LICENCE TO GRILL
The World’s Championship Bar-B-Que Contest began in 1974 on the south-west corner of the Astrodome parking lot. Now, it’s one of the largest barbecue cook-offs in Texas – a three- day extravaganza of cooking, competition and fun to kick off the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. In this mouth-watering contest, each team must cook two slabs of ribs, two chickens
or two briskets – and the brisket must be a minimum size of ten pounds. The meat cannot be grilled with an electric or gas pit, only with wood or wood-substance fires. Teams compete for the coveted title of World’s Championship Bar-B-Que Contest Grand Champion, though trophies are also awarded for preparing the best dish in each category of brisket, chicken and spare ribs.
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FIVE GENERATIONS OF HOUSTON LIVESTOCK SHOW AND RODEO HISTORY UNCOVERED
NOT TO BRAG, BUT WE DO A BETTER JOB LIVESTREAMING THAN ANY OTHER LIVESTOCK SHOW – AS IT’S PART OF OUR MISSION TO SUPPORT THESE KIDS
between any of the four simultaneous feeds depending on which events they would like to see. UP FOR THE CHALLENGE Video crews wield 20-plus Sony broadcast cameras – including Sony HDC-2570s and HDC-1550s – as they shoot concurrent events. “To the kids who’ve spent a year raising these animals, this is a big deal,” Davidson adds. “Their parents, grandparents, teachers and friends all want to share that moment with them. Streaming is how we make that happen. Not to brag, but we do a better job livestreaming than any
other livestock show – as it’s part of our mission to support these kids.” The high production standard delivered in prime time is the same during the day on all streaming channels, and audience sizes surge as rodeo events begin. According to HLSR’s senior production manager, Gary Hazen: “We generate four discrete RTMP streams that are sent to Microsoft Azure for distribution. The packages are configured at 1280x720 and 30fps. However, the camera input sources are HD-SDI video at 1920x1080i and 59.94fps [1080/60i].” In terms of encoding, the video is AVC 2000Kbps, while audio is AAC
at 128Kbps. The processing load is handled and optimised by the Lightspeed server’s GPUs. Also, Live Stream has a web-based graphical user interface (GUI) that makes for easy configuration.” “Quality and reliability matter greatly. It’s important for us to be the best,” Davidson concludes. “Even though our online audiences tend to be small, we use broadcast-quality cameras, switchers, routers and highly efficient encoders, so it looks as good on screen as it does in person.” Explore at rodeohouston.com . Check out the 2023 coverage, which runs from 28 Feb to 19 March
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