Waterloo, Ontario, April 8, 2020 — Dejero, an innovator in cloud-managed solutions that provide Emmy Award winning video transport and Internet connectivity while mobile or in remote locations, is providing various support options to broadcasters and to public safety bodies who need to create and deliver reliable, high-quality live content or communications during the current COVID-19 pandemic.
“This unprecedented situation has presented major challenges for both broadcasters striving to continue its live news reporting while staff adhere to government requirements, and for emergency teams striving to mobilize and respond quickly in times of great network stress,” said Bogdan Frusina, founder of Dejero. “We commend the critical services that broadcasters and public safety organizations are providing to the public during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and as circumstances are constantly changing, we are doing everything we can to ensure that video and general-purpose connectivity needs are met, and we continue to provide the high-level of technical support that our customers expect, even with our transition to remote work for the vast majority of our employees.”
Reporting from home
As part of this drive, two-time Emmy Award winner, Dejero is providing access to its LivePlus mobile app to those who need to deliver high-quality content during the crisis. Complimentary new licenses of the app, which allows broadcast talent and content contributors to create and deliver high-quality live video back into the broadcast workflow, are available to use until Sept. 30, 2020, in a genuine effort to make reporting easier for content contributors. To date, Dejero has seen a tenfold increase in the number of live streams from its mobile app over the last month, with a jump of 10,000 streams in the last week alone, which shows how critical reliable live streaming is during these unprecedented times.
Sarah-Jane Mee of Sky News; CBS/CW San Diego TV news anchor Marcella Lee; and WUSA9 TV news anchor and reporter Adam Longo are just some of the TV news personalities working from home that have shared on social media how Dejero’s LivePlus mobile app, downloaded to a smartphone, tablet or notebook, has allowed them to produce top quality news content from their home environments while they are on ‘lockdown’.
Anchors, reporters, and meteorologists working from home are also relying heavily on the ability to view return video and teleprompting feeds from the broadcast facility. By viewing low latency feeds on a smartphone, tablet or computer monitor at eye-level behind the camera, reporters and anchors can continue to do their jobs professionally, live from home.
The feeds are served by the platform-agnostic Dejero CuePoint return feed server situated at the broadcast facility. When researchers and script writers send updates to the teleprompter feeds in near real-time, CuePoint’s low latency—as low as 250 milliseconds—allows the on-screen talent to read updated text as it flows, ensuring the audience is receiving the most up to date information. It also lets them see their counterpart in the studio, or their counterparts in other remote locations, so they can have a genuine interaction with their colleagues during in-programme conversation.
Helping newsrooms find credible experts fast
The unprecedented scale of the pandemic, and the broad socio-economic impact, means that viewers want to hear from an array of experts on topics related to the novel coronavirus. With Dejero’s ‘Find an Expert’ search capability, accessible within the Dejero Control cloud-based management system, time-strapped journalists and show producers can source credible experts within minutes. The database powered by ExpertFile hosts vetted international experts, including healthcare professionals, university academics, and industry experts, who are available and ready to be contacted to share their expertise and fact-based insights with the media.
To avoid relying on consumer-grade video chat solutions, given the likelihood of poor picture quality, audio and video breakup, and added complexity of integrating the live video into a media organization’s broadcast workflow, Dejero is providing complimentary licenses of its broadcast-quality apps to these pre-qualified experts, to achieve broadcast quality live content. The apps are specifically designed to leverage a combination of connections including Wi-Fi, cellular, and broadband, and automatically adjust to the available bandwidth to avoid picture or audio break up—providing a high-quality feed without interruption.
Public safety in the spotlight
Dejero is also helping public safety agencies deploy emergency connectivity rapidly, especially in areas where connectivity options may be limited. Powered by Dejero’s Smart Blending Technology, the company has made easy-to-deploy portable connectivity a reality, enabling mission-critical live video and real-time data from mobile command and control vehicles and unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for situational awareness, allowing organizations to leverage the combined bandwidth potential of multiple networks for greater overall capacity and enhanced reliability.
“Efficient operations and proportional response require highly reliable connectivity that is fast and easy to deploy,” said Frusina. “By simultaneously leveraging different network technologies from multiple network providers including cellular and satellite, Dejero delivers greater reliability and bandwidth with connection diversity. And by aggregating provider services into a single Dejero virtual network, we simplify provisioning and management, while providing greater coverage than any single provider can deliver.”
Business continuity with reliable connectivity
And finally, Dejero remote connectivity solutions that feature the Dejero GateWay products not only provide broadcasters and public service agencies with fast, reliable, and secure access to the public Internet, private networks, newsroom and MAM systems, and cloud SaaS providers on the go, but also offer a reliable backup connectivity solution for business continuity. If primary connectivity fails due to a weather event or service interruption, Dejero portable connectivity solutions can be rapidly deployed.
“The success of live streaming and communications during the COVID-19 pandemic will depend on the ability of organizations to deploy solutions that enable real-time synchronization with their central production team or HQ,” concluded Bogdan Frusina. “Reliable connectivity to deliver high-quality live video and real-time data is a crucial element in helping to protect the critical services provided by broadcasters and public safety organizations during this worldwide health crisis.”
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About Dejero
Driven by its vision of reliable connectivity anywhere, Dejero blends multiple Internet connections to deliver fast and dependable connectivity required for cloud computing, online collaboration, and the secure exchange of video and data. With its global partners, Dejero supplies the equipment, software, connectivity services, cloud services, and support to provide the uptime and bandwidth critical to the success of today’s organizations. Headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, Dejero is trusted for broadcast-quality video transport and high-bandwidth Internet connectivity around the world. For more information, visit www.dejero.com.
