Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend—But Not Video Production Workflow, Thanks to Haivision and Pronology

Conan O’Brien’s podcast studio hosts a range of shows from the popular “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” to “Where Everyone Knows Your Name” with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson. With a busy shoot schedule, the studio required an efficient and secure way to record its multi-camera productions. The Hollywood-based podcast studio turned to Pronology and Haivision to optimize the video production workflow.

The studio is utilizing the Pronology StreamFile Core platform for the ingest of its multiple camera feeds and other sources in conjunction with the Haivision Makito X4 encoder that delivers high-quality video at ultra-low latency with secure and reliable streaming over IP. Prior to this new workflow, the studio team would record the cameras as baseband SDI signals with on-premise video recorders. With this simplified, cloud-based StreamFile Core workflow, the camera feeds are streamed and recorded directly to Amazon S3, saving production time and money, as one person can efficiently manage all cameras and recordings from a single, easy-to-use web interface.

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“Our new workflow has allowed us to reliably and effortlessly manage the feeds from our various shows,” said Sarah Federowicz, Team Coco, VP of operations and chief operating officer. “StreamFile Core is an intuitive system that our team can easily use. The Pronology and Haivision teams helped us set up the video production workflow, and we have been using it seamlessly ever since.”

StreamFile Core is a tool for receiving IP video streams and turning them into editor-friendly file formats. It integrates Haivision SRT as well as other IP video protocols, such as NDI and SMTPE ST 2110. It can create and share multi-views of live streams, giving production personnel the ability to view different camera angles through a standard secure web browser. Users can view live multiple angles in real time or go back to review with DVR functionality. It also features a Shot List Player, which allows production teams to sub-clip multiple angles with timecode frame accuracy. This feature is well suited for social media and other teams who require access to VOD media from live environments.

The Haivision Makito X4 encoder delivers pristine quality video at low latency over IP networks, including SRT, for secure and reliable streaming to productions on-premises or in the cloud. It encodes in resolutions up to 4K UHD or up to four simultaneous HD sources, with support for HEVC and H.264 codecs, and is ideally suited for live broadcast contribution and mission-critical video, especially in applications where high picture quality is essential. It provides the quality, security, and reliability needed for even the most demanding live video applications.

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“Combined with the Pronology StreamFile Core solution used by Conan O’Brien’s podcast studio, the Makito X4 and its native support for the SRT protocol makes it easy to reliably send live video to the cloud for efficient production of great entertainment, from anywhere,” said Marcus Schioler, VP marketing at Haivision.