May 16, 2024 - One of the UK's leading technical event production and rental outfits, Sterling Event Group was established in 1999 with a vision to combine the best talent with cutting-edge technology to bring live events to life. Joseph Timmons, Sterling’s Head of Vision, recently chatted with us about the demands his team faces in the field, including timely file hand-offs to clients after each event. In the interview, he details how Sterling has saved hours on live event productions by establishing a reliable recording and monitoring workflow comprising AJA Ki Pros. 

Tell us more about Sterling Event Group and your role with the company.

We are technical production consultants and specialist suppliers of sound, lighting, video, sets, stages, and more for live events. Our work is split across the whole spectrum of live event sectors, including corporate, private, public, sporting, and live music. We also rent kit to other production companies and provide 24/7 venue support service. We’re headquartered in a 40,000-square-foot facility located close to Manchester Airport. From there, we support our clients in facilitating events across the UK and overseas. I mainly provide technical support to our project managers and technicians, manage processes within the department, research new products, advise on technology investments, and lead a team of video technicians. 

Describe an average day on the job.

I primarily support our projects team from the office in planning video elements for events, from brief through to pre-production. Most of my day is spent working with our operations team to ensure our rental stock is serviced, maintained, and prepared to the highest standards; I also work with technicians to offer support, advice, and training. It’s a demanding role, but I make sure to find time to get on-site to help out with some of our larger, more complex productions.

How’d you get started in live event production, and what do you like most about it? 

I originally trained as a sound engineer and worked as a venue AV technician. Then, I joined Sterling Event Group, where I broadened my skills and established a specialty in video. The best part of my job is getting to transform innovative event design concepts from our creative project managers into realities. It takes some clever engineering, so it can also be the most challenging aspect of my role. 

Tell us more about your workflow and any recent projects you’ve worked on. 

We supply all vision equipment from source to screen, including playback, image processing, distribution, and recording. AJA recording hardware is an integral part of our workflow.

Recently, we supported the British Small Animal Veterinary Association (BSAVA) in delivering their Congress 2024 event in Manchester. It is a multi-space conference and exhibition that brings together veterinary professionals from across Britain. The technical production ranges from small breakout spaces to 1000-seat halls.

For this year’s event, we used AJA Ki Pro GOs to record live footage and content in nine separate spaces. With them, we were able to record all footage directly to a centralized NAS drive using the network (SMB) recording feature. It eliminated the need to collect and distribute physical media from each space, and the footage was available immediately for off-site editors. As the device supports redundant recording to USB media, we banked on it as a physical backup should the need have arisen. With its firmware upgrade, we were also able to remotely monitor all live event videos in real time, providing an extra layer of quality control.

Why did you choose to use Ki Pro GO? 

Ki Pro GO has become our hardware of choice for HD video recording because we can record synchronized, multi-channel video with flexible encoding settings, which is hugely beneficial. The fact that we can also use ‘off the shelf’ media and Ki Pro GO generates compact clip file sizes means our clients can access footage immediately after an event finishes. It vastly reduces the hours we’d otherwise spend collecting and transferring event footage to our client.

The device is also reliable and delivers high-quality video, two of the most important features in a recorder. Live means no second chances, which is why I value Ki Pro GO for redundant recording. It’s also important to have variable recording settings so that we can adapt to the requirements of a particular project. We’re a fan of Ki Pro devices in general, and when our clients are looking to uplevel the quality of their live event productions with 4K/UHD footage, we also use the Ki Pro Ultra 12G.

Which industry trends and technologies are you following? Why? 

The evolution of AV over IP in the live event industry is something we’re watching closely. Demand for it has been increasing steadily in permanent installations, and the groundwork is being laid for it to become a huge part of live events. Event installations are temporary, and signal distribution can be the most challenging part of this, but we’re starting to see more manufacturers come to the table with intuitive AV over IP solutions that let you take advantage of technology’s key benefits. AV over IP is going to help facilitate improved transmission of high-bandwidth standards while providing interoperability, versatility, and reliability. Whilst we still see live event signal flow predominantly run in HD, the demand for 4K/UHD is increasing. 

Looking ahead, what’s next for Sterling Event Group? 

Sterling Event Group has grown continuously over the last several years, and our goal is to continue scaling the business. Resisting complacency is a key tenet, and we insist on using technology that meets our high standards. As AJA gear is amongst the manufacturer kit that I trust, I anticipate it will continue playing a key part in this journey. 

About AJA Ki Pro GO

AJA Ki Pro GO is a flexible, portable multi-channel H.264 recorder offering up to four-channels of simultaneous HD and SD recording to off the shelf USB drives and/or network storage with redundant recording capabilities. Four 3G-SDI and four HDMI digital video inputs with flexible channel assignments provide connections to the latest video sources, including cameras and DSLRs. Incoming video sources do not have to be genlocked due to Ki Pro GO's input frame syncs. The versatile device also features AJA's high quality deinterlacers on each input so that progressive recordings can be made from interlaced inputs. www.aja.com/ki-pro-go 

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