Studio equipment

DarpaTV can be used from TV Studio, Mid-size studio, your living room or remotely from anywhere you can connect to internet (wired or wireless). This is an example of hardware and setup of Mid-Sized studio.

This setup is very inexpensive:

• Broadcasting Computer  + Viewing computer (optional)
• 4x microphones
• 4x Ear Buds or 4x Headphones
• 1x Mixer board – for 4 inputs
• 1x 4-channel stereo headphone Splitter
• Up to 3 cameras/web cams – (2x quick cam pro- Logitech + 1x Sony HandyCam)
• 2x Lights – Britek professional soft box (use LED bulbs. Halogen bulbs are expensive and blow often)

Details and prices:

For the DarpaTV multi-camera, multi-microphone show you will need the following:

• up to 3 cameras. You can use LogicTech HD webcams, model Quickcam Pro for Notebooks ($60) for example, that plugin to USB ports (or any HD Webcam with USB - but make sure you have a stand/tripod to hold them up), or if you want a better HD camera you could choose the Sony DCR-HC52 HandyCam ($300) which uses firewire to connect (so if you choose this camera, you will also need a firewire board in your PC - usually about $50) - this will need a separate tripod for mounting.
• an audio mixing board which depends on the number of microphones (including lapel mics) you wish to support in total.
  - An option, which is probably better to start with, is to use an Alesis mixer board (for 4 or 8 inputs, cost < $150), mainly because this mixer plugs directly into the USB port on your PC, no special audio card required. You will need to take the PC output and feed it to a headphone splitter box and connect the ear-buds, but it is a lot easier to setup.
  - A more professional option, a Mackie 1402-vlz3 which supports up to 14 mics, and runs about $400, but this is probably overkill. If you need 8 mics, the Mackie 802 ($200), or for 12 mics the Mackie 1202 ($300) are also great. If you get a Mackie board, you will most likely need an enhanced audio board for your PC in order to plug the board in and to take the output out to a headphone splitter box where you can plugin the ear-buds so the hosts can hear the callers, video clips, etc..
• microphones
  - fixed mics option, Shure (because of the quality) - model SM-58, which is about $100 each, but the model SM-48, which is about $50 each, is sufficient also.
  - lapel mics option, Shure (there are others also) - Lavalier model WL93, which is about $85, but you could also use models from Audio Technica which run less than $30 each