While the Design Indaba was once again successfully hosted in Cape Town at the end of February, students and others interested in design had the opportunity to experience the conference via the Young Designers Simulcast (YDS) in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban.
According to Design Indaba’s Leshni Shah the technology for the simulcast involved web streaming on a closed network.
“The reason we used a closed network was to ensure that we were not dependent on the network of the receiving venue. I believe there were a few problems with the last presentation at the University of Johannesburg (UJ), but apparently there was a problem with the Seacom cable which probably caused this,’ explains Shah. “We also flighted the simulcast to Durban using the same technology with no problems at all.’
In 2011 they used satellite for the simulcast, but decided that it was too expensive. “We needed to manage the costs of the broadcast appropriately to make the simulcast affordable to the students.’
According to UJ Theatre manager JC Laurent he found the simulcast a “very easy, low cost way of doing things’.
“Lasernet put up a mast with a line of sight to the SABC. We got the signal, plugged it into a laptop and logged onto an IP address for the website,’ he explains.
According to Shah the three-day event was attended by 240 people in Johannesburg and 74 in Durban. “The numbers in Johannesburg doubled from last year and we expect numbers in Durban to double next year as we started to market it very late this year.’
By Linda Loubser
Screen Africa magazine- May 2012
