Every time I visit with our clients, I hear at least one instance of how happy they are to be using Dejero gear in their daily operations. Whether they are increasing their use of file transfer and clip recording or covering more live shots every day, they can’t function without our units. However, increased usage comes at the cost of using most of, or even exceeding, their monthly data allotment. Below I've highlighted how Control provides several tools to help monitor, manage, and even restrict the data usage.
No one wants to contribute to waste, but occasionally, an operator who did a great job getting the live video forgets to turn off the unit. With the next story or shot on their mind, turning off the unit just isn’t what they are thinking about. Fortunately, within Control, it’s easy for the control room or assignment desk to stop a stream. In fact, it’s as easy as clicking the Stop Live button on the Grid.
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Another way to control data usage is by choosing your quality level or bit rate. For instance, using HD+ for a high action shot over Ethernet may be fantastic but hardly necessary for a talking head shot, where a high quality image at HD more than does the job. The operator in the field may not want to make the call to use lower bit rates and will automatically default to the highest quality available. If that's the case, your station admin can limit the maximum bit rate used over cellular to control the overall usage.
This means the field operator can set the unit to HD+ and it will use that setting when transmitting over Ethernet-only, but as soon as the cellular connections are used, the transmitter automatically scales down to HD or whatever maximum setting has been selected. You can do this by going to the Manage tab and selecting an option from the maxium live resolution drop down menu in the Configuration section.
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Last but not least, you can always check how much you’re using in a given month using Reports. For monitoring your air time usage, select the option to view cellular usage only and convert usage to SD equivalent hours. Comparing month over month can not only help you understand when you’re approaching your limits across all units, but also know when it’s time to stack additional plans to avoid overages.
With regular updates to Control, we are always adding more tools to help you manage your units. Be sure to check out the release notes every month or two to find out what new features can help you.
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