STIVER INC

How Haivision’s Low Latency Solutions are Helping Stiver Inc. Produce Live Events

Stiver Inc. is a family-run company that offers complete turn-key solutions for clients in need of broadcast support and production teams. Based in Buffalo, New York, Stiver Inc. has over 40 years of experience working on everything from live concerts, entertainment cruises to amusement park attraction openings, big game sporting events, and corporate presentations for some of the biggest domestic and international broadcast and enterprise companies.   

We spoke with members of the Stiver Inc. team about some of the challenges they face when it comes to event production and the role Haivision solutions play in helping overcome them.   

Why Stiver Inc. Chooses Haivision

Stiver Inc. started using Haivision over the last two years, just as the pandemic started. With restrictions tightening all over the world, Stiver Inc. was looking for a new way of working and Ken Stiver Jr., having previous experience working with Haivision, suggested trying out Haivision low latency solutions. Now as a rental partner for Haivision, Stiver Inc. has both Makito X4 video encoders and decoders on hand for use by its clients.   

By adopting Haivision technology, Stiver Inc. can now offer reliable and cost-effective IP transmission solutions like the Makito X4 Video Encoder, Makito X4 Video Decoder, and Haivision Hub to its diverse range of clients. Stiver Inc. trusts Haivision for many of their big broadcast and enterprise clients including for media satellite tours and for remote enterprise presentations for important corporate events.   

Some of the advantages that Haivision solutions provide Stiver Inc. include their cost effectiveness and the convenience of having small and compact products that don’t require excess gear, making it easier when traveling. Also, the ease of use is a big selling point for Stiver Inc.’s clients as president and owner Leann Antonucci explains:     

“Our clients really love the ease of use of Haivision products. They are basically plug and play when they arrive onsite. We don’t need to send a designated engineer down there to babysit the units and power them on if we can already preset them. They really like that feature because they feel more involved in the production.” 

Low Latency and Reliability are Everything

While the cost effectiveness and ease-of-use are big selling points on Haivision for Stiver Inc.’s clients, two features that have become synonymous with Haivision and the SRT open-source protocol are a must: low latency and reliability. When it comes to low latency, Stiver Inc.’s clients mostly don’t care how the video signal gets to where it needs to go, but are concerned with how fast it gets to stakeholders as Ken Stiver Jr. points out:   

“What we like about Haivision and the SRT protocol together is that you can have sub second latency for traditional satellite or bonded cellular solutions where you need instant feedback versus waiting for a satellite uplink or downlink. You can be looking at a one and a half to two-second delay. But with Haivision we now have the ability to go all the way down to 150 milliseconds to 200 milliseconds glass-to-glass.” 

Reliability is also a key reason why Stiver Inc. chooses Haivision solutions. The Makito X4’s Path Redundancy feature, Haivision’s hitless protection switching technology, gives Stiver Inc.’s clients the peace of mind they need by ensuring continuity of service in case there are network outages or congestion. During one of their most recent large events, Stiver Inc. relied solely on the Makito X4 video encoder to transmit feeds to Atlanta without the need for satellite trucks as a backup and instead relied solely on the Path Redundancy feature as the backup. As they revealed, they trust Haivision to reliably deliver on the quality that the client demands and so far, it’s been working:   

“In terms of quality and reliability, we’ve successfully run Makito X4 video encoders for long periods in remote locations and have had no issues with reliability or failure. The reliability of the hardware is extremely important to us and having something that is such a bulletproof product right off the shelf means you can feel comfortable walking into a remote situation knowing you can depend on them to get on air.”

For more on Stiver Inc., visit their website  

How can Haivision help you?

Reach out to our video experts for a free demo and see for yourself how Haivision solutions can help you.

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