Tutorial: Live Event Streaming with the Roland V-60HD, Part 2—Smart Tally and Auto-Mixing

This tutorial is sponsored by Videoguys.com.

In Part 1 of this two-part series on the Roland V-60HD Production Switcher (Figure 1, below), we did an overview of the functionality and the features of this powerful video switcher. In this second installment, I’m going to take a look at the Smart Tally system, as well as the auto-mixing feature on the audio side.

Figure 1. The Roland V-60HD Production Switcher. Click the image to see it at full size.

The first feature I'm going to review is the Smart Tally feature. The Smart Tally feature allows you to communicate with your camera operators, especially in loud environments. Instead of just using intercom to let your camera operators know when they're live, in a lot of loud environments, a visual signal is actually more effective, and that's where the Smart Tally system comes into play.

You would set up your local area network and connect up a WiFi router with a video switcher, and then each camera operator would have their own mobile device that they'd log into the WiFi on th WiFi router. I've done this on this cellphone shown in Figure 2 (below).

Figure 2. Monitoring camera switches on a connected mobile device. Click the image to see it at full size.

If I go to Input 3, or Channel 3, it's gray (Figure 3, left), because right now, 3 is not on the Preview or the Program bus. If I take 3 on the preview bus, it turns green instantly (Figure 3, right). This lets the camera operator know that if they’re camera operator 3, they're on standby. They're going next. Once they go live, I'm going to cut to 3, and it goes red. So, a very effective system of communicating with your camera operators, especially in noisy environments, and it complements the use of intercoms for this camera communication.

Figure 3. Left: Channel 3 is not on the Preview or Program bus; right: Channel 3 on the Preview bus

Audio Auto-Mixing

The second advanced feature that I'm going to look at is the audio Auto Mixing feature on the Roland V-60HD (Figure 4, below). This is a feature that allows you to connect multiple audio inputs onto the switcher. Based on the weighting—the priority levels that you have set—the video switcher will automatically balance those levels, decide which ones are to be louder, and which ones are to be quieter.

Figure 4. Auto Mixing on the Roland V-60HD. Click the image to see it at full size.

This feature is much easier to understand if you can see and hear it in action. I do a quick demonstration of this at the 2:00 mark in the video above

The Auto Mixing and the Smart Tally features on the Roland V-60HD are two very advanced features that basically allow you to do a lot more and handle larger productions without adding extra gear.

For more information on the Roland V-60HD, visit this video’s sponsor, Videoguys.com.