Web Cast Technology

Web cast technology offers SEMO student exciting opportunity!

         Cooking, cleaning, working; people in today’s society are on the move and busy all the time. However, this doesn’t mean they should have to miss their favorite sporting event or game. Sporting events have been broadcast on television and radio for many years. But recent advancements in technology have opened a whole new medium for presenting sports to the busy public.
         A web cast is a media file distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A web cast may either be distributed live or on demand. Essentially, web casting is “broadcasting” over the Internet.
         Web casting was first publicly presented by Brian Raila of GTE Laboratories at InterTainment in 1989. Raila was joined by James Paschetto of GTE Laboratories to further demonstrate the concept. Paschetto was singularly responsible for the first workable prototype of streaming media, which Raila presented and demonstrated at the Voice Mail Association of Europe 1995 Fall Meeting, in Montreux, Switzerland. On Nov. 7, 1994, WXYC, the college radio station of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, became the first radio station in the world to broadcast it’s signal over the Internet. The high-tech term, “web casting” was coined in the early 90’s.          
         Noland Cook is a senior Mass Communications major with an option in radio at Southeast Missouri State University and is involved with web casts conducted by local television news station KFVS12. The first KFVS12.com web cast to stream live to computers worldwide was the Blytheville vs. Cape Central football game on Friday, Sept. 21.
         Cook got the position working on the web casts, while already working at KFVS12, part-time.
         “I do camera, I do the producing and sometimes I do the directing.” Cook said.
         “We were given the opportunity to help out with it (web casts) and it really took off. The very first web cast that we started which was doing high school football. I was on the mic doing color-commentary.” said Cook.
         At KFVS12, Mike Wunderlich is in charge of the web casts. Wunderlich schedules who is doing what and who is actually on the web cast. The sales people at KFVS12 really make the web casts happen, however. They sell the sponsorship that pays for the web cast.
         Three to four basic cameras are used at a web cast. All web casts are run through a company called Playon! In recent months, KFVS12 has gained the ability to broadcast the games to anyone with an iphone. The station has graphics and an opening sequence that the producer is in charge of and, for the second year, they have instituted slow-motion in gymnastics. They used it in baseball as well for the first time this year. Cook says viewing a web cast is a cinch, if you have high speed internet. If you have dial-up, not so much.
         All types of sporting events are being web cast on KFVS12.com. They include high school and college football, high school and college basketball, college baseball, parades, college women’s soccer, women’s college volleyball, gymnastics, even an awards ceremony at Southeast Missouri State University.
         But it is mainly sporting events, Cook said. “We do a lot of different sports as long as we get sponsors. No sponsors, no web casts.” The cool part is that all of the web casts get archived on the KFVS12 website and if you really like it or you just want to watch it without getting on the computer you can buy a DVD of the game or event.
         Cook said the primary benefit of web casts is the fact that it allows people who have moved from the area to still see their school perform.          
         If someone can't make the game they still can see it live. If they can't see it live, they can go to the KFVS12 websites and watch the archived games and events.
         It’s no surprise that with the on-going advances in technology, web casts are becoming more and more widely viewed and successful. Cook agrees.
         “In my opinion web casts are highly successful. We have seen the number of live hits during a web cast, and people do watch. For the high school events we have a lot of alumni that go to KFVS12.com to watch from around the globe. With the Southeast sports, we have Southeast fans as well as parents from the visiting teams that can't make the trip. It is a really amazing tool that can allow graduates to reconnect to the school they went to.” Cook said.
         And the statistics don’t lie. The market for online content services worldwide is expected to expand by a factor of 10, growing from about 13 million households during 2005 to more
than 131 million households by 2010, reports high-tech market research firm, In-Stat. Of all broadband households today, 12.8 percent are already regularly viewing professional content via online content aggregators. The number of broadband households is expected to double between 2005 and 2010, to more than 413 million.
         As for Cook, he enjoys working on the web casts and is torn about which one has been his favorite.
         “I like any of the web casts that we have done. The sport that I love to watch is baseball and now we have new graphics and slow-motion that we used in gymnastics and baseball so that is a lot of fun. But yes all of them are tons of fun to work on and it is really awesome to hear an email from another country saying that they love the web cast and it looks great. That makes it all worth it.”