When George Barnes and his company Take 2 Productions was approached to remotely produce a COVID-19 related live stream series, he was on board immediately. Known as one of the forerunners of live streaming (NHL Stanley Cup, gameshow for “Avengers Infinity Wars,” H&R Block’s 12-hour Twitter Slothstream), Barnes jumped at the chance to explore the scientific efforts underway around the world during this time.

Learn More about how Barnes planned a series on an accelerated timeline. 

Creating this series has proven challenging in a time where social distancing is paramount to the safety of everyone involved. Connecting with clients remotely was an immediate need, as well as directing the series from off-set. Knowing he needed the ability to record people interacting remotely and stream the series live, Director George Barnes reached out to Teradek’s team for a solution.

The Bond Backpack is an all in one professional HEVC/H.264 streaming solution for broadcasters seeking the best in signal reception and video quality.

Barnes set up a Teradek Bond encoder for cellular internet redundancy at each filming location and is able to send video from the talent around the world to Cube decoders at his remote master control. The codecs connect to Core, our cloud-based management platform, where Barnes can manage and route video signals, into his switcher. This allows the scientists and host to continue sheltering-in-place while still bringing the news to the front lines, with Barnes broadcasting from a virtual control room in his home.

“The Teradek team really stepped up to help make this show happen” says Barnes, “When the plan came in requiring 8 encoders/decoders at the height of the pandemic panic, I hoped the Teradek team could make this important project happen, and they did…literally overnight.”

Learn more about this COVID-19 project.

The initial live stream garnered more than 180,000 views on LinkedIn alone, and more than 50,000,000 impressions in the first week with all platforms combined.