Teradek TV Platform Launched – Remote Monitoring Footage from Anywhere

Monitoring News

by Nick TaylorFebruary 14^th, 2024

Teradek has been the name in on-set wireless video transmitting and receiving for quite some time now. They offer wireless monitoring, remote camera lens controls, color correction, live streaming, and more with their products. But now, they could change the game with their newest platform: Teradek TV. This is exactly what it sounds like – remote monitoring of your footage from anywhere. Sounds exciting! Let’s take a deeper dive.

What problem does it fix?

One of the most difficult parts of gearing up for production is setting up a “video village”, allowing everyone who needs it access to on-set monitoring. At a minimum, your Director, Cinematographer, and 1st A.C. (focus puller) will need a monitor to perform their jobs.

Then you have other crew members such as makeup, sound, visual effects, and others also trying to watch the footage to make sure makeup hasn’t smeared, boom pole isn’t in the shot, etc. Peeling back another layer, you have the lookie-loos that are on set that just want to watch what is being captured. Further back from that, you have Producers and other Executives who usually don’t watch all day, but pop in for a take or two just to see what is going on. This involves a significant number of individuals who require access to monitors, and your production might not have the capacity to accommodate everyone.

This brings us to Teradek TV – a brand-new platform for live-feeding and recording production video through any phase of film and television production. Teradek promises “high quality, low-latency video feeds to anyone, anywhere in the world”. With a simple drag-and-drop interface, you can choose which video feeds to share and with whom to share them.

Just a quick personal story related to this: I was on a short film virtual production in 2022 where the Cinematographer got Covid, and was unable to shoot cameras. So the Director shot the camera while he had the Cinematographer on a Facetime call. Needless to say, this was not ideal. Although there are already live-streaming systems in place that could have facilitated a sick crew member, none of them would work in the studio where we were shooting this particular short film. So, Teradek TV would have worked perfectly for this situation!

Features of Teradek TV

Teradek is already a trusted company for their low-latency, high-quality video transmission, so bringing that capability to cloud-based streaming seems like a logical next step. All of this comes with certain expectations you’d hope to have: encrypted feeds, scalability, an easy-to-identify user interface, and so much more. Here are some of the features not already mentioned:

• Color-accurate 4K HDR live feeds
• Collaboration tools for faster creative decision-making
• Visibility across multiple productions, if applicable
• Voice and text chats
• Departmental privacy channels
• Instant recordings playback
• Downloadable proxies for editing and/or visual effects
• Multi-camera live feeds
• Native viewing apps for iOS, Android, Apple TV, Mac, and Windows

Is Teradek TV right for my production?

There is a ton of literature available on Teradek’s website, so I urge you to check it out if you’re at all interested. I can tell you the prices for this service start at $49 per user per month, with a free 7-day trial period. That is for the Basic version, and there is a Pro version that is $99 per user per month. There is also an Enterprise version for studios.

I can see that the possibilities for this application are virtually limitless. People can collaborate from all over the world. Distance is no longer a barrier to collaborating with others. The best part of filmmaking is the collaboration, and Teradek has closed that gap with Teradek TV.

What do you think about Teradek TV? Would it be helpful for your production? Let’s talk about it in the comments!