, with TVU One, be distributed to others. That includes potentially creating a pool feed dedicated to City-related press conferences, ribbon-cutting ceremonies, etc. that can be shared with commercial media or live to social media.

“If they have a news hole, they could look to our feed and immediately have something to fill it,” explains DeLollis. “If something comes up that they’re modestly interested in, they’ll have our pool feed to use. It would also help them contain remote production costs. Our feed would show up on their TVU system, and they can choose to use it or not. It could provide the city a lot more exposure.”