Buntola Nou Video/Editing Demo Reel 2020/2021
CTV Morning Live’s first virtual audience
CTV Morning Live does an annual food drive in partnership with The Ottawa Food Bank. Normally we would have members of the food bank on-set for our final donation tally. Instead Buntola pitched the idea to have them included as a “virtual audience”. He led the technical setup to have everyone connected over Skype and did full tests to ensure it would work like on show day.
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Video return for virtual guests of CTV Ottawa, CTV Morning Live
Prior to the pandemic Buntola had plans to make it possible for virtual guests connecting remotely for interviews to be able to see the show/host live. Normally guests were met with a black screen or logo to stare at when technicians connected with them through Skype, Facetime, Zoom, etc. When the pandemic brought a halt to guests coming in studio, he took it upon himself to make it happen.
Buntola ghetto rigged and routed a live program output from an unused digital deck along with a simple HDMI to USB adapter to provide guests with now being able to see a live program feed.
Repeat guests were happy to have the feature as it made it feel they were actually talking to a person rather than a blank screen. Eventually with the help of an engineer, we created a more permanent solution for two mac mini computers used daily to connect to guests remotely.
| Before video return implementation |
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| After video return implementation |
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Live Streaming
Many networks and broadcasters do live streaming to their social media accounts. With videographers and correspondents on location of major news events, Buntola questioned why we were not doing this or utilizing technology to our advantage.
On May 8, 2017… CTV Morning Live Ottawa went live on Facebook for the very first time! CTV Morning Live Producers sent Buntola to provide production support for live coverage of flooding in Gatineau. While on-location Buntola went live on his personal facebook page and soon after, Producers granted him publishing rights to do it on the shows official channel.
Buntola provided nearly an hour of behind the scenes coverage from the flood zone. View the original stream here.
Buntola wanted this to become more of a regular thing not only to capture more digital viewership, but to gain more social media followers, reactions and community engagement. Unfortunately with a budget for $0, Buntola took it upon himself to make it happen. He purchased hardware out of his own pocket to show the possibilities. He utilized OBS software along with a spare HD/SDI to HDMI converter and a digital router (used to feed a monitor) for the back-end. This allowed for a start, pause and end slate as well as station watermark and the possibility of routing any source to be streamed.
These are some other live streams Buntola produced…
LIVE: Power Outage at CTV Studios
LIVE: Section of the Rideau Canal opens today
LIVE: Protest in downtown Ottawa for Indigenous and BLM
LIVE: Active Police Investigation at Rideau Hall
LIVE: Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson getting into the barber seat
LIVE: Tunney’s Pasture LRT Station