Polycom IS Ready to Rock at SXSW® 2015

[Bob Knauf (Bob Knauf)]

With thousands of bands descending upon Austin for SXSW to be heard by new fans or discovered by that one person that can change their life, Polycom is playing a role with about 100 of those artists.

Polycom video solutions will be transporting the audio and video from local Austin radio station KGSR’s morning broadcast at the W Hotel Austin and the free day parties at Waterloo Records to a streaming provider and then out to thousands of viewers around the world.  In addition, the W Hotel Austin will connect their in-room TV system directly to a Group Series 500 and simulcast the live shows to their guests and visitors throughout the hotel.

What makes this so cool is that Polycom technology gives production companies and organizations of any size the ability to have a multi-camera, multi-site live streamed event with reduced costs by utilizing one network point where the stream is being broadcast from.   In some use-cases, a creative team could be adding other video treatments, such as titles and graphics to the video before encoding for broadcast. 

As for our production, we will be using single camera on a jib at the W for the KGSR broadcasts and 5 cameras at Waterloo Records including one camera on a crane!  It is going to be quite fun to direct these shows, even with our call-time at 4:30 AM at the W Hotel!

By using Polycom Group Series, full interactivity is possible between artists, hosts and fans.  Incredible HD audio and video can be experience by multiple participants and up-to thousands of on-line viewers.

For our South by Southwest shows, the Polycom RealPresence Video Content Management solutions are archiving the performances for playback on-demand later.  This will allow fans to watch the live shows they may have missed or want to experience again.

You can enjoy all of the music and experience the quality for yourself starting at 6 AM Central on Wednesday, March 18th on Polycom’s SXSW web page.    Be on the lookout for live updates and more @Polycom on Twitter. 

I will also be giving you a sneak-peak behind-the-scenes once we get up-and-running next week.  The amount of technology we use is crazy.  However, the end result is absolutely amazing.  I hope you enjoy the shows!

 Here is a story about the KGSR morning broadcast from a previous year.